Rescinding an illegal tax is hardly what I'd call "swelling" the budget deficit, as that $4 billion wasn't the state's money to begin with. Had this illegal tax (you know, the same "tax" you and your buds at the L.A. Times used to call a "fee") remained in place, the court challenges would have continued, and eventually, the state would have had to pay it all back, with interest.

The lunkheads who love overly costly, overly fussy government programs and initiatives have swelled the budget by far more than $4 billion.

However, it would be ideal to base auto registration fees on party affiliation (higher rates for Dems, lower for most others).

I await with baited breath the day that the State will add the following line to the income tax forms: If you would like to contribute extra money to the state General Fund, in excess of your tax bill, please enter the amount here: ______, and submit an extra check.

Then, let's see how many Democrats put their money where their votes are.

Gosh, the banker in me wants to make a mild observation on the interest costs involved when you float a bond issue, but that might incite some towering intellect to call me a "lunkhead," so perhaps I'd better not.

Civil discourse, circa 2003. You gotta love it.

For those with an interest in words, the phrase is "bated breath" from an archaic form of "abate" used to suggest breath suspended or halted.

These days, of course, "baited breath" might mean the phenylketonurics sold by Listerine in those hard little plastic pockets.

I wondered when 'phenylketonurics' would first be uttered on L.A. Observed.

Not the tiresome fee versus car tax quibble again...OK, one more time, the Bee today gives the background of the "vehicle license fee," the name the "car tax" was known by from 1935 until a few emotion-charged months ago. (It also notes that the rate Arnold rolled back had been the prevailing rate for about five decades, until reduced by the Legislature in flush times a few years ago.) That story and Dan Weintraub's pro-Arnold column today both point out that the 40% hit to the deficit is quite real.

Whether or not it's smart governing, I'll be as happy to get the refund as anyone. Though I'd personally benefit a lot more if the unfair aspect of Prop. 13 was fixed and I no longer had to subsidize my neighbors whose homes are worth twice as much as mine -- but who pay a fraction of the property taxes I do.

Kevin, can you elaborate-- how can neighbors of yours pay less in property taxes if their homes arw worth more? More to the point, how can I get in on that?!

Sorry Fred, you can't. You didn't literally have to be born into it, but sometimes feels like it. You must have already owned for a long time to fully reap this benefit.

It's all because Proposition 13 in effect froze the assessed "value" of property 25 years ago (except for a small annual adjustment). As long as you don't sell, your tax is based on the old artificial value, no matter how much your property is worth today in the real world. There's been a more or less continuous real estate boom in L.A. since 1978, so some homes now worth a million bucks pay basically nothing in taxes. Instead, their share of taxes is paid by recent home buyers like me.

That's because when a house is sold, the assessed value is reset to the real market value. So as the newbie on my little cul-de-sac, I suspect that I pay a couple of thousand more a year in taxes than homes worth a lot more where the owners make more money. The tax bill is not tied to anything but how seldom they move. In theory, if I keep my house long enough, and prices keep going up, I'll eventually be one of the oldtimers being subsidized by the new suckers.

That's it grossly simplified. It was one of the points Warren Buffett tried to make that got him booted off the Schwarzenegger team.

Today's Bee article does nothing to resolve the tax/fee dispute, but wasn't really my point anyway. My point was that whatever the VLF was three months ago - a tax or a fee, take your pick - that's what is now, too. There is no justification for the Times's apparent view that VLF was a "fee" three months ago (and could therefore be raised legally without a vote), but is a "tax" now (which, having been cut, may be offset by increases in other taxes by a simple majority).

BTW, Kevin, I'm with you on the unfairness of Prop 13. I'm for a revenue-neutral switch that would cap everyone's rates at a more reasonable level, rather than tax some of us (including me) at an insanely high rate so that others (including most of my neighbors) can pay artifically low rates. As to Warren Buffet, though, I think the last sentence could more accurately have been stated thusly:

"It was one of the points Warren Buffett made when he was trying to get booted off the Schwarzenegger team."

Well if he was trying to get booted -- which I hadn't picked up on -- he did a good job of it!