Despite a $20 Billion deficit faced by California lawmakers, the majority party isn't working on resolving the state's fiscal crisis as one might think. Instead they are hard at work legislating ways to alter the behavioral patters of Californians to fit their social engineering goals.

The Sacramento Citizen reports that the effort is underway to deter people from using their cars in the once Golden State:

State Senator Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) is taking aim at the issue in California. Lowenthal is authoring a measure which would lay the groundwork for taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive.

Specifically SB 1299 would require the Department of Motor Vehicles to develop and implement, by January 1, 2012, a program designed to assess the issues related to implementing a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) fee in California.

If the name Lowenthal sounds familiar, there's a reason. Senator Lowenthal is the Senate Democrat who introduced legislation to eliminate the root of all California evils: Free Parking.

For two years we have told anyone who would listen that one of the primary objectives of Democrats in the California Capitol is to simply prevent people from driving.

The easiest way to do that is to make driving as expensive as possible, and the most effective method to obtain that goal is simple: tax people by the mile.

The first step will take place on April 13, 2010 when the bill is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee.

James Madison, the Father of the US Constitution, said in Federalist 10:

“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.

“...Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”

Today, enlightened statesmen are not at the helm. Political opportunists who have their own agenda and the interests of the financial benefactors in a position of priority are seated in power. And while there are a scant few in government who still do adhere to the notion of public service and are still dedicated to their oaths of office and the Constitution, the controlling majority of those in our state government – have come to represent everything our Founders and Framers despised in the elitists they waged war against for independence.

Exit Note: You can contact Senator Lowenthal's office HERE.

UPDATE: On Tuesday April 13, 2010 the California Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing Committee passed SB 1299. The bill will now head to the Senate Appropriations Committee for a hearing date TBA.

It's been said that if one things about leadership in the context of their legacy, it helps one to establish and reestablish priorities. Well, it's clear that Obama's priorities are SPEND SPEND SPEND SPEND SPEND. So much for that whole "fiscal responsibility thing".

President Obama shattered the budget record for first-year presidents -- spending nearly double what his predecessor did when he came into office and far exceeding the first-year tabs for any other U.S. president in history. Now for those rightly concerned with taxpayer dollars being spent on health care, real estate, government takeovers of the auto industry and Wall Street there's bad news.

ABC News is reporting that the General Services Administration has announced that $18 million in additional stimulus funds are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov Web site. The contract calls for spending $9.5 million through January, and as much as $18 million through 2014, according to the GSA press release.

Somewhere pigs are flying....

Health care. The auto industry. Real estate. Wall Street. As the Obama administration increases regulation and pumps up taxpayer aid in these sectors and beyond, President Obama and the Democrats are expanding the federal government to unprecedented levels.

Over the past 15 months, our political debate has been transformed into an argument between the heirs of two fundamental schools of political thought, the Founders and the Progressives. The Founders stood for the expansion of liberty and the Progressives for the expansion of government.

There is no doubt that the current administration and Congress are firmly entrenched in the Progressive camp. Meanwhile the grassroots tea party movement has become the virtual embodiment of the Founders view of limited government and liberty.

And despite the state-run media’s constant attacks on the tea party protesters, we are learning that the actions of the Obama administration are bring about a turning of the tide. According to the latest field poll results we know that more Americans now support the conservative tea party movement than they do President Obama.


The latest numbers from Rasmussen show that more Americans support the tea party movement than they do President Barack Obama:

On major issues, 48% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than President Barack Obama. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% hold the opposite view and believe the president’s views are closer to their own.

Not surprisingly, Republicans overwhelmingly feel closer to the Tea Party and most Democrats say that their views are more like Obama’s. Among voters not affiliated with either major political party, 50% say they’re closer to the Tea Party while 38% side with the President.

The partisan divide is similar to that found in the President’s Job Approval Ratings and on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

Exit Note: CNN is now reporting that some Americans who say they have been sympathetic to Democratic causes in the past -- some even voted for Democratic candidates -- are supporting the Tea Party movement.

That story falls in line with the latest Gallup numbers which show that 51% of Tea Party supporters are Dem/Independents. Change indeed.

It was only a few short months ago in President Obama’s first State of the Union address that he pledged to focus on jobs and stressed that it would be priority number one. Instead, President Obama and the Democrats focused on ramming their nationalized health care plan through Congress last month the economy continued to suffer.

The AP reported:

The nation’s economy posted its largest job gain in three years in March, while the unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent for the third straight month.

The increase in payrolls is the latest sign that the economic recovery is gaining momentum and healing in the job market is beginning. Still, the healing is likely to be slow, and most economists don’t expect new hiring to be fast enough this year to rapidly reduce the unemployment rate.

The Labor Department said employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the most since the recession began but below analysts’ expectations of 190,000. The total includes 48,000 temporary workers hired for the U.S. Census, also fewer than many economists forecast.

Private employers added 123,000 jobs, the most since May 2007.