Democrats want ‘largest tax increase in state history’ — rather than cutting spending

Sacramento had a choice this year, and it wasn't a hard one to see coming. California is staring down a budget hole, the kind that would force any household or business to sit down and figure out what it can actually afford. Instead, the legislature's answer is to reach into everyone else's pocket. Two massive tax hikes, sent straight to Newsom's desk, with barely a whisper about trimming the spending that got the state here in the first place.

There's something almost admirable about the consistency. Year after year, California's leadership treats tax increases as the default setting rather than the last resort. Nobody in Sacramento seems to ask the obvious question: if the state is already one of the highest-taxed places in the country and still can't balance its books, is the problem really that residents aren't paying enough?

What's telling is what didn't happen. No hard look at bloated agencies, no serious audit of programs that haven't delivered, no political appetite for saying no to anyone. Cutting spending requires making choices and owning them. Raising taxes just requires a vote and a press release calling it "historic."

Families and small businesses already stretched thin by California's cost of living are the ones who'll actually feel this. They didn't get a vote on the spending that created the hole. They just get the bill. That's not governance, it's just the path of least resistance dressed up as necessity.