$XX.X

I am going to be one of the few Californians voting this Tuesday.

It really doesn't matter what path I choose on these propositions, because they are all going to go down in flames...and if that wasn't the first thing that ran through every legislator's mind when they passed their last budget, well, it should have been. It was obvious from the start that voters wouldn't extend their own taxation.

Californians want fires extinguished by firemen, they want their criminals guarded by prison guards, they want every road gold plated and pothole free -- but they don't want to pay for them. In fact, the results on Tuesday will show that Californians will refuse to pay for these services. Only 1F will pass, preventing legislator pay raises in deficit years. Wa-hey.

So a portion of our state's $XX.X billion dollar deficit will, this Tuesday night, be attributed to the failure of the voters to approve these measures. Excellent. Bass of the assembly will on Wednesday proclaim that the budget implosion is now the fault of the public. Garamendi will on Thursday say that both Bass and the public are at fault. And I on Friday will be revising my DE-4 from single zero to married two, because I have a gut feeling that getting any 2009 state refund might now become a lot harder to get.

I have always enjoyed a state refund each year. I started this fifteen years ago as a college student when the taxman cameth and I didn't have the money to pay, and I vowed I'd never owe like that again. It also forced me to learn to live below my means as it reduces my monthly take home. It's too bad my Elk Grove, my state, and my federal government somehow has never learned to do that. It couldn't have been more fucking obvious to even the most casual observer that our economy wasn't going to tear up year over year ad infinitum. Slowdowns, pullbacks, or recessions are inevitable with the way our system is designed, but no, we collectively refused to think that the good times wouldn't last forever.

For me, the good times of receiving a refund are now over. I will just have to learn to live with an increased monthly salary. Wa-hey.