Spending is written in the DNA of government, and no one objects to reasonable expenditures for legitimate purposes appropriate to limited government. But unless citizens remain vigilant, the combination of special interests lobbying for more spending for their narrow benefit will overcome the general interest of the people in a frugal government. The problem is the single most powerful impulse driving the powers-that-be in California state government is the impulse to spend. Since our state government is dominated by liberals, whose automatic response to any problem or crisis inevitably involves some new commitment to a

“Reasons will never be wanting for proposed augmentations; and there will always be a party for giving more to the rulers,” warned the Founders, who harbored no illusions about human nature.  The Constitution’s system of checks-and-balances was designed to contain that dynamic, but the ultimate check on tendency of government to overspend the fruit of other people’s labor.