One of my favorite movies is Die Hard with Bruce Willis. Bruce has no luck getting any help combating the bad guys, so in one scene, while trying to get some assistance after notifying several folks unsuccessfully, he throws a body of one of the bad guys on the police officer's car. During the chaos, the officer calls for help, screaming into the radio. While the officer crashes his car, Bruce echoes the prophetic phrase, "Welcome to the party, pal!"

Well, is seems that, after decades of Conservatives calling for more reform to California's tax imbalance, Speaker Karen Bass is ready to be "welcomed to the party". Or should I call her Officer Bass driving frantically while the State car is crashing?

Check out her quote from last week:

"I'd expect it to come up with more stable ways to generate revenue so we are not completely dependent upon the upper income brackets. Also, I envision the commission coming up with ways to incentivize the economy."

Huh?!?!? Is this quote for real? We saw the hit to California during the dot-com meltdown that we were just depending on the rich way too much. And now with the current economic problems and budget issues for the state, we are back to 2001 again.

The top 1% -- representing only 140,000 tax returns -- pay 48% of the income tax. In 1993, they were forking out just 33%. The bottom 20% never -- at least since 1993 -- have paid more than one-tenth of 1% of the tax. In fact, a family of four doesn't begin paying the tax until its adjusted income hits $46,000.

There are no more "rich' to balance the state budget mess on. Everyone pays more. So it now comes down to Republicans, to both persuade the other side to make some real reforms (ie reduce spending) and to take a leadership role publically to the voters of California, to persuade them how Conservative fiscal policy is needed to get the state out of this mess.

For the spenders ,the "party" is over. Now it is time to really get down to work.