By Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee

When Democrats lost their legislative supermajorities last month, it doomed even the very faint chance that legislators would enact the hefty tax increases liberal groups yearn to impose.

Dan Walters

That, however, doesn’t end the perpetual debate over whether Californians should pay more taxes; it merely shifts it to the ballot, most likely in 2016.

The much higher voter turnout of a presidential election, coupled with a much lower threshold for qualifying initiative ballot measures, creates the opportunity for pro-tax-increase forces – such as public employee unions – to make their big move.

At least four embryonic tax-hike campaigns are evident, with the biggie being whether the temporary increases in sales taxes on everyone and income taxes on the affluent, passed by voters in 2012 at the behest of Gov. Jerry Brown, will be extended.

Read the whole story