Despite the great work done by our Democratic Congress and our Democratic president in enacting the historic health care bill, the recent actions of our state and local lawmakers are so bad that our best bet for survival is to throw all the rascals out and have no government at all.

The case against the state: Did you know our state Legislature wrote and our governor signed a new law, effective this year, requiring California drivers to do the opposite of what they’ve been doing all their lives? Of course you didn’t. No one has told you about it and the only way you will know about it is when you don’t do it and you get a $754 ticket, three points on your driver’s license and a mandatory court appearance. This latest form of highway robbery is called the “Move-Over Law” and it went into effect on Jan. 1. It requires that if a driver comes upon any emergency vehicle (such as a police car) on the side of the road, the driver is to move his car into the farthest lane away from that emergency vehicle. We’ve all been taught that upon seeing the flashing lights and hearing the sirens of emergency vehicles, we must move to our right and stop, giving such vehicles a clear path to travel. Now the state dummies have enacted a secret law stating we must move to the far left when emergency vehicles have stopped and are doing their business!

A reader directed this mess to my attention when he simply drove past a police car whose cop was busy ticketing some other poor fellow on the side of the road and he was stopped and cited by another cop because he did not move into the left lane when he drove past the first cop! He ended up paying $754 for the ticket, getting dinged on his license and ordered to appear in court. All for a stupid law nobody knew about. I thought the reader was making it up, so I Googled the thing and, behold, he was telling the truth. Read it for yourself. Google “Move-Over Law California.” With laws and penalties like these, lawlessness looks good to me.

The case against the city: We all know the city of Los Angeles is in dire financial straits: 4,000 city workers are facing layoffs, while the lucky ones who retain their jobs will suffer pay cuts and/or be forced to take days off without pay. Department budgets are being slashed and residents will have their city services reduced and their public amenities — the hallmarks of a civilized society — eliminated. Everybody who lives or works in this city will suffer because of this financial crisis. That is, everybody except seven members of our esteemed City Council. In an effort to share the pain, our city lawmakers decided to cut their $178,789 annual salaries (which are the highest of any municipal “people’s representative” in the country) by 10 percent this year. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa cut his $223,000 salary by 16 percent. Those council members who are taking the 10 percent salary cut are President Eric Garcetti, Ed Reyes, Paul Koretz and Jose Huizar. Dennis Zine, Tom LaBonge and Jan Perry are taking a five percent cut, and Janice Hahn has been taking a 4.16 percent salary reduction since July 1, 2009.

So that leaves seven council members who are making an obscene gesture to the people of the city of Los Angeles, as they have refused to cut their salaries by any percentage. They include Bernard Parks, the employee who collects more public money than anybody. He collects his councilman’s salary plus $22,000 a month in city retirement benefits. Then there is Herb Wesson, Bill Rosendahl, Greig Smith, Richard Alarcon, Tony Cardenas, and the newbie, Paul Krekorian. We need to return the gesture to these seven men with both hands! They have no solidarity with, no empathy for, and no value to the people of the city of Los Angeles. They think they’re Caesars. We should totally rid ourselves of Caesars.

THE PAIN AND THE PASSION — Nine cultural landmarks in the city, including four in South L.A., are slated to be closed because of the budget crisis. The four in our community are the Watts Towers, the Charles Mingus Youth Arts Center in Watts, the Vision Theatre in Leimert Park and the William Grant Still Art Center at La Brea and Adams, where two-week pink slips have already been handed out to the staff. Employees there say they have inundated Wesson’s office for weeks with calls for help, but to no avail. But Arts for LA and other independent community groups are mobilizing to try to save some of these sites. Visit the Web site artsforla.org/take_action/culturalcenters to see what you can do.

Meanwhile, a spunky group about 100 of city workers took matters into their own hands. Trying to help the city collect huge sums of money owed it by big businesses, the workers staged a raucous demonstration in front of the Prestige Parking Lot, Los Angeles’ biggest tax deadbeat, last week demanding that it pay the $73 million in withheld taxes the Office of Finance says it owes the city. The workers, members of various unions who are sweating layoff notices, gathered on the corner of 8th and Spring streets and made vocal and graphic demands that the company pay up. The Office of Finance said Prestige tops the list of 50 business debtors who owe us a total of $123 million because they failed to turn over to the city the taxes they collect from their customers. These business owners are robbing us — stealing our jobs, parks, programs, services — and our highly paid city officials seem unable to do a thing about it. Why doesn’t our gung-ho city attorney, Carmen Trutanich, throw them in jail as he did the billboard guy? Trutanich claims to be the biggest bad ass in the city. He needs to forget about those billboards and apply some of his bluster to collecting our damn money. I keep telling y’all, local government is ineffectual and we don’t need these people. Yet, elections keep on coming.

PICKING UP STEAM — Speaker Emeritus Karen Bass officially opened her 33rd Congressional District campaign office Sunday with a festive gathering at the site, 4322 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 301. Also last week Bass picked up the endorsement of the California Legislative Black Caucus and the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus. … It was a great week for Holly J. Mitchell, candidate for the 47th Assembly District, starting with her getting the endorsements of Rep. Diane Watson and Jan Perry and Rita Walters, present and former 9th District councilwomen, respectively, and of the labor union Unite Here Local 11, and ending with her huge 73 percent endorsement Sunday by the California Democratic Party’s pre-endorsement caucus.

MISCELLANY — Assemblyman Steve Bradford has been named chairman of the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Commerce. Maybe he can do something about those DWP thieves. … The United Homeowners Association will hold what is billed as an “important community meeting” at noon Saturday at 5301 Brynhurst Ave. to provide updates on the steps being taken to address the illegal UHA election held on Jan. 21 and to prepare for the UHA special meeting scheduled for April 13.

BREAKING NEWS — The mayor hired a Black press secretary Monday. Her name is Rachel Brashier. … Also D.A. Steve Cooley has opened a perjury investigation of Councilman Bernard Parks in regards to his residence. The case number is 10-0120. Hmmph?