Posts from — April 2009

Some of the measures for this Special Election sound sort of smart, until you look a bit deeper and realize that it is simply politics as usual.

I oppose all of the measures for this special election.  I’ve outlined a basic reason for each one below.  If you want more info, simply leave a comment, and I’d be glad to elaborate if appropriate.  In general, across most of the measures, these are simply a way for the legislature to get our approval on the smoke and mirrors approach they have taken to balance the CA budget.  In a series of Obamaesque style masterpieces, many of these measures simply put off the day of reckoning that is due us based on our State’s horrible penchant for spending too much money.

Measure 1A: The worst of the bunch, this measure actually approves extending the HUGE state tax increases and new taxes just approved by our legislature for up to an additional two years.  We are already the highest taxed state in America, yet they want us trick us into to ratifying their decision by getting us to vote for these taxes ourselves.  The fact that they cloak it in wording like “Rainy Day Fund” and “Stabilization Fund”  – things that certainly sound fiscally responsible to the lay person – is in my opinion nothing short of reprehensible.  Shame on you people.

Measure 1B: As much as I believe in education and want a good experience for my own children (my oldest is just about to enter kindergarten at a public school), I do not think that forcing tax payers to repay funding that was denied in this past session makes any sense at all.  The situation is horrible and everyone has had to make concessions – our schools are no exception.  There are few things that people care about as much as they care about their children – if our state spending has gotten so out of hand that we have to start sabotaging the future of our kids, maybe it is time that we take a long hard look at what we are doing with the REST of the money.  My feeling is that our children’s future is jeopardized much more by a “borrow and spend” legislature than it is by having a larger class sizes and older text books.  This is a knee-jerk response that is designed to pull at your emotions.  We SHOULD fund our schools – but it should be done in a fiscally responsible way – that is, prioritizing education OVER other things that we already spend money on.  It shouldn’t be done by simply raising taxes.  The “funny” thing is that most teachers would agree that the ultimate success of a student is due largely to parental involvement at home – yet, the net effect of what the Teacher’s Association is asking for here, is for parents to spend more time at work to pay for higher taxes.

Measure 1C: The tag line to this should be: “Because we all know increased gambling is the key to every financial crisis”. This is just more smoke and more mirrors.  The measure makes wild assumptions of future revenues and has real potential negative side effects of making this form of gambling more widely available.  Maybe the lottery system needs modernizing and maybe it doesn’t – but doing it as a band aid to State Budget reform is NOT a smart move.  If indeed the Lottery needs to be modernized, do it first in a socially responsible way and see how it turns out.  If any revenue increases appear, THEN use the money to pay off any existing debt.  This measure simply puts the cart before the horse and again is intended to deceive the public at large with something that “sounds good” but distracts us from the real problem: we spend too damn much money.

Measure 1D: This is a tough one – these politician bastards force us to choose between two classes of children.  Really?  This is the ONLY place you can find the money?  The stuff they warn us will happen if we don’t support Measure 1B is exactly what they are DOING to us here.  Even worse, it takes money out of working programs and places it back in the hands of politicians to dole out to other programs as they see fit.  That’s never a good idea.  Don’t let them justify their overspending by forcing us to choose between two sets of equally deserving children.  Find the money somewhere else!  Yes, some of the programs currently have a surplus – lets not do what Sacramento typically does and plunder the war chest so that next time there is nothing to fall back on.  In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that my daughter received a First 5 scholarship.  I loved the way that it worked – she received it for a time, and once that time was over, she no longer received funding.  It helped us put her into early schooling, but yet had a limit on what it would handle as well.  This makes sound public policy sense in my mind, and is likely the exact reason that this program actually has a surplus – it doesn’t create a chronic dependency on state aid but rather helps people make sound choices for their child’s early development.  If you would like a thoughtful dissension, read The Policy Report commentary on the measure.

Measure 1E: Another tough one, and one that I freely admit I’m not necessarily qualified to determine the value of.  Maybe we should redirect funds from the Mental Health Services Act to the state’s Early and Periodic, Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) program, which would provide mental health services to children for the next two years.  I don’t really know.  What I do know however is that this type of decision shouldn’t be made in the shadow of an unbalanced budget.  Also, while the supporters of 1E say that this is a one time event and that is should never happen again, I think they are being grossly naive about that aspect.  Once a precedent is set, it is all to easy to do again.  And again.  And again, etc.  Spending on mental health services has proven effective in lowering burdens on jails, hospitals, schools and municipalities through lower homelessness.  This seems like a good investment to me.  Yet, voting for this measure will reportedly will stop further tax increases.  This I’m all in favor of – but I’d propose cuts in other areas first, like modernizing welfare.  I’d rather lower funding for people who are of sound mind and body and can do more for themselves than lower help to this group of afflicted individuals.  Again, thoughtful dissension can be found at The Policy Report.

Measure 1F: This one gave me the most pause.  On the surface it seems quite smart – freeze pay raises for the politicians if they can’t balance the budget.  Sounds smart indeed – in fact, it sounds like points that I have made before.  So, why do I oppose this?  First off, I’ll say that I don’t STRONGLY oppose it.  I think that it would do some good, but I am not certain that it wouldn’t do some harm as well.  There are a few reasons why I don’t support this measure – 1) it won’t really “stick it to the politicians” as it has been billed, 2) it will impact other people who are not responsible for actually passing the budget and 3) it doesn’t save much money.  This measure won’t impact the single most important thing that the actual politicians think about: re-election.  Also, it will make the non-law passing jobs harder to fill.  I had to think long and hard about this, but in the end, it was the minuscule amount that it would actually save that finally tipped my hand to vote against it.  Lets have REAL reform, not something that just “feels” like we got the better of Sacramento. Of course, if it passes, I won’t loose more than 5 minutes of sleep either…