On Thursday, another writer from the same syndicate claimed that even a rebounding economy will not be enough to pull state governments out of their fiscal mess. Her solution is more taxes. She wants sales tax on Internet sales as a starter.

Whatever happened to financial responsibility? If you ran your household like our leaders are running the government, you would go bankrupt and lose everything you have. Oh wait, that's already happened to a lot of us. Prop 13 didn't cause our financial situation; properties losing two-thirds of their value helped, reported and long-time unemployment helped, having a climate that is unfriendly to businesses — causing them to leave the state — helped, and bad investments, bad decisions and bad directions helped.

A 3-year-old knows that a bubble will sooner or later pop. Our leaders followed a course that believed the bubble would go on forever. They're still spending like the bubble is ongoing. The upper level of state workers have just gotten a raise. Everybody else has taken a pay cut or lost their job.

Gov. Moonbeam had just started a multibillion-dollar railway that goes nowhere, and that very few people will ride. He also wants to build a multibillion-dollar canal to take our water to SoCal. He says it's an investment in the future. Sorry, at this rate we have no future.

Still miss the Monday paper.

Jim Sugden

Lodi