Maldonado Caves, Screws His Party and Californians With Huge Tax Hike

Bad news coming from Sacramento - Republican and future ex-Senator Abel Maldonado has caved and will vote for the Democrats tax plan. Californians will raise sales taxes by 1% (from 7.75% to 8.75% where I live and 9.75% in Los Angeles), double the annual car registration taxes, and increase income taxes by 0.25%. Estimates are the average family of four in California will lose an additional $1,000 per year to California taxes.

They're killing this state as a home for businesses and productive people. $13 billion in new taxes.

Any Republicans who voted for this should be tossed from the GOP caucus and should have candidates recruited to run against them in their next primaries. The GOP needs to actively recruit candidates in even the most Dem districts and use these tax hikes to beat the incumbents over the head. If nothing else it will force Demcrats to spend lots of money to defend their seats.

The Democrats and the governor have failed this state, and the our problems will only compound as businesses and citizens flee the state with the highest income, sales, and gasoline taxes in the nation.

A bad day for California.

It's time for a tax revolt in this state. My suggestion to Californians - buy online. You can't avoid most of these taxes but the one thing you can do is buy what you can from online out-of-state sources that don't charge sales tax. Don't give the bums your money.

UPDATE: I understand that Maldonado is termed out of the Senate and cannot run again. However, his push for an open primary in California (which is suicide for the party) means he has his sights set on higher office and realizes he can't win a straight GOP primary. It's up to the state GOP to make sure he's not rewarded for this.