California commits fiscal suicide.

• Position: Economics

Californians voted to destroy their state last month. Other than a brilliant piece by Charlotte Allen entitled "Decline and Fall" in The Weekly Standard, there has been almost no national media attention on this extraordinary event, maintains Jonathan W. Emord, an attorney and the principal of Emord and Associates. Clifton, Va., as well as the author of several books. most recently, Restore the Republic--How the American People Can Once Again Be Free and Prosperous.

Over the last several years, Emord points out, California has witnessed a mass exodus of industry and intellect, as hundreds of successful businesses and thousands of entrepreneurs have fled this mecca of overregulation, bounty-hunting attorneys, and over-taxation. California is reaping a bitter harvest, experiencing unemployment topping 10%. However, a majority of the state's legislators seem entirely unimpressed by that figure and are quite willing to make it grow. They rejoice in passing ever more costly regulations and welfare benefits, exacerbating what now is the most inhospitable environment for business in the U.S.

The foreseeable consequences of California's rush to regulate and tax everything are a significant worsening in the state's unemployment rate, lower tax revenues despite tax increases, and a massive burgeoning of the state's debt due to mushrooming welfare and social services.

Responding to Gov. Jerry Brown's call for voters to endorse Proposition 30, a tax measure that picks the pockets of the rich and poor alike a majority of them did just that. So extensive has state welfare become that a majority of voters asked the state not only to soak the rich but the middle class as well. That is an extraordinary event. It reveals that welfare state programs are so addictive that, like drug addicts, beneficiaries will hurt themselves on the promise of the next fix, Emord contends.

Proposition 30 promises to tax Californians into oblivion. The state sales tax covering most goods will rise to about 10% (hammering the poor) and, for those earning more than $250,000 per year, taxes will rise between 10.3% and 13.3% per year. Before Election Day, Californians were taxed higher...