Senator George Runner
Serving the 17th District which incorporates portions of the Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Ventura and Kern counties.

The average California family will pay an extra $1,000 in taxes this year thanks to $13 billion in increased state taxes last year. And yet the state controller has reported a decrease in revenues.

Huh? Shouldn't the state's revenues have increased after the record-breaking tax hikes?

Clearly, consumer spending habits are influenced by tax increases. When sales tax goes up, people spend less or spend their money in other states. When car taxes increase, some car owners opt to register their vehicles as "non-operation” instead of paying the extra cash.

And now what do the tax-and-spend liberals want to do? In the Senate, the liberals propose to boost your taxes by nearly $5 billion this year to close the gaping budget hole (made in part by poor spending decisions and tax increases).

In the Assembly, Democrats have proposed to borrow $9 billion from Wall Street that will be paid off with a tax on oil.

It's time to find other solutions to the state's budget woes. Repeating the same action - pilfering money from hard-working taxpayers - makes no sense.

What do they say about people who do the same thing over and over again hoping for different results?

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Memorial Day: 'All Gave Some, Some Gave All'

On Memorial Day, Americans pay homage to our courageous soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who are willing to pay the ultimate price to defend freedom - their lives.

In May of 1868, Memorial Day was proclaimed by General John Logan when he ordered all men under his command to spend part of the day decorating the graves of fallen soldiers.

General James Garfield, who later became our country's 20th President, said: "We do know they summed up and perfected by one supreme act the highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country, they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and virtue."

An excerpt from the dedication at the California Vietnam Veterans Memorial located in Capitol Park sums up the sacrifice of our brave soldiers:

"All Gave Some, Some Gave All."

Serving in locations around the world, Californians continue to risk life and limb to defend liberty. I salute them on Memorial Day.