California residents are getting an early Christmas present, my friends!

Democrats plan to eliminate the state’s 18-cent-per-gallon gasoline excise tax, as well as an 8-cent-per-gallon sales tax on gasoline. So it’s celebration time!

Except that it’s not.

You see, Democrats want to wipe out the taxes… but replace them with a 39-cent-per-gallon “highway user fee.”

The end result? Despite having a “tax cut,” California drivers are going to get whacked with a massive increase at the pump.

Now, this is all part of California Democrats’ new strategy to freeze Republicans out of the budget process. Until now, tax increases required a two-thirds vote in the legislature. Republicans weren’t going to go along with the massive tax increases the Democrats wanted to impose to close their ever-growing budget deficits.

So instead, Democrats are simply changing the name: Tax increases are now going to be called “user fees.” Democrats have the numbers to pass those with a simple majority vote.

It’s not just gasoline, either. Under other names, the state sales tax is going up. There will also be an income tax surcharge and other increases that will further drive business and people out of the state. But don’t call the new tax hikes, “tax hikes”.

Like their counterparts in New York and Michigan and elsewhere, California Democrats have only one answer for governing: Whack the residents with taxes, and keep whacking them until they either die or leave. And if they die, by the way, you keep whacking ’em over and over again, anyway.

It never stops.