Benjamin Franklin famously observed that, “Nothing in life is certain except death and taxes.” Were he in California today, with all the empty hype from embryonic stem cell researchers and quack cloners eroding the public’s belief in the inevitability of death, he might have opined instead, “Nothing in life is certain except debt and taxes.” With $5.2 billion in unanticipated revenue swelling state coffers, and “gridlock” in danger of becoming California’s new state motto, Governor Schwarzenegger is proposing increased spending on health, education, and $68 billion in bonds over 10 years to build roads, levees, schools, prisons, and courthouses. To...
