Wanna see a preview of Socialized Medicine?

Chuck DeVore at Human Events gives us a glimpse of the growing cancer that is California's IHSS program.

A few months ago there was a fatal crash of a bus headed to one of California’s tribal casinos. Several of the passengers killed were “patients” of in-home supportive services from the Sacramento area -- people who were supposed to be so infirm as to require constant attention. As a senior deputy district attorney from Sacramento County said, “If you are able to get on a bus and go gamble, then maybe the medical documentation you submitted to qualify for the program wasn’t accurate.”

Less than a month after California voters overwhelmingly rejected billions in taxes in a May 19 special election, the legislature’s Democrats are pushing $1.9 billion in new taxes on oil, vehicle licenses and tobacco to help close a $24.3 billion state deficit.

A newly-invigorated Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has threatened to veto any tax increases. The California governor has also moved to block additional borrowing to paper over California’s overspending -- a first for him. Harking to the early days of his governorship when he called to “blow up the boxes,” Schwarzenegger wants government reform, especially in California’s bloated and fraud-ridden welfare programs.

A Schwarzenegger veto of the Democrats’ new budget, with its reliance on taxes, threatens to move California to insolvency, as the Golden State’s cash reserves are rapidly running out. A state cash crunch could unleash political forces beyond anyone’s understanding, with overburdened taxpayers facing off against state workers, people dependent on state programs, and government contractors.

Schwarzenegger signed off on a massive $13 billion tax increase in February, the largest tax increase in U.S. history at the state level. California is now one of America’s top three highest-taxed states. Now the state’s deepening economic slump and Democrats’ reluctance to enact any substantive reforms may have nudged the governor back to the right -- at least for negotiating purposes.

Meanwhile, an additional bailout from the federal government is not yet in sight. The Obama administration is counseling a tough love approach -- for now -- saying that if more federal dollars were to come to California, it would be with onerous conditions designed to ward off requests from other states. No doubt, those federal strings would include requirements for massive new state taxes in exchange for freshly printed Federal Reserve notes.

A high-profile example of how government has gone wrong in California can be found in its welfare system. With only 12 percent of America’s population, California now strains under 32 percent of the nation’s welfare caseload, according to data from the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Year after year, the one consistent thing Schwarzenegger has tried to do is to reform California welfare to reduce fraud and encourage welfare recipients to graduate to the dignity of work. And, year after year, legislative Democrats have rebuffed him.

The latest welfare showdown has Schwarzenegger proposing to cut $765 million from California’s most rapidly growing welfare expense: the state's In-Home Support Services (IHSS) program. IHSS pays newly unionized workers to take care of the frail and elderly, often their own parents, at home. The theory is that care in a convalescent home is far more expensive. The program has doubled in cost to $5.4 billion in the past five years. Conference Committee Democrats immediately slashed Schwarzenegger’s cost containment efforts to $117 million, trimming IHSS rolls by less than 10 percent. Assembly Budget Committee Chairwoman Noreen Evens (D-Santa Rosa) expressed a commonly stated Democrat concern when she said of the proposed health and welfare cuts, “The imagination runs wild on what would actually happen to these people.”

That many of “these people” are committing fraud to receive state benefits is becoming increasingly evident as Democrats have resisted most efforts to ensure only the truly needy receive help. (More...)