In Colorado, the Democratic leadership of the General Assembly is voting to increase taxes on or remove tax exemptions on candy, soda, direct mail advertising, fertilizer, energy, software, and more.  And, it seems the State Senate Democrats want to be the tip of the spear in trying to collect sales (or use) tax on items that residents of the state purchase from out-of-state online retailers.

They seem oblivious…not even willing to discuss…the Republicans modest proposal for a 0.25% spending cut for the balance of this fiscal year and a 4.4% across-the-board cut next year – cuts which would not only eliminate the need for all of the Democrats’ tax hikes but also allow the senior homestead exemption (a property tax break for senior citizens that I don’t actually support) to remain in place.

Meanwhile, in Washington State, Democrats in their State Senate (where they also have a large majority, like in Colorado) have voted to ignore Washington’s equivalent of TABOR which passed a vote of the people just over two years ago in order to pass their own tax hikes.  As one Washington Republican put it (speaking presumably of the State Senate as controlled by Democrats, not of Republicans), “We’ll be telling the people to shut up and pay up, and we know what’s best.”

While Washington Senators got one bill right, a measure aimed at saving about $45 million by “by restricting hiring, service contracting, out-of-state travel and larger equipment purchases, with some exceptions“, their true colors came through with a bill which would freeze pay raises for state workers who are not union members…but not freeze raises for unionized workers.  And you wonder who the Democrats really work for…

The behavior of Democrats at the state level is a reflection of the leadership of their party at the federal level, namely of The One, the Dear Leader, Barack Obama, who during his State of the Union Address said that he would “refuse to pass this problem (of massive deficits and debt) on to another generation of Americans” and then promptly offered the most profligate, wasteful, irresponsible, deficits-as-far-as-the-eye-can-see budget in our nation’s history.  His so-called spending freeze is laughable, as what it really does is lock in unjustifiable increases in government spending which occurred in his first two years in office (as well as unforgivable spending increases put in place by George W. Bush.)

It comes down to two main things:  Democrats NEVER want to see the amount of money which flows through government decrease because they never want the power of government to decrease…and money is power.  Also, Democrats never want to cut spending on government workers because such a large percentage of government workers is unionized and those unions in turn spend a lot of money getting Democrats elected.  Indeed, in the past couple of weeks we learned that for the first time in American history the number of unionized government workers exceeded the number of unionized private sector workers.  (The percentage of unionized government workers has been much higher than the private sector number for a long time because the government work force is smaller than the private sector’s.  But who knows how long even that will be true given the trajectory that Big Government Obama is on?)

Democrats across the nation – perhaps in the state legislatures even more than inside the Beltway if you can imagine it – are pushing ahead with a radical “Progressive” agenda that will doom them to electoral destruction in November.  A Gallup poll released Tuesday shows that Independent voters prefer Republicans over Democrats by a 16-point margin, the second-highest in recent months and, more importantly, the second-highest in years.  For comparison, during 2006, Independents preferred Democrats to Republicans by an average of about 20 points.

Just as relevant is voter enthusiasm.  More than half of Republicans or those leaning Republican are more enthusiastic about voting in 2010 than in prior recent elections while a plurality of Democrats or Democrat-leaners are less enthusiastic:

American elections are all about Independent voters now with more and more citizens giving up party affiliation.  First they left the GOP in droves, now they’re leaving the Democrats in droves.

And that’s a good thing.  It would be healthy for America if more people started voting based on ideas, principles, and characteristics of individual candidates rather than voting for the “R” or “D” after the candidate’s name.

Americans do have, despite the beliefs and wishes of The One, a belief in the fundamental principles of our Founding, in personal responsibility, in limited government, in federalism, and in American exceptionalism.  It’s time we start electing politicians at the state and federal levels who believe in the same things.  While those people are more likely to be found in the GOP than among Democrats, we must be open to the occasional “conservative” Democrat.  More importantly, however, is we must beware of “Progressive” Republicans who are nothing but Democrats in sheep’s clothing and, like any infiltrator, more dangerous than the easily seen uniformed member of the enemy’s army.