Gavin - the Sun King?

Faced with a $600 million debt many politicians would consider taxing the rich since they have the most money but not California democratic gubernatorial hopeful Gavin Newsom. He's fought against a 1.395% tax that would have raised "tens of millions" but would have been imposed upon his own businesses. Instead, the Mayor wants to force cab drivers to sell their medallions and place a tax in excess of 50% upon the proceeds.

Newsom explained his reasoning for this plan by saying: "This city asset (the medallions) has been underutilized" and the cab drivers have "... underperformed."

He also wants to make a "gigantic, order-of-magnitude change" in the way things are done. He apparently plans to start with the Democratic Party. You know the party of: the Fair Deal, the New Deal, the Party of Labor, the Party of the People.

To heck with Obama, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and all the Kennedys. Gav is harking back to an more ancient tradition - one where rulers use their lower classes as "assets" to balance their budgets.

• Czar Peter the Great of Russia used the forced labor of serfs to build the city of St. Petersburg. He also thought his peasants "underperformed" so he worked over one million of them to death.
• The Maharajahs of India took a high percentage of their peasants' crops to fill their own coffers.
• This practice was taken up by the British to pay their governmental expenses when they ruled India. Mahatma Ghandi grew to fame by fighting against such excessive taxes.
• King Louis XIV of France, the Sun King, and his minister Jean Baptiste Colbert used corvee (free) labor to balance a budget depleted a lack of taxation on the nobility and his own extravagances. This practice ultimately led to the French Revolution.

All of which leads us to the question: Should Gavin Newsom be running for governor on a Democratic ticket or a Royalist one?