As expected...

...the slimy crooks in Sacramento got their tax increases and passed a "budget."

Apparently, none of the lazy, pampered cretins who sit on their fat asses in state offices will lose their so-called jobs. Really important state programs, such as the annual $10 billion spent on illegal aliens -- oh, excuse the hell out of me, "undocumented workers" -- and plenty of cars and other freebies for elected officials, will go on.

Of course the top income tax rate in the state will approach 10% -- millionaires will pay 9.8%, and those who make more than $45K will chip in 9.5%. And we will all pay a minimum of 7.5% sales tax, see our vehicle license fees double, and get it in the neck in a number of other creative ways.

All this assumes the state gets a huge chunk of the federal "stimulus" giveaway, A/K/A money the Feds are pulling out of thin air while deferring payback to our children and their children. If not, I'm guessing the Governator will come around again, begging bowl in hand, and ask for even more.

What the hell am I thinking? He'll do that anyway. All public officials are drug addicts, only instead of duji or opium their jones is for money.

There are lots of dislocated arms in Sacramento today, yanked out of their sockets by these pitiful greedheads patting themselves on the back. They "saved" California!

Can I have a "A-MEN?" Or at least a "wOOt?"

It's going to be damn hard to rent a one-way U-Haul truck in California for the next few months. People stretched to the breaking point by the sick job market and now burdened with an unbearable tax load are going to be bugging out in droves.

I hope I'm one of them.

Not, as I mentioned last night, that I'm convinced anyplace else is a potential Paradise. Washington D.C.'s chickens are going to be coming home to roost much sooner than most people think. The "stimulus" plan, particularly when combined with the "mortgage stimulus plan" and whatever other giveaways and fraudulent "public-works" projects the government can dream up to pay off campaign contributors (or bribe potential voters) will bankrupt the nation. Except, that is, for the already-wealthy whose bank accounts are protected by all the giveaways and tax breaks.

Once Washington kills the American auto industry -- which it blames for all the failures it has piled on them, from insane regulations to forced acquiescence to union demands (unions being particular pals of the politicians) and economic policies that have left many Americans simply incapable of buying cars -- and renders the dollar essentially worthless, we will be in deep dung.

This is not helped by the so-called "conservative" free-market people, who may be right in some principles but are blind as bats when it comes to the realities of economics when caught in a tug-of-war between the ignorant crooks in government, the Ayn Rand absolutists and the as-long-as-I-get-mine crowd.

Can you tell I'm not particularly feeling upbeat about the future?

I suppose a lot of us would be hanging ourselves, except we simply can't afford rope.

I'll start looking around for a cave that fits my radically downsized needs. And I'll write if I find work, of course.

In any event, with luck I won't be in California a year from now.

If there is a California a year from now....