Here's a riddle. What is 150 years old, but has less self control than a toddler?

That's right, it's the California Legislature, whose profligate spending has put our state almost $20 billion in the red. Over and over again it has proven Ronald Reagan's maxim that "government is like an infant -- an insatiable appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other."

Proposition 13, California's famous property tax limitation initiative, will be put under the microscope this week as it reaches its 30th anniversary. Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Joel Fox, former HJTA president, teamed up to write a piece detailing the success of Prop 13 for the Los Angeles Times in response to Times Contributing Editor Bill Stall's article last week calling for a "face-lift" for Proposition 13.

You can read Stall's article here, and the Coupal-Fox article here.

California faces a $14.5 billion budget deficit because the free-spending politicians in Sacramento have spent too much for too long. But instead of cutting wasteful spending in state government to pay down the deficit and balance the budget once and for all, the tax-and-spend majority in the Legislature wants to punish you and every California homeowner by repealing the state home mortgage interest deduction.

Eliminate Prop. 13, and your tax bill will soar, so that government (whose workers are paid more than most of us and who enjoy pensions far in excess of what most of us receive) won't have to live within its means. Many people would soon be taxed out of their homes.

Today, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the National Taxpayer Limitation Committee and the California Alliance to Protect Private Property Rights announced that they have introduced the "Taxpayer Protection Act of 2008," a ballot measure that strengthens existing laws that prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars for political activity by making it illegal for taxpayer financed organizations, such as the League of California Cities, the California State Association of Counties and the California Redevelopment Association to finance their political activities through anonymous campaign accounts.