Budget THIS California....oh nevermind.

[rydot]

Oh, hey, there's a stupid Short Bus Special Election tomorrow to enact some of the budget sandbags our legislators came up with back in January (or was it February?). Quite frankly, I'm too annoyed and tired to come up with a decent writeup, folks. My overall inclination is to vote yes right down the row-- all the while holding my nose

Comments

LWVC Links

[rydot]

The League of Women Voters of California formally opposes 1A, 1C, 1D, and 1E. Their Press Release provides detail.

Also, LWVC has a good nonpartisan rundown of all six ballot measures, which I will try to read in-depth tomorrow before I vote.

[boymaenad]

fwiw:

http://jimkeller.livejournal.com/368445.html?nc=1

[rydot]

Given his fiscal Libertarianism, I recommend grains of salt here.

Bottom line is that we're essentially being asked to approve what the Legislature and Governor *barely* managed to agree upon. It may be crap, but it's the crap that our elected officials managed to come forward, pissing everyone off pretty much equally. Without massive reform (and resulting Dramatic Upheaval), I'm not sure they can do much better if we send them back to the drawing board.

I'd probably be more motivated to vote no if these propositions were initiatives (petitioned onto the ballot by special interests concerned citizens), but this whole sickly lot was, for worse or for worse, cooked at proper temperature by "professionals" in Sacramento. It's finally managed to ooze down the Capitol steps and onto our ballots for our final say-so, and you know what they say about the starving children in China Bakersfield, right? There's not much else for dinner and I'm running out of salt.

I feel sick now.

[rizwank]

Given his fiscal Libertarianism, I recommend grains of salt here.

Agree. Jim's a sharp thinker, but he's more alarmist (and principled) than I am, and I often find that I appreciate his motives but don't necessarily agree with the recommendations thereof.

[rydot]

I'm not really sure if the public should be able to vote for some things, since I believe by not being accountants, we probably helped create the mess.

My impression is that all six of these propositions would have just gone through the usual how a bill becomes a law process, except that we've created such a second-guessing state government structure that this sort of thing requires voter approval, at least where moving this level of money around is concerned.

If it is in our nature to crave Stuff for Free regardless of the long term consequences, maybe we SHOULD let the professionals handle some of the decision making. I just wish the professionals would handle some more creative (read: difficult) decisions than the ones they're handing us for our final up/down vote.

[anonymous]

http://swmartin.livejournal.com/22384.html

A mutual friend of me (Hollee) and Riz.

Thought I'd post anonymous to give you the option to unscreen or not.

[rydot]

Clickable: http://swmartin.livejournal.com/22384.html

And thanks for sharin'