They just don't get it.

Albert Einstein is reputed to have defined "insanity" as doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result each time. In the big picture, that certainly applies to socialism. The Left - especially the fools in academia and in politics - think that if they can just institute socialism their way, it will work this time. (Sigh.)

It also applies to the methods the Left uses to create socialism here in America. The just don't get the notion that increasing taxes means less revenue. That the income taxes from fewer people at a higher rate simply won't match what could be gathered by the income taxes from a much larger group of people at a lower rate.

California has decided to tax Internet sales, not simply of California businesses that have a physical presence within their state, but all sales involving the Internet, and Governor Moonbeam just signed it into law. (You remember him from the last time he was governor, don't you? "Jerry Brown's Space Program: $60 million dollars spent exploring Uranus.") They claim they will realize $200 million dollars in revenue from this. Instead, the businesses that exist on the Internet will simply stop doing business with Californians rather than have to collect the taxes and then pay them to the state of California. Amazon.com - where I make a thousand or so dollars of purchases each year - has stated it will stop doing business with affiliates in California (all 25,000+ of them). So those businesses will probably shut down, since they won't be able to sell to folks who live outside of California either (like myself, a legal resident of Oregon - no sales tax - who is currently staying in Montana - no sales tax). Instead of getting more tax revenue from them, they will now get zero.

The Supreme Court (before Obama radicalized it into the social activist arm of his administration), declared it unConstitutional for a state to tax interstate commerce when the companies involved have no physical presence within a state. But a number of states (New York, Rhode Island, North Carolina, Illinois, Arkansas, and Connecticut) have passed similar laws, and apparently are ignoring SCOTUS, although several of those states are being taken to court by Amazon and others.

This may well get straightened out, and California may have to rescind this ridiculous attempt at theft, but probably not before the businesses - and dreams - of thousands of people have been destroyed. Any doubts that California is a socialist state, or that Jerry Brown is a Marxist, should be settled now.

(h/t Honourable Means at Bonnie Blue Blog)