Back in California, things are heating up between the big-spending Republican governor, who wants a massive new health care program that will cost taxpayers an estimated $12 billion to get “universal health care,” and the big-spending Democrat-controlled legislature that wants to require employers to spend at least 7.5 percent of payroll on health insurance or pay that amount into a state pool (known as a “pay or play” provision).
Where all of this will end is anybody’s guess at this point. But the only thing that will save California taxpayers from their elected representatives will be a political stalemate.
See, in California it takes a two-thirds vote in the legislature to pass a tax increase. Of course, the governor is doing everything he can to call it anything but a $12 billion tax increase, both to avoid the two-thirds vote and so he doesn’t get branded as the big-spender he’s turned out to be.
And the Democrats, knowing that a recent poll showed only 33 percent public support for the governor’s plan, want to rub it in. So they want to vote on the governor’s plan.
Maybe we will see a California meltdown similar to the one we’ve recently seen in Illinois where Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) proposed a massive new tax on business to pay for his health care plan. The Democrat-controlled General Assembly rejected the plan by a vote of 107-0. Ouch!
You may recall all of those comments a few years ago about whether conservatives should mount a push to amend the U.S. Constitution so that a foreign-born U.S. citizen (i.e., Arnold) could run for president. We don’t hear those comments anymore. Wonder why?
As for the Democrats’ plan, Maryland passed similar legislation a few years ago, though it was targeted only at Wal-Mart (hence, it was called the Wal-Mart Bill). The Republican governor vetoed the legislation, and Arnold has promised to do the same in California. But the Maryland legislature overrode the governor’s veto, only to have a federal judge throw out the legislation saying it was preempted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).
Thankfully, politics and federal law may yet save taxpayers from those California Schemers.