In a move foreshadowing what may happen on the federal level next year, tax-and-spend liberals in California are raising more revenue by cutting the state's tax credit for children and other dependents.

California's spendthrift and regulation-fixated legislature has produced a tsunami of red ink, and lawmakers there are looking for evermore ways to refill the public coffers, especially after voters in the state strongly rejected a series of tax hikes at the ballot box on May 19.

California's shortfall is predicted to be more than $21 billion this year, a figure that would have been more than doubled without the infusion of Federal Recovery Act funds earlier this year. California's new solution can be dubbed "Tax the Children."

The annual state tax credit for children and other dependents had been more than $300 and it was adjusted for inflation each year (the federal child tax credit is not).

Now the state intends to slash that credit by more than two-thirds, resulting in a tax increase of at least $210 for each child in the state. Next year, as we know, the federal child credit is scheduled to be slashed in half -- from $1,000 to $500.

How long will it be before we start to hear that our deficit-laden federal budget can no longer "afford" to let families keep the higher credit?