Voters in California defeat a tax hike and, to the left, they’re to blame for California’s budget problems:

Californians are well known for periodic voter revolts, but on Tuesday they did more than just lash out at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature over the state’s fiscal debacle.

By rejecting five budget measures, Californians also brought into stark relief the fact that they, too, share blame for the political dysfunction that has brought California to the brink of insolvency.

Rightly or wrongly, voters in the special election refused either to extend new tax hikes or to cap state spending. They also declined to unlock funds that they had voted in better financial times to set aside for special purposes.

See, the problem in California is that it’s too easy to add spending to the yearly budget. Whether it’s by the legislature, the governor, or by some ballot measure approved by the voters, it all adds up. And once some special project or program is put in the budget, it’s next to impossible to have it removed (that goes for any state, btw, and the federal government).

Are the voters in California to blame for the fiscal mess in that state? Partially, because they approved a lot of special funding to some “flavor of the month” programs (the article does mention that). But they’re not totally to blame, either. The people they elected have also put up some hefty numbers in the budget as well. The real culprit isn’t the politicians or the voters, it’s liberalism in general. And California is the most liberal state in the nation.

Liberals want free education, free healthcare, free housing, free vacations, etc., yet they never stop to think about who will pay for it, or how. That’s what we’re seeing in Washington right now, and it’s what we’ve seen from liberals since the days of FDR (more so after LBJ). You want to see where liberalism will lead us, you don’t need to look any further than the State of California. If Obama and his liberal pals in Congress get their way, we’ll all be in the same boat as California.

Again, it’s not the level of taxation that produces deficits, it’s the spending. It always is. You can raise taxes as high as you want, but if you keep spending more than you take in, you’re going to have deficits and debt. There’s no way around that simple fact.

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