Almost invariably, taxpaying voters fall for the same old lies. It’s a mystery. Our bureaucrats lie to us, and we take it in the wallet every time, yet the liars remain in office.

While many of us are not fooled, the majority eats it up.

Jerry Brown’s bullet train to nowhere. So far it has cost multi-millions of dollars; it’s embroiled in multiple litigations and was in cost-overrun and underfunding modes from Day One. To get the ballot measure passed, the bureaucrats’ number was about $33 billion. Shortly thereafter it was $98.5 billion. With no explanation, the number was lowered to about $68 billion with later estimates as high as $117 billion.

What’s that costing each taxpaying California resident?

Measure H: purportedly to “significantly reduce homeless” in Los Angeles County. County officials hope it’ll raise 45,000 families out of homelessness in the next five years by raising a projected $355 million annually via increasing the sales tax by one-quarter of a cent.

If you spend $10,000 a year on taxable goods, you’ll pay out another $250 per year.

That’s $250 a family will not have for themselves. By the time the money passes through various departments, administrative costs are tallied, committees are formed, etc., the money will be squandered with minimal accomplishments. It’s history-proven.

The next farce is the tax will expire in 10 years. Any bets?

Proposition 56, the $2 per-pack cigarette tax passed in November 2016 with a selling point of needing to increase payments to doctors to treat the 14 million Californians on Medi-Cal (more than one-third of the population, including 183,000 illegal immigrant children, according to the L.A. Times). Obamacare alone added 3.9 million to the rolls.

Gov. Jerry Brown refuses to allocate the money for the doctors; however, our ultra-liberal majority has increased benefits and eligibility (outreach) to get Medi-Cal.

In 2009, the feds increased cigarette taxes by 62 cents per pack allegedly for “expanding coverage under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.” The data on the efficacy of any and all cigarette taxes isn’t forthcoming.

SB 1 Transportation Funding: Fix the roads. In April, Brown and his band of bandits increased our gasoline tax by 12 cents per gallon and vehicle registration fees that will cost every legally registered car owner from $25 to $125 more per year. The increased gas costs are more monies families will not have each month. We didn’t get to vote; the insatiable extorters just did it.

I’ve read the entire text of SB 1. It’s pure bureaucratic-speak with wording not meant to be understood — a boondoggle of verbosity with references to the authority, the agency, the committee, the program, transfers of money from one fund to another, allowances for administrative costs, etc.

Chapter 2. Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Program. Sections 2030 (a) through (h) include but are not limited to: traffic control devices, pedestrian and bicycle facilities and (those) safety projects, “transit facilities, and drainage and stormwater (sic) capture projects…”

Section 2038 brings in the California Development Workforce Board and State Department of Education; (a) through (f). Mandatory plans for pre-apprenticeships for women, minorities, the underprivileged, disadvantaged and underrepresented “to help increase their representation in the building and construction trades.”

Subsection (e): outreach those in individuals “in the local labor market area and to formerly incarcerated individuals.”

There must be coordination between state-approved apprenticeship programs, engaging “the California Conservation Corps and certified community conservation corps” to better ensure future employment.

Section 2032 (g): $2 million to the California State University to conduct “transportation research and transportation-related workforce education, training and development.”

I suggest you read this entire document for yourself.

California lawmakers are looking at a free-health-care-for-all plan, with the input of Bernie Sanders.

The free plan would include doctor visits, hospital, dental, emergency room, dental, vision, no premiums, no co-pays, mental health, nursing care, etc. It’s a unicorn’s dream.

“Free” is always expensive to those who have to pay for it.

California’s annual budget is about $180 billion. The price tag alone for the unicorn plan is $400 billion per year. (Viewing history, like the bullet train estimate, the $400 billion will surely fall short.)

One analysis is an increase of 15 percent to the state’s payroll tax, affecting both employees and employers. That’s predictably an “under-fund” at the get-go.

New York’s recent single-payer proposal requires doubling, up to quadrupling their state taxes.

Colorado is a “blue” Hillary Clinton state. Its voters rejected the single-payer by 79 percent.

Most cannot afford to have their state taxes doubled or quadrupled and said so to the California Association of Health Underwriters in a recent poll.

The 66 percent objection became 75 percent when they were told the cost would be $179 billion each year. Disclosing the $400 billion should raise it to 100 percent.

Presently, county supervisors are looking at an increase in property taxes to pay for storm water capture. No per-parcel amount mentioned yet for the projected $90 million infrastructure cost.

We haven’t mentioned the never-ending school taxes “for the children.” That’s another commentary.

When will it all be reined in?

When will taxpaying voters stop falling for the sound-good themes and instead read, listen and demand that the bureaucrats put themselves on a spending diet, delete repetitive programs, stop waste, call out corruption, and when they fail, vote them out post-haste?

Betty Arenson is a Valencia resident who believes in the Constitution in its entirety and that laws should be upheld and apply to everyone equally.