When California Governor Jerry Brown finally reached a budget deal with the state legislature, he did so only after abandoning a plan to increase certain taxes and fees in hopes of closing the state's $26 billion deficit. By foregoing taxes, the final budget took a few steps in the right direction, despite shirking responsibility for an extra $2.5 billion in cuts through misleading accounting, and taking no steps to reign in the state's massively bloated public employment sector. 

Brown's thirst for tax hikes was far from satisfied. Knowing that the idea had become a non-starter in the legislature, the Governor set his sights on a set of November 2012 ballot initiatives. Unfortunately for Brown and his tax-hiking allies, figuring out which tax increases actually have a shot at passing has turned into more trouble than it might have seemed.

A recent article from The Sacramento Bee describes the waiting game going on while the Governor and his labor allies work out whom to hit with new taxes.

"The challenge for Brown is to propose tax increases that are both relatively popular and unlikely to attract opposition from well-funded business groups. Some industry-specific taxes that poll relatively well could be doomed by heavy-spending opposition in a campaign, while some broader-based tax increases that are less offensive to business groups - the vehicle license fee, for example - are disliked by voters.

The Democratic governor said in Fresno last week that it would ‘be nice to have the vehicle license fee' at a higher rate, for example. But he said later that the fee ‘isn't all that popular.'‘We're looking at what will people accept,' he [Brown] said. ‘And there's not too much.'"

This paints a picture of the state's most powerful leaders bickering over which group of people will be least capable of defending themselves from a barrage of union-funded attack ads. What a shocking revelation it must be for the Governor that car owners aren't too keen on paying higher fees, especially while struggling to make ends meet in the state home to the nation's second highest unemployment rate. Businesses and industry groups, similarly, will react as strongly as the Governor can go after them.  They are the only ones with the potential to financially rival the Big Labor machine. The only option seems to be resorting to shameless class warfare, targeting groups like "the super rich" for not paying their "fair share." Until they leave the state, that is.

Most disturbing, though, is the deep connection laid bare between the state's top Democrats and labor unions. Dean Vogel, President of the California Teachers Association, argues that Big Labor has "got to have something" by September or October of this year, presumably to provide the time needed to lay the groundwork for a massive labor funded campaign organization. 

The Governor's biggest allies in his fight to hike taxes are the groups whose pockets will fatten as a direct result of the new "revenue sources." They are the exact same groups whose reckless tactics helped give rise to an estimated $500 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. Governor Brown has shown little to no willingness to take on his labor allies when dealing with the state's budget crisis, knowing that the fate of his beloved tax hikes depends almost exclusively on Big Labor's deep campaign coffers.