No matter how much more money the state spends, it is never enough. During the first four years of the Davis administration, general fund state spending increased about 40 percent - well above the increase in inflation and population growth.

The Democratic Party is organized around two central principles: 1) Government is too small. 2) Your taxes need to go up to pay for more programs. If Democrats had their way, we would all direct-deposit our paychecks into the state and federal treasuries, and we would get everything back in in-kind services. That's not much of an exaggeration.

The Democratic-controlled Legislature last year introduced 100 different bills that would have raised taxes by $60 billion - and that was in the thick of the budget mess. The same old crowd is proposing the same old solutions as you read this.

Government continues to increase in size and look for ways to get a hold of more of your money. Notice the initiatives circulating for the November ballot that would add taxes on your phone bill and a surcharge on millionaires, and increase property taxes on corporations.

The state's liberal establishment is convinced that anyone who doesn't want to turn over more money to the state is greedy and heartless.

We all know how government spends its money, yet when times are tough the defenders of big government insist that any cutbacks at all - or even slowing the rate of government growth - will be the end of Western Civilization as we know it.

Despite the approval of a $15 billion bond to cover the Davis administration's overspending, the state still has a structural deficit of about $7 billion (the amount it overspends each year on ongoing programs).

The obvious answer to the problem is cutting government. But proposed "draconian" cuts usually are only reductions in government's rate of growth. We all know government is enormously wasteful, and that it does many things it has no business doing.

California spends only a fraction of its massive general fund budget on infrastructure, yet as soon as there are tough times big-government supporters claim that any reduction in their spending will cause traffic jams.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week gave interviews to various media outlets, in which he discussed the state's ongoing budget crisis. During the interview, the governor told the Los Angeles Times: "I'm going through wishful thinking that I'll never have to go there [raising taxes]. Because I just don't like it. I try to work around and find ways so we don't have to do that."

The Times and much of the state's media pounced on such words and played up the governor's apparent softening on tax increases. They are thrilled at the possibility the governor has seen the light and might raise taxes rather than control spending.

Times columnist Steve Lopez expressed optimism that the governor will now do the right thing. After all, Lopez argued, Californians are vastly undertaxed. We're 19th in the country in overall state and local taxation, and the United States is "27th among 30 developed nations in taxes as a percentage of gross domestic product."

Actually, California's tax climate is the eighth worst in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation. Only our property taxes are relatively low. But perhaps America's relatively low rate of taxation - if one considers it "low" to pay the U.S. average of 30 percent of our total income in all forms of taxes - explains our relatively high level of affluence and freedom, but that's an issue for another day.

As Lopez argues, without increases, the governor "will be governor of a state where traffic stops altogether, public school teachers pray to God almighty for textbooks, college students get locked out, legions of the uninsured limp into overcrowded emergency rooms, and the L.A. County sheriff releases thousands more drunk drivers and wife-beaters because he can't afford to keep them locked up."

Such scare tactics are typical. But do you really think that even if we increased taxes astronomically that officials wouldn't lobby for more? Look at how the state spends the money it already has. Perhaps liberal elites haven't paid attention to the ongoing prison guard scandal, or to the effects of the outrageous "3 percent at 50" retirement benefits granted to powerful public employee unions, or to the wasteful, special-interest-driven way that government lavishes benefits on those with political power.

Last week, I wrote about the Orange County Sanitation District voting to spend $400 million in ratepayer dollars to pay for a treatment system that study after study shows is unnecessary. The proposed cost already has increased 10 percent since last year.

The city of San Diego is running a $1.4 billion pension fund deficit because of unaffordable benefits that supervisors granted to unions.

Take a look at the Taj Mahal City Hall in Mission Viejo, or any number of other wasteful government projects.

That's how government spends your money.

Private companies, when faced with tough times, trim the golf-course memberships for executives, hold the line on salaries, and root out fluff and unnecessary expenses rather than sticking it to customers, who can go elsewhere.

The government's first line of defense after it overspends is to stick it to taxpayers, who have no choice but to pony up the dollars and accept the lousy services government always dishes up (e.g., the DMV).

There used to be a time when being a public "servant" meant a lower salary in exchange for better benefits, a lighter schedule and more job security. But who says they can't have it all?

I looked at a salary schedule for the South Orange County Community College District, which shows many professors earning over $100,000 a year for a short week with summers off. A top-earning professor there earns nearly $166,000 and many earn in the $115,000 to $140,000 range. Salaries of six figures are not uncommon even among cops and firefighters.

Ever get the feeling that government employees are the elite and we're simply their servants, there to work harder so they can live off the fruit of the land? Instead of thanks, we get more whining and complaining, more accusations of being stingy.

Look at how local governments lavish subsidies on chain stores. Look at the way school districts, which in California spend a not-too-shabby $9,000 a year on each student, waste their dollars on project-labor agreements and other union featherbedding scams. Check out how many assistant superintendents are employed at your kids' school district the next time administrators claim that if you don't vote for a bond that music, arts and sports will have to be slashed and burned.

Yet to unthinking supporters of government, it's not about the waste, the abuse, the poor spending priorities, the arrogance, the greed of public employee unions or other influential lobbies.

It's about you: your refusal to give the government more money anytime it says it needs it.

You shouldn't be intimidated by such arguments, and we should all hope Gov. Schwarzenegger isn't intimidated by them either.