Last week, I met with a group of owners of catering trucks in Santa Ana and they report being tormented by the tax authorities, who are getting tough in recent months as the state's budget problems grown. I wrote about it here. The group spoke mostly Spanish, but at one point everyone understood a word blurted out by one of the owners: "pensions." Everyone seems to know that the state is finding dollars wherever it can to backfill a deficit and pay for its pension debt. But California officials don't understand that overly zealous tax collection will not fix the overspending that is at the heart of the state's problems. It will only cause more small business owners to give up. As one truck owner said, a government official suggested that he simply sign up for food stamps and other forms of government assistance. Welcome to California.
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