As it becomes clear even to the state's corporatists that the blanket anti-tax stance is untenable, they are moving to ensure that any new taxes affect someone else, but leave them escaping their obligations to help protect economic and social stability as well as provide for California's future:

California Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Allan Zaremberg said this week that his group is "not opposed to all taxes" in the current budget environment.

"There's going to have to be a combination of revenues and real spending reductions," Zaremberg said. "But there are certain taxes that are going to hurt the economy worse than others, and those are targeted taxes that impact one industry disproportionately."

Zaremberg said the state chamber, which represents 16,000 businesses, opposes a proposed 9.9 percent tax on each barrel of oil extracted in California. It also opposes extending the sales tax to a number of services that the state currently does not charge, such as veterinary care, car repair and amusement parks.

The article from the Sac Bee also showed that the Cal Chamber has been relying on the Kamikaze Party to do their dirty work for them:

During the holiday break, business lobbyists were particularly concerned that Schwarzenegger negotiated alone with Democrats on a $18 billion majority-vote budget plan that used a controversial legal maneuver.

Schwarzenegger ultimately vetoed their plan. But the fact that he entertained their idea made businesses nervous about the possibility of enacting tax hikes on a Democratic majority vote rather than the two-thirds vote required in the state constitution. Businesses felt it would set bad precedent that Democrats might rely upon in subsequent negotiations.

Republican leaders boycotted those talks because they said the deal was unconstitutional. But that also meant Republicans had no say in which taxes the governor and Democrats were negotiating, which left business interests vulnerable. For instance, both Schwarzenegger and Democrats support the tax on oil extraction.

It is worth asking why anyone takes the Cal Chamber seriously (outside the governor's office, which is full of Cal Chamber acolytes). Their anti-tax, anti-regulatory policies have been dominant in California for at least the last five years and have had successes before that as well - yet they did not avoid dragging California into economic crisis. The Cal Chamber and the Kamikaze Party are two peas in the conservative pod, united by their shared attachment to that core conservative dogma - being right-wing means never having to say you were wrong.

The article goes on to note that Republicans are hinting that they might be open to taxes, but only if there is a hard spending cap (read: destroy what remains of government over time instead of all at once) and only if environmental and labor protections are gutted. That should suggest the Kamikaze Party isn't serious about a deal to avert the looming IOU crisis.