California Voters 'Get It' - But Danger Lurks Ahead

California voters did the sensible thing Tuesday saying "No!" to increased taxes by voting down five of the six state questions that officials had promoted.

The surviving question, 1-F, bans raises for legislators and other state officials during years where there are deficit budgets!

This is all good.

Now the Governator and his Democratic allies are looking for salvation from that rising star in the East, the One called Obama. They want him to guarantee a new round of state borrowing.

This is very bad.

I'm trying to make this very simple for the learning impaired, those who can't seem to understand that you cannot grow government larger than a people's ability -- or willingness -- to pay for it.

If California can't afford its huge government, and the citizens don't want higher taxes, then the only real solution (and the only one that makes long-term sense) is to begin cutting the non-essentials and trimming back.

That will not happen if Obama the Generous and his progressive pals decide to spend your hard-earned taxes, and mine, on bailing them out. What incentive?

I hate to point this out, but some readers are also constitutionally impaired, that the federal government has never guaranteed an individual state's debt because it is not authorized by the constitution.

Not that unconstitutionality has stopped this administration thus far.

The American republic was established by 50 states with a clear separation of powers between the states and the federal government, and the people, and another system of checks and balances to prevent just such a proposal from happen. Rewarding California for its profligacy and lack of will would ultimately penalize every state, including Oklahoma, that balances its budget and manages to stay in the black through good times and bad.

Rewarding California would encourage states that do not over-promise and over spend to follow suit, if for no other reason than the fear of sucking hind tit (a farming term) on the federal sow.

It would also signal the death knell of our republic, as an overwhelmingly powerful federal government, which has learned that it can ignore the Constitution at its whim, becomes the "single payer."

I don't know about you, but I do not wish to pay higher taxes so that California can pamper the sea otters and pay their government retirees 100 percent of their salaries forever.

I don't think the people of California expect us to do this either. They expect their elected representatives to get real. They do not respond well to threats of intimidation, of releasing "rapists and killers" from the prisons to save money. That would be an act of lawlessness that surely would constitute a crime against humanity. Surely Gov. Schwarzenegger has more moral fiber than that. If not, he would richly deserve whatever punishment the citizens of California would improvise.

Shame on the national media for trying to ignore this story. They are so "in the tank" for President Obama, and so ready for federal intervention. This is tragic. Thomas Jefferson would be ashamed of them.