I just read the sample ballot for the upcoming May election. There isn't a single mention about cutting expenditures during difficult economic times.

This is a "feel good" ballot.

Basically, propositions 1A through 1F give elected politicians authorization to manipulate the budget in full view of the voters instead of doing it with backroom deals late at night, hidden from the voters.

The state constitution mandated that each year the legislators must pass a budget by midnight June 15.

In the past, legislators stopped the clock so that midnight never came. Presently, they do as they have in the past on many issues. They just ignore California's Constitution.

Some 30 years ago, Proposition 13 placed a constitutional limitation on the government's ability to tax the people with general and special taxes. The Democratic California attorney general ruled that "fees" aren't taxes and Proposition 13 didn't apply to "fees."

In 1986, voters approved Proposition 63 by a 74 percent margin to change the state constitution to make English the official language of the state. Democratic Attorney General Van de Kamp issued an opinion stating that Prop. 63 was merely "advisory" and not binding.

Just this year voters approved Proposition 8 as an amendment to the state constitution stating that marriage was between a man and a woman.

Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown has forced Prop. 8 into the state Supreme Court by arguing that it cannot eliminate "inalienable rights."

President Franklin Roosevelt in 1942 described fascism as follows: "The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism- ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any other controlling private power."

Does this make California's Democratic attorney generals a fascist group? Gus Smyrnos Newbury Park