California once again demonstrates that registration equals confiscation

History is replete with instances of gun registration leading to confiscation. California is only the latest example.

We’re told we’re paranoid and delusional for our tome that registration’s only purpose is to tell the government where they all are so they can be rounded up when a pretext presents itself. Well, here’s what’s happening in California:

The 10-bill package constitutes the single largest gun control push in decades in the Golden State, which already boasts some of the nation’s strictest gun laws. It joins equally controversial proposals from Assembly Democrats that would regulate and tax ammunition sales and consider taking the state’s 166,000 registered assault weapons from their owners.

...next time some gun control advocate tells you no one is talking about taking your guns, take a copy of Time, roll it up, and smack them with it (assault magazine).

When government has a monopoly on force, it tends to abuse it. Who was it that said, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely"?

TAXING "THE RICH" WORKING OUT SWIMMINGLY IN CALIFORNIA: Revenues to State Fall 10 Percent

Who could have predicted such a phenomenon?

California ... state revenue for the month of November 2012 fell $806.8 million, or 10.8%, below budget.

Democrats thought they could hammer “the rich” by convincing voters to pass Proposition 30 to create the highest state income tax in the nation.

But it now appears that high income earners have already “voted with their feet” by moving themselves and their businesses out of state, resulting in over $1 billion shortfall in corporate and income taxes last month and the beginning of a new financial crisis.

Passage of Proposition 30 set off euphoria and expectations of higher spending for public employees. The California Teachers’ Association (CTA) trumpeted: "California students and working families won a clear victory today as voters clearly demonstrated their willingness to invest in our public schools and colleges and also rejected a deceptive ballot measure aimed at silencing educators, other workers and their unions.”

State bureaucrats immediately ramped up deficit spending far beyond the state's $6 billion annual tax increase, with the Departments of Health Services and Developmental Services increasing this month’s spending by over $1 billion versus last year. The lower tax collection and higher spending drove the State’s deficit after the tax increase to $2.7 billion for the first 5 months of this fiscal year...

Who could have predicted such a phenomenon?

Oh, wait. I did. Just three short weeks ago*.


*See: DELUSIONAL: California Predicts Budget Surplus in 2014 Thanks to Tax Hikes, Anti-Business Regulations.

BUT IT'S ALL ABOUT FAIRNESS: 144,000 households, 1 percent of taxpayers, pay half of California's income taxes

Fairness. That's the word I associate with massive, bloated, Democrat-controlled failed states like California.

...One of the more egregious aspects of Brown’s [Proposition 30] is the retroactivity of the income tax increase, which would apply to all income earned after January 1, 2012. [Imposition of] this retroactive tax hike makes it clear to businesses that if they want some semblance of certainty in tax planning, they must leave California. Campbell’s Soup, Comcast, and Samsung have been the latest to come to this realization; either shutting down facilities in-state or moving operations outside of California.

California residents already contend with one of the most progressive tax codes in the country. Not only does California have high marginal rates, those high rates kick in at relatively modest income levels. California’s middle class residents earning $48,000 a year, for example, pay a state tax rate of 9.3%. Millionaires in 47 other states don’t even pay that high of a marginal rate. However, one of the state tax code’s greatest flaws is it’s over-reliance on upper income households and the revenue volatility it creates, and that is a problem that Prop. 30 would further exacerbate.

As of 2010, the state relied upon 144,000 households, 1 percent of taxpayers, for 50 percent of total state income tax... [With Proposition 30's passage,] the top 10 percent of earners would be responsible for over 80% of the projected income generated - a fact that Gov. Brown and other advocates of the bill readily acknowledge.

California is destroying itself -- the U.S. is next.

DELUSIONAL: California Predicts Budget Surplus in 2014 Thanks to Tax Hikes, Anti-Business Regulations

There's crazy -- and then there's West Coast Crazy:

When is a prediction of a $1.9 billion shortfall actually considered good news?

In deficit-battered, recession-weary California, that's the case.

It sounds strange, until you consider that it sounds a whole lot better than the staggering $41 billion deficit projected at the end of 2008 -- and much better than the $25 billion hole that the state's Legislative Analyst was forecasting in 2010. And much more rosy than the $16 billion shortfall Gov. Jerry Brown was projecting just last spring.

On Wednesday, the Analyst's office -- respected for its nonpartisanship -- said its $1.9 billion deficit estimate covers the next year-and-a-half. The report cast the state's recovering finances in a favorable light, thanks to earlier budget cuts and the voter approval of Proposition 30.

"The additional, temporary taxes provided by Proposition 30 have combined to bring California a promising moment: the possible end of a decade of acute state budget challenges," the LAO report said.

In fact, the report floated the possibility of the state actually running a surplus of up to a billion dollars by 2014.

Let me be the first to predict that California will not have a budget surplus in 2014. Nor will it run "only" a $2 billion deficit.

By my estimation, California's budget deficit will run at least an order of magnitude higher -- at $20 billion plus. You can stick a fork in the Golden State.