Election Day

So why are we in this fix to begin with? The economy sucks but that's only a part of the issue and the feds are helping out a good deal with that. We'd still have to make some pretty significant, painful cuts but nothing on the order of what we're looking at now. The rest of the issue is that we have a structural deficit on the order of $10 billion, which is to say that our revenues are out of line with our expenditures even if this were a normal economic year. For the past twenty years or so, we've been papering over this by paying for the state's operating expenses with short-term bumps in revenue during the boom times and borrowing to cover operating expenses in the bad times. This violates every principle of sound financial management but it's no coincidence that we've been doing this and it's not because of incompetence on the part of the legislature. Why have we been doing this? It's not for lack of a spending cap and it wouldn't be fixed by the cap proposed by 1A. It's because of the 2/3rd budget requirement that forces us into a least common denominator budget solution each year. Without the 2/3rds requirement, taxes might be higher. Or the Dems would be voted out of office for raising taxes as they very clearly would be willing to do if they didn't have to get Republican support. That's how democracy is supposed to work. And it is broken in the state. No responsibility means no accountability. So definitely vote no on A and B. They'll bind the hands of our elected representatives even further, and that's what got us into this mess in the first place. And definitely vote no on F. Legislators are adequately incentivized to pass the budget. They just can't do it because of the 2/3rds requirement. And those Republicans who are holding out generally make dramatically more by doing so than they would lose from this kind of terrible, awful ignorant idea about slapping them on the wrist with a pay freeze. So how do we fix this mess? At this point, part of me says that we've got to dramatize the problem and send a strong signal that the system is broken by voting no on C, D, and E as well. We keep hearing that it's impossible to make the changes that we would need to make to fix the govt (e.g., undoing Prop 13, the 2/3rd vote, and ballot box budgeting) but special times call for special measures. But I'm not sure that a constitutional convention, for example, would create a better system than the one that we have now. So I'll probably end up voting yes on C, D, and E. I am opposed to ballot box budgeting, and D and E undo some of that and send the signal that there is no point in doing it because it will just be undone at the ballot box in later years. And C (more borrowing to cover operating expenses) is bad but not nearly as bad as a alternative proposals that are being advanced by Department of Finance if we don't pass C. (And here I'm not talking about the cuts, just that they'll engage in even worse types of borrowing if we turn back C.) So it's a bad mess, to be sure. And none of the propositions will help us get out of it. The only one that is likely to pass is the initiative that I characterized as a terrible, awful, ignorant idea. Good times.

The problem with 1D and 1E is that Props 10 and Prop. 63 are the "good guys" of ballot box programs. Those propositions created programs, but also created their own funding stream... as opposed to countless other props that have just tied California's hands in how they spend their current funds. To go after two well designed programs that have their own funding steams, simply because they operate in the black and can thus be raided, seems to send a very strong message that future props shouldn't bother to create a funding stream. These measure just punish the props that did it right... The right measure would have been to strip out some of the previous props that created unfunded mandates, rather than raid the funded ones. That would have been a small step towards better government here in California... which I would guess is exactly why we don't get that choice. I'd say No on 1D and 1E.

Kevin, I think you owe us a bit more of an explanation of why you disapprove of 1F. I'm relatively intelligent and don't see the stupidity.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigrationnaturalizatio/a/caillegals.htm "Illegal Immigration Costs California Over Ten Billion Annually State's "cheap labor" costs average household $1,183 a year In hosting America's largest population of illegal immigrants, California bears a huge cost to provide basic human services for this fast growing, low-income segment of its population. A new study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) examines the costs of education, health care and incarceration of illegal aliens, and concludes that the costs to Californians is $10.5 billion per year."