L.A. MAKES TAX 'CUTS' A CURE-ALL.

Byline: DOUG MCINTYRE

A tip of the cap and a hearty post-election day congratulations to Mayor V and the Spring Street boys for their double-bubble ballot-box busting win on Measure S.

I admit I really let the parade pass me by on this one. By a whopping 2-1 margin, Angelenos voted to "cut" their phone taxes by 1 percent and "modernize" the levy to include new technology, all this to support 911 service, police, fire, libraries and parks.

Now that I think about it, what kind of knuckle-dragging barbarian was I to vote no?

Had I gone to the "Yes on S" Web site, I could have read the small print that clearly the rest of you read. If I had known that cutting the phone tax by 1 percent could be a magic bullet for L.A.'s fiscal woes, how could I possibly vote no?

And now that the secret is out, we can look forward to a Jerry's Deli-like menu of tax cuts. Mayor V has pioneered a vast new revenue scheme -- call it a tax cut while you "modernize" your way to uncounted millions in new revenue.

Trot out the police chief, promise bluer skies, cleaner water, well-mannered children, non-colicky babies, hotter chicks, more straight single men with good jobs and no prison record, a winning season for the Dodgers, thinner thighs, a three-picture deal, the correct answers to the final "Jeopardy" questions, a fluffy bunny in every carrot patch and two hybrids in every garage! By Jove, these 1 percent tax cuts are going to make it possible to pay for everything you've ever wanted.

Now that the politicians have perfected the art, they'll get us to cut our taxes all the way to the poorhouse.

That's Janice Hahn warming up in the bullpen with her $30 million "Send a Gang Banger to Summer Camp" tax and Jack "I never met a developer I didn't like" Weiss is taking his transportation tax for a test spin. If only he can find the right bait-and-switch name the way Tony V did with Measure S.

How about if he calls it, "The Jack Weiss Will Get You Home From Work Faster So You Can Spend More Time With Your Family Unless You Don't Have A Family In Which Case You Can Spend More Time Working On Your Screenplay and End Global Warming Initiative." It's a little wordy, but the pigeons ought to swallow it whole, and it could be good for a $100 million, maybe more.

There's no end to the panoply of panaceas we'll be promised by pandering politicians.

L.A. is ever the trendsetter. We gave the world surfing, buildings shaped like giant hot dogs, drive-in movies, drive-by shootings and "Celebrity Rehab." Our latest gift to America is ballot initiatives that do exactly the opposite of what they claim. Instead of cutting our phone tax 1 percent, we've been conned into raising our phone taxes and set the tax hounds loose with dreams of untapped revenue streams.

Now Redondo Beach wants to take a whack at its phone tax, and voters in Huntington Park approved their tax "cut" 4-1.

In California, we're throwing tea onto the ship.

That low rumbling you hear isn't the Whittier-Narrows fault, it's Howard Jarvis spinning in his grave like a rotisserie chicken.

With a gigantic blown budget in Sacramento, the county and the city running on empty, and the politicians convinced a heavy Democratic turnout in November will bring lots of young nonhomeowners to the polls, it's simply never been a better time to be in the tax-raising racket.

I won't miss the parade a second time. Today I announce "Proposition Me!" aka "The Doug McIntyre Wants a Nice House in Toluca Lake with a Pool and Central Air and Plenty of Room for my Guns and Antique Barber Pole Collection Act of 2008."

Again, it's wordy, but I think that's the key to making these con jobs effective. The marks apparently get so exhausted reading their ballots, we regress to sophomores with No. 2 lead pencils filling in the holes on the high school exit exam in interesting patterns, hoping to occasional strike gold.

The deliberate deception of the voters marks a new low in L.A. politics. That it proved to be such a runaway success guarantees it will be repeated. Like the back of the shampoo bottle, the politicians are rinsing the productive for every loose dime they can shake out of them. Too bad the truth can't get a fair a shake.