NY Times Tax Hike Advocacy: 'Calif. Voters Reject Measures to Keep State Solvent'

Wow. Just wow. If this New York Times headline isn't an act of advocacy for higher taxes in California, what is? With its May 20 coverage of the vote for California's tax hiking ballot measures, the Times plainly scolds fed-up voters for rejecting them with a headline that pointedly says: "Calif. Voters Reject Measures to Keep State Solvent."

Really? The Times thinks California's voters want a state headed into bankruptcy, that they voted for insolvency? The paper is strangely furious that voters rejected tax hikes, but I hate to break this to the New York rag: voters did not "reject measures" to keep the state "solvent." What voters did was reject wild tax hikes that would only lead to more corruption and profligate spending. The voters weren't fooled and knew that these measures would not lead to any long-term solution to the state's budget woes. If the state house in Sacramento had done its job properly and proposed a sensible budget in the first place, Californians would be happy to vote for it I am sure.

The Times' first sentence also scolds California's voters for the poor turnout.

A smattering of California voters on Tuesday soundly rejected five ballot measures designed to keep the state solvent through the rest of the year.

True enough. But isn't this more proof of the state government's failure here? Isn't this more proof that California voters have given up on the system? Isn't this more proof that the state government has been so corrupt, so drunk with unnecessary spending, so unconcerned with the people that folks have just about given up?

The Times' next sentence is amusing for its construction.

The results dealt a severe setback to the state’s fragile fiscal structure and to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state legislators who cobbled together the measures as part of a last-minute budget deal passed in February.

Notice how that is written as if this was a mere accident that somehow tragically befell the "fragile fiscal structure" of the state instead of a result of the corruption of the very government that is now expecting the citizens to pay through the nose to satisfy its wild spending sprees?

Interestingly, no where in this NYTimes article is there any real discussion of why the state got into this mess in the first place.

To my mind there are a few solutions to every state's budget problems that not one of them seem to be considering. Start with a five percent across the board cut in every single state employee's salary. This happens all the time in the real world of business and the private sector. Why should government workers be the only ones to expect an ever upward trajectory in their salaries when no one else in the part of society that is actually productive can expect that? Next a freeze in salaries at that reduced level. Then a reduction of the unearned, overly indulgent pensions should be put into place. Finally, there should be carried out a campaign of eliminating the many useless positions in the layers upon layers of "administrative" jobs filled by political hacks, politician's relatives, and foot soldiers whose only real job is to get politicians elected.

Unfortunately, it is all too common in our state government budget debates to see services being the first to be threatened for cuts. The scare tactics that criminals will be released from jails, and cops and teachers will be fired is always the first resort of these self-serving politicians that have sold out to unions, while pandering to the "poor," all the while increasing the burden on the middle and upper classes who are required to foot the bill for the comfortable lifestyles so lovingly bestowed on politicians by politicians.

But, not to worry. The New York Times knows better. The Times is sure that you Californians are so stupid as to want an insolvent state. Shame on you. Oh, and it isn't the spendthrift politicians in Sacramento that the Times has pegged as the problem. It's the voters.