"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
– Sir Walter Scott
The state budget that the Legislature stapled together last week was a particularly tangled and deceptive bit of work, and one of its more noxious aspects was a ruse to preserve the utter fiction that Republicans reject new taxes.
As a budget deficit loomed last year, all Republican legislators but one signed a no-new-taxes pledge pushed by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and refused, therefore, to vote for income taxes that Democrats wanted or temporary sales taxes Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sought.
Eventually, legislative leaders crafted a bipartisan deal that eschewed direct new taxes and included, instead, a sly combination of taxes and borrowing. Taxpayers would be required to "accelerate" – increase – payments to the state next year through increased withholding, thereby providing a one-time, multibillion-dollar infusion of cash that many taxpayers could claim later as refunds.
Republicans helped pass a budget based on the "acceleration" scheme that would shift nearly $4 billion from taxpayers to the state. But they also wanted to preserve their anti-tax purity – something akin to technical virginity – and refused to vote for the actual tax bill.
The budget and other budget-related bills required two-thirds margins, and thus at least a few Republican votes, but the tax acceleration was placed in a special session bill that could be enacted with only a simple majority measure – a maneuver as sneaky and hypocritical as it sounds – and it passed without Republican votes. Most Republicans, in fact, voted against it (see, Grover, we kept the pledge), even though they embraced a budget financed with its revenues.
That shabby deception backfired a bit, however, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared he'd veto the budget unless lawmakers agreed to changes, including dumping personal income tax acceleration.
Overriding a veto of that sneaky tax bill would have required at least a few Republicans to go on record as forcing Californians to cough up billions of dollars next year, which they weren't willing to do, even as they endorsed overriding a budget veto.
"We do not subscribe nor do we support the idea of doing a withholding," Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines told a Fresno radio station. "I agree it's a total gimmick and would never vote for it. Not one Republican voted for that, nor would one Republican vote for that. … It sends the wrong message to taxpayers that we're going to use your money up front and give it to you later. That's ridiculous."
The personal income tax provisions were removed from the bill, and an equally ridiculous, stopgap substitute involving corporate taxes was adopted to complete the budget. But that didn't change the fact that Republicans were willing, even eager, to accept a budget financed with tax revenues they said they opposed.
It's the very embodiment of political hypocrisy.
Call The Bee's Dan Walters, (916) 321-1195. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/walters.
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