Tax Wary Voters Demand Spending Control

A couple of good editorials draw sharp lessons from last week's election in California.

Tracy Warner, editorial page editor for the Wenatchee World, says our state can learn from the California way.

A California economy built on bubbles has popped. Unemployment is closing in on Depression levels of 15 percent. The state government is bankrupt, with a $45 billion deficit, a big cash flow problem and a credit rating so poor it can’t borrow half of what it needs to stay afloat in the short term. The state could run out of cash by July. The government sustained by the eighth-largest economy in the world is on the verge of functional collapse.

There's plenty of blame to distribute, he notes, particularly the state's binge spending and excessive reliance on a highly progressive income tax.

We have the same tendency toward binge spending in flush times and budgetary denial when it goes bad. We paper over fundamental weakness with short-term tricks and one-off spending. It is almost chic in this state to say that an income tax on the very wealthiest will solve our revenue volatility and smooth over our problems, when in California taxing the rich has the opposite effect.

Cautionary.

The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin also weighs in on state budgets. Writing about a proposed $800 million tax hike in Oregon, the U-B's editorial board says,

This tax plan had no chance of voter approval from the moment lawmakers approved it because, to quote former President Clinton, "It's about the economy, stupid."

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Oregon, California, Washington and the other 47 states will not embrace a new or higher tax until the economy has rebounded.

Government officials at all levels must accept that reality and curb spending.

Even as Washington's revenue projections continue to slide, that is the reality.