[SandfleaCSC]

How can the good folks in California let this stuff go on? Your elected officials are just throwing out all kinds of solutions like doubling vehicle licensing fees and tripling cigarette taxes. This is ludicrous. You guys are going to get bled until you have nothing left. Get it together and show some backbone. Pull your money out of the banks, refuse to pay any state fees or taxes, and send the illegals home empty handed. You folks don't deserve this, no matter what the rest of the country thinks about what's been done to your state.

[heleny]

doubling vehicle licensing fees and tripling cigarette taxes

I heard Assembly speaker Herb Wesson (the same democrat who kicked Dean Florez off the a committee for investigating Davis' Oracle scandal too much) yesterday on the Roger Hedgecock show say that the VLF fees won't be changed. Instead, tobacco taxes will be increased even more -- over $2 per pack increase -- to increase revenue by another $1.5 billion.

When asked whether the joint goals of reducing smoking and increasing revenues were contradictory, and when reminded of the effects of New York City's cigarette tax increase, Wesson still did not see a problem. He did not believe more smokers would buy their tobacco from Indian reservations, out of state, or online to avoid the steep taxes.