California is America's Canary on Obamaism

California's decline into financial misery wasn't hard to predict. It should serve as a proverbial canary in the mine for the rest of the country as to the direction that Obama has promise to take the country.

The theory goes that if you promise lots of goodies to people who don't pay much in taxes and pay for those goodies by taxing "really rich people that don't need the money" you will get elected. The few rich people can't outvote hordes of people looking for a free handout.

So the modus operandi has been:

• First demonize business as being mean and greedy. This allows you to tax them more.
• Heavily tax and overregulate business
• Force employers to pay for costs such as healthcare, daycare, and whatever you can dream.
• Heavily tax the "highest earners"
• Increase spending and welfare payments. Get voters addicted to free goodies

Unfortunately what happens is all the taxing and regulating makes it more expensive to do business in California. So they leave. It may be impractical to leave all at once, but it's a trickle. First it starts with relocating the headquarters to somewhere more business friendly (like Texas or Communist China). Then follows the rest of the business.

Politicans constantly think that companies and the "rich" have to suck up and pay the costs. When they leave, the states are left with the spending commitments, plus their revenue stream has dried up. This is the same path that Obama wants to take. Most glaring will be CO2 taxes (or Carbon offsets or Carbon cap and trade, or whatever other spin they give). If you think American industry is suffering now, wait until they raise their electricity prices.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal
emergency Monday and called lawmakers into a special session to address California's $11.2 billion deficit. The state's revenue gap is expected to hit $28 billion over the next 19 months without bold action. The emergency declaration authorizes the governor and lawmakers to change the existing budget within the next 45 days.
Without quick action, the state is likely to run out of cash in February.
Schwarzenegger and Democrats have proposed a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts, but Republican lawmakers are steadfast in their refusal to raise taxes.
Lawmakers failed to reach a compromise during the special session Schwarzenegger declared last month, pushing the problem to a new Legislature that was being sworn in Monday.