"Down with a state!"

While reading an LA Times article about the budget woes of California, I started thinking about what form it'd take if, hypothetically, my view that as long as government exists determining who pays for it should be based on resources use, in both the natural sense and in who utilizes the force of government the most, were applied at state level.

For an easy, relevant example, use Cali. Might as well...

Imagine the tax & spending structure of California were torn down & rebuilt on that basis, with the worst of what the state government does outright eliminated, & the burden of what was left tilted towards the people & organizations that most use Arnold & co. Anyone that knows something about how California works (or, in this case, doesn't), I submit the following mental exercise to you: I know that such a proposal would be rejected on all sides by the political establishment of their state, but what interest group in particular do you think would be the loudest, and why? If, by some miracle such a radical reform were put into place, what would the policy there look like that followed the philosophy?

Note: I say this as someone not from there, and don't profess to be an expert on the state in the slightest. If you feel this is just absolutely stupid for that reason, then ignore it. If you don't know any more about California than I do, but you can contact someone who does, feel free to pose the scenario to them.

I don't know California that well, never been there. But I would guess based on recent political debates in the state that the farmers in the Central Valley and the related agribusiness would be those most hostile to the new regime because of the use of water. There's already a large controversy over water use in California. The farmers essentially get first claim on the water, which I am assuming would not be the same in a shift to taxing the use of natural resources.

I've spent a little time out there (SF bay area, mostly) and noticed that the micromanaging/absolutist activist mentality was pretty common -- people get these very specific ideas about what the government should do and how society should be shaped by the government, then they treat these ideals like religious doctrine (even including incarnations of good/evil). I think this goes for both the left and right, though the left is more common in the SF area.

To these people, the purpose of government is to redistribute wealth (or provide certain services for free), so they would not be able to accept any system where a person pays taxes based on the costs they impose on the state/society or the benefits that they receive.

Still, I agree with FD above that economic special interest groups are the groups that are best at mustering resources for big political fights.

The ideological groups that I am referring to might find some allies among economic special interest groups, such as the Teacher's Union or others that provide popular public services. I've heard that the prison guard's union is pretty powerful also, and I suppose that they can get some ideological support from the conservative parts of the state.