(via Virginia Postrel - who, BTW, is speaking here in SF tonight!)   Need more proof that Davis is just a bad idea and that the Cali state legislature is socialist?  Virginia Postrel notes in her blog:

Taxes are high in California, but they are also easy to notice and, hence, to cut (witness the brouhaha over the car tax) or defeat. Regulation is a lot harder to stop in the first place and almost impossible to roll back. Take a look at this list of bills the state legislature just passed. These folks never met a bossy business idea they didn't like. (Link via Kausfiles.) No wonder I keep meeting homesick Californians who've moved to Texas to do business.

Obfuscation is part and parcel of the political process.   Benefits are widely publicized and costs are obscured (unless the $$$ are extracted from unpopular groups like, oh, the rich in which case the cost is promoted as part of the legitimacy of the whole shtick).   The states whine to no end when / if they perceive unfunded mandates flowing down from the Feds but then they turn around & \go out of their way to force 'em down the throats of the businesses.     Lets take a look at a couple of the mandates about to hit us from Comrade Davis & the Politburo:

Senate Bill 2 [SB2] - one of the bills awaiting Davis' signature - would require California employers to subsidize their employees' healthcare.

...* SB 328, which would make some undocumented immigrants eligible for a free community college education.

...* AB 14, which would require the Los Angeles Unified School District to contract only with businesses that pay a more expensive prevailing wage, as opposed to competitive market wages.

...* AB 76, which would make employers responsible for protecting employees from harassment by clients and customers.

Their "pro" ad for SB2 would say something like "Governor Gray Davis and the State Legislature enacted important legislation to ensure that all Californians have access to adequate healthcare."   Such beautiful goodness, mom & apple pie for everyone with costs conveniently ignored.   I look at this whole thing through the language of markets and contracts and wonder why the state needs to step into a matter that's essentially a private contract negotiation between an individual and his employer.  

Speaking up about this would allow Gray Davis to run an "anti" ad against me - "Vinod Valloppillil - funded by & sympathetic to the business lobby - vetoed legislation & denied thousands of working men & women increased health care coverage."     Heck ya I'm funded by the Business Lobby - unless you're a "business of one", then I'll tell you who puts bread on your table too.   In econ terms, this is a classic information assymetry - the benefits are easy to explain, the costs aren't.   The benefits are local and specific, the costs are broad and dispersed.  The more things govt does, the less detailed discussion we have about the costs and the more we're all travelling down sh*t creek in a raft no one recognizes.

Sigh.   And I wish this was caricature but it isn't.   If I ever need reaffirmation of my libertarian leanings, all I need to do is think about crap like this.