California’s Dreaming

I can’t say I have a first-hand feel for what’s going on in California, since I live on the opposite edge of the country, but here’s the story:

Yesterday California voters defeated ballot proposals to deal with the state’s financial problems. These included a spending cap, extending tax increases, borrowing against lottery revenues and tapping dedicated funds.

I take it California voters want to hear some better proposals for dealing with their $21.3 billion budget deficit — something along the lines of mugging the Tooth Fairy.

Jim Christie writes for Reuters:

“The public is under the delusion that they can have everything — have potholes filled, new freeways, a good education system — but they aren’t willing to pay for it … A lot of critical services are going to be cut and there will be serious consequences,” said Jim Hawley of the Elfenworks Center for the Study of Fiduciary Capitalism at St. Mary’s College of California.

There is talk of California getting a cash bailout, along the lines of what’s been thrown at Wall Street. I’m inclined to say no. If the citizens of California are not willing to tax themselves to save their own state, I think they should live with the consequences. This is not like a business failure, in which the bad decisions of a few executives cause a ripple effect of more failure that impacts many blameless people.

Juliet Williams writes for the Associated Press:

Political observers say Schwarzenegger and lawmakers will have little choice but to go after even politically sacred programs such as schools. …

… The choices facing the governor and Legislature are daunting,” said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California. … Many Californians have been hearing about the state’s budget problems but have yet to feel the severity of the crisis. That will soon change, Pitney said.

“For a lot of people, the budget’s been an abstraction. But with the next round, there will probably be serious consequences, particularly in the schools,” Pitney said.

Last week, the governor said he will consider shortening the school year by seven days, laying off up to 5,000 state employees and taking money from local governments, which likely would translate into cuts to police and firefighting services.

Only 19 percent of California’s voters bothered to vote, Williams says.

Michael Finnegan writes in the Los Angeles Times that voters share the blame for the California’s dysfunction.

Nearly a century after the Progressive-era birth of the state’s ballot-measure system, it is clear that voters’ fickle commands, one proposition at a time, are a top contributor to paralysis in Sacramento. And that, in turn, has helped cripple the capacity of the governor and Legislature to provide effective leadership to a state of more than 38 million people.

Clogged freeways, the decline of public schools, an outdated water system and a battered economy are just a few of the challenges demanding action by state leaders. Instead, they are consumed by yet another budget crisis, one that voters worsened Tuesday.

“No one’s really stepping back and confronting the harsh realities that face our state in a critical sense, because of constraints put on our elected leaders,” said Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California. “We’re unable to focus on the long term and the big picture at a time when we desperately need to do so.”

Finnegan’s analysis is very good; I recommend reading all of it.

It’s worth remembering that the Reagan Revolution effectively began in California with the passage of the infamous Proposition 13, which capped property tax rates. Once upon a time California was considered one of the best-run states in the nation, and with the best public school system. In the 1960s California’s schools were ranked first in the nation. Now they are ranked at number 48. Way to go, California.

Update: Via John ColeMegan McArdle writes,

There is a surprisingly sizeable blogger contingent arguing that we have to bail them out because however regrettable the events that lead here, we now have no choice. But actually, we do have a choice: we could let them go bankrupt. And we probably should.

I am not under the illusion that this will be fun. For starters, the rest of you sitting smugly out there in your snug homes, preparing to enjoy the spectacle, should prepare to enjoy the higher taxes you’re going to pay as a result. Your states and municipalities will pay higher interest on their bonds if California is allowed to default. Also, the default is going to result in a great deal of personal misery, more than a little of which is going to end up on the books of Federal unemployment insurance and other such programs.

But on the other hand, Megan argues, if we bail out California, it would amount to shoveling money into a bottomless pit, and ultimately we’re not helping California by enabling the “lunatics in Sacramento.” But in California’s case one can’t just blame Sacramento. California voters and the referendum system have made the state ungovernable. And I’d like to point out that many other states allow referendums without being as irresponsible as California has been.

Update: Rightie bloggers are rejoicing this outcome and see it as validation of conservatism. Just wait until the 2010 midterms! Allahpundit laments that voters “love their government goodies even though they manifestly can’t afford them.”

“Government goodies,” of course, are things like decent public schools, a criminal justice system, firefighters, bridges that don’t fall down, etc. America used to be able to afford those things. “Used to,” as in “before Reaganism.”

59 thoughts on “California’s Dreaming

  1. I’m with you maha – no bailout!
    If people keep voting for their Reagan/Libertarian Valhalla, let them live with the consequences. And if only 19% show up to vote, that’s too bad…

    May bee wen there rodes start to krumble and brigez fall, and there kids kum home frum skool and kant spell, they mite get a klew.

    But, then again, maybe not…

  2. If you want to see what happens when property taxes are low and there’s no sales tax, visit Delaware. There are no real services, most of the public schools are awful, and most of the roads aren’t wide enough and have no shoulders.

    Hopefully, our new gambling initiative will help with our budget shortfall.

  3. I love love, LOVE your blog, but I’m afraid this time you’re wrong. I’m actually very surprised you didn’t mention the cause of this standoff — a small group of Republicans who have signed a pact never to raise taxes for any reason.

    Speaking for myself and others I know, this rejection was NOT about being opposed to raising taxes. It was the fine-print of the basically Republican-written legislation that essentially ensured that the government would be essentially starved in future years.

    As a California resident, I have been watching this crisis unfold, and I believe that – for the most part, anyway — the voters voted the resolutions down to signify that the behavior of the republicans in the legislature will not stand.

    We have a completely ridiculous requirement that says that we have to have a 2/3 “supermajority” in the state legislature in order to raise taxes by ANY amount. And the republicans have all signed a pact that they will NEVER raise taxes for ANY reason, which ends up giving them the power to bring things to a dangerous standstill — and being unreasonable children they are, this is what they have done.

    If you talk to any of the Democrats, they will tell you that the propositions we all just voted down were very bad compromises, made with the Republicans basically extorting them from legislature, which had to give in to their demands so we could pass ANY budget at all.

    Look at the objections on ballotpedia or in any of the progressive newspapers (the Bay Guradian, for one) and you’ll see that most of the measures would have placed very unhealthy restrictions on the budget in future years.

    I’m sorry, but in this case the only option was to fix the problem — and that is to vote the measures down and then force a vote on the supermajority, which is the real problem here. We have a Democratic legislature that is fully capable of solving this problem if only we could get around a completely unreasonable minority.

    Again, I love your blog. Read it every day. Read it FIRST, actually. But I believe this time you’re wrong. I’m fed up with making bad compromises with Republicans who would never do the same for the other side. And if it takes a crisis like this to remove the supermajority requirement and put things in order again, then so be it.

  4. Have a dear cousin who firmly believes in California Prop. 13 stile of governance. She, a Republican lawyer, even holds the courts have no standing to order a state legislature to fulfill its mandate to fund the educational system.

    Two conclusions:
    One: There was a failure of a good education.
    or
    Two: There was an abuse of a good education.

  5. California will solve its budget problems when the Republicans are prevented from holding its economy hostage via the 2/3 requirement in the legislature. Until then, games by Ahnold or anyone else are just band-aids and will only perpetuate the problem.

    Most progressives I talk to voted no on the measures because they realize that the only solution is to break the GOP logjam. Passage of the measures would have had some bad consequences and besides would have further empowered the GOP in their quest to obstruct solutions.

    A little research is in order before adopting the Maureen Down methods of “journalism.”

  6. Have a dear cousin who firmly believes in California Prop. 13 style of governance. She, a Republican lawyer, even holds the courts have no standing to order a state legislature to fulfill its mandate to fund the educational system.

    Two conclusions:
    One: There was a failure of a good education.
    or
    Two: There was an abuse of a good education.

  7. I love love, LOVE your blog, but I’m afraid this time you’re wrong. I’m actually very surprised you didn’t mention the cause of this standoff — a small group of Republicans who have signed a pact never to raise taxes for any reason.

    Yes, but the voters of California still are ultimately responsible. Why don’t they use the referendum to get rid of the 2/3 vote requirement?

  8. Again, I agree with Shredder. This was kind of a knee-jerk post, I think.

    Californians knew what they were doing, and I’m relieved they voted these measures down. This is not about Californians who don’t expect to pay taxes, and it certainly isn’t about expecting a bailout.

    But it’s a fight worth having. We’re still being held hostage by the supermajority requirement and a Republican governor who was basically installed by Enron and Fox news.

    But I have to say: you’re waaaaaay better than MoDo — so Shredder’s wrong there.

  9. That’s the $10,000,000 question. We’ve just never needed it badly enough, I think. But now we do. And giving in to these guys is a cop-out from that fight.

  10. Shredder: Here’s some research for you, genius — the requirement of a 2/3 supermajority for raising taxes in California came about because of a voter initiative in 1979.

  11. the requirement of a 2/3 supermajority for raising taxes in California came about because of a voter initiative in 1979.

    Once again, to politely disagree: I’m not sure how that supports your post. I don’t think that necessarily means it doesn’t need to be overturned by another initiative. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that in 1979 we hadn’t seen this level of partisan idiocy.

  12. For years I envied Calf and all other but about 3 states. You see, I live in Texas. We now have a 3rd state besides Miss. and La. to make our statistics look good. At least I am hoping we are not 49th of 50 in education stats by now. Believe me, with our governor and a state government that meets once every 2 years, some other state has to get worse for us to look better.

    Maha vs MoDo, not on the same planet!!!!!

  13. 1978, actually. It’s an important distinction…to me, anyway: in 1979, I was old enough to vote, and in 1978 I wasn’t.

    Anyway…

    I think Barbara is party right and partly wrong. She’s wrong in seeing opposition to the initiatives (the key element of which was a spending cap, which really would have screwed us in the future) as just a right-wing anti-tax thing, and she’s wrong in blaming voters today for the straitjacket imposed 30 years ago.

    She’s right in her assessment that a significant percentage (maybe a majority) of California voters maintain a delusional belief in the Anti-Tax Fairy, who bestows all the services of government without anyone having to pay. I wish it were otherwise, but that’s the reality.

    She’s wrong again, though, in that the human cost of letting California ‘fail’ would far outweigh the fleeting Schadenfreude the rest of y’all would get from it. The poorest and most vulnerable would pay for the smug satisfaction of the California-haters.

  14. Allow me to introduce the Economist’s article about California to the discussion. According to this article the only solution to California (which they call “the ungovernable state”) is to break away from the past and write a new constitution! Here is the article:

    http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13649050&source=most_commented

    Among the problems are the following: Prop 13 limiting possible tax revenue in combination with the referendum system that is used to dictate citizen backed mandates with no funding. Read the article, its interesting.

    I would add one additional piece of information to this discussion, population plays a big role in this mess – almost 37million people live in the state today, this would strain any government to provide services like water, schools, fire and police departments.

    California is such a mess that it may be time to start from scratch.

  15. Shredder: Here’s some research for you, genius

    Hey, Babs why so hostile? Where’s your inner Zen whatever. I think what he says is true and for you to attack an entire poulation based on a lot of reasons, not just the voters, that caused this problem, well, then your going to get opposing views. Deal with it less offensively

  16. Yah, you don’t know California very well. It’s not that us voters keep taking out taxes. It’s the stupid 2/3 rule and the minority Republicans strangling us. If you want to at least sound slightly informed about California’s situation, a good one-stop blog to check out first is http://www.calitics.com.

  17. She’s right in her assessment that a significant percentage (maybe a majority) of California voters maintain a delusional belief in the Anti-Tax Fairy, who bestows all the services of government without anyone having to pay. I wish it were otherwise, but that’s the reality.

    I strongly disagree with this. No one I know believes this kind of thing. But our media machine is in full bay over this supposed wisdom. There are severe structural state government problems at play here.

  18. Megan: “There is a surprisingly sizeable blogger contingent arguing that we have to bail them out because however regrettable the events that lead here, we now have no choice. But actually, we do have a choice: we could let them go bankrupt. And we probably should.”

    Did she ever list the names of that ‘surprisingly sizeable blogger contingent’, or did it crash her site? A commenter on John Cole’s blog said that he was now convinced that we should bail out California, given that Jane Galt was against it.

  19. I strongly disagree with this. No one I know believes this kind of thing.

    And nobody Pauline Kael knew voted for Nixon.

    From an April 30 Field poll:

    A large majority prefers resolving the state budget deficit mostly through spending cuts than through tax increases.

    Few voters say they are willing to raise their own taxes in order to balance the budget.

    There is strong support for maintaining the two-thirds super majority vote in the legislature to enact tax increases. A smaller majority also rejects the idea of lowering the threshold to a simple majority vote under the condition that any new tax increases be offset by a corresponding reduction in other tax revenues.
    Yet, when asked to make the difficult choices about which programs to cut, voters are not as definitive.

    Majorities oppose cutbacks in ten of twelve major categories of state spending, including the three largest – the public schools, health care and higher education.

    There is majority support for making budget cutbacks in only two program areas – state prisons and corrections and state parks and recreation.

    I stand by what I said.

  20. Blaming Prop 13 is an oversimplification. A 2/3 requirement is not all that unreasonable, given a less rigidly partisan environment in the state capital.

    The gerrymandering of districts is the worst problem we face, and it is too seldom mentioned. It results in radical and inflexible politics in Sacramento, and in representation that is far more rigid than the constituency that is represented. Time after time polls in a district indicate flexibility on an issue and the representative of that district is maintaining a radically partisan position.

    Polling of the public invariably reflects a willingness to raise taxes when needed. The inflexibility comes in Sacramento, from legislators who do not need the approval of the voters as a whole, they only need the approval in the primary elections; elections where only radical partisans decide who will be on the party ticket. Once on the party ticket of the “safe” district, their election in the general election is assured.

    The voters of this state, taken as a whole, are far more reasonable than the politicians they elect, and the reason is gerrymandering and “safe” districting. Not Prop 13.

  21. Yes, but the voters of California still are ultimately responsible. Why don’t they use the referendum to get rid of the 2/3 vote requirement?

    I expect to see that in a future election. There was such an effort a few years ago–it would’ve reduced the requirement to 55%, if I recall correctly–but unfortunately it failed because things weren’t a total catastrophe yet and people could still keep their heads in the sand. If it’d been on the ballot this year, after the months-long budget crisis, it might well have passed. But it wasn’t. And what was on the ballot was completely idiotic, only put there to appease the republican hostage-takers. So everyone I know voted the straight “fuck initiatives” ticket, and so did I. Please don’t blame the “no” voters for this one; voting yes would have made everything much, much worse.

    What we desperately need is a constitutional convention. We need the supermajority rule to be overturned. Ideally, we should eliminate or radically scale back the initiative process so the republicans will stop voting themselves tax cuts and circuses (I’ve been saying for years that the only initiative petition I will ever sign is an initiative to ban initiatives). Doing exactly what the republicans want–imposing a spending cap and gutting children’s health and education programs–would not have been responsible.

  22. I guess I can’t blame you, Barbara, for hostility at being compared to MoDo – which was over the top, I admit. I totally agree with CanCan – I love this blog and it is usually superb. … To wrap up, Id say it’s a little facile to blame Cal voters for this mess, for lots of reasons. Think of it this way: were the launching of the Iraq War, the torture scandal, economic deregulation, and the response to Katrina, the fault of “American voters” for installing Bushco into power? Id say they were a failure of leadership. When leadership fails, it is right for the people to give a one-finger salute to the bogus solutions the irresponsible leaders put forth, which is exactly what California voters just did. … If that costs us bailout money, so be it.

    One other point. Our revenues are down relative to other states partly because we have some of the strongest environmental laws in the country. It is expensive to do business here, especially for businesses who trash the environment. That is a choice we have made. Now that the Obama administration has seen fit to adopt one of the most important and cutting-edge of those environmental laws (emissions standards), many of us think that will benefit the rest of the country and the world too. (You’re welcome.) So dont go accusing Californians of trying to get a free ride. We’re all making sacrifices here. Maybe if the Governator fails to get bailout money he will push for sensible long-term solutions like he should have from day one, and maybe that will accelerate the end of the 2/3rds requirement. The issue is not who gets bailout money. The issue is how to change this 2/3rds requirement as fast as possible – on that I think we agree. Peaceout!

  23. A little California history – We voted in Prop 13 to get rid of a property tax that was literally forcing us out of our homes. Residential property was being assessed at its potential value. So a home bought for $3000 years ago and now worth $100,000 (market value) would be assessed at the latter amount. So we were paying tax not on realized income but on potential income. (Sort of like being taxed on a future increase in salary rather than an actual salary.)

    As far as our notorious ballot-measures go, our state legislators decided years ago to pass measures that might be political dynamite for them to vote in or out down to us. (It’s called, literally, passing the buck.) Too many of us are unable to understand what we’re voting for or against at the same time as too many of us cast an unwise vote because we think we know all the resulting ramifications should the measure pass (and they’re usually impossible to know.)

    By the way, quite surprising to read that we had an exemplary elhi education system since I vividly remember kids coming to my elementary classroom from out of state who were at least two years ahead of us (me) in reading and math. Ah, the merry myth that is California.

  24. One of the things that sold Prop 13 was the rapid increases in property taxes in the 1970s. Relief for fixed income retirees was a big part of the pitch. A 70 year old grandma in the house she and her husband bought in the 40s was paying higher taxes than their former mortgage payment.

    Prop 13 should have applied to a Primary Residence only. Business and investment property value increases should have still seen property tax increase. Save Grandma, let others pay their fair share.

    I wasn’t a California resident at the time of Prop 13 – I am a part time CA resident now. I voted yesterday – yes on 1A and 1F, no on 1B-E.

  25. Stayed home and boycotted this ballot. These were terrible compromises meant to hurt the state in future years for the sake of solving an immediate budget crisis. Either a vote in favor or against would have been more harmful than good, in my own view.

  26. By the way I am very much in favor of initiative and coming from a state, Pennsylvania, in which there is no access to the ballot by the people, California is a much better state for having it, even though some of the propositions are terrible and some of the terrible propositions pass. It’s not like legislators don’t give us terrible results sometimes, too.

    That said, Prop 13 needs to be repealed, and replaced with something that protects individual homeowners from losing their primary residence.

  27. CanCan Man: Yes exactly. You can believe there is a serious problem, you can believe taxes are a potential solution, but you can also believe the specific solutions put in front of you as propositions are ridiculous and intolerable. The propositions were badly written compromises that were evidence that the legislature was not doing its job. They may need to change the constitution to get rid of this supermajority because it grinds the state to a halt every time there’s a budget due.

  28. The gerrymandering of districts is the worst problem we face, and it is too seldom mentioned. It results in radical and inflexible politics in Sacramento, and in representation that is far more rigid than the constituency that is represented.

    Umm…no. Gerrymandered districts are a piece of the puzzle, but they’re not the biggest piece by a long shot. Gerrymandering isn’t even the sole cause of party polarization, which is a process that has been occurring for a lot of other reasons–gerrymandered districts just accentuate the effect.

    Most importantly, though, the problem isn’t “radical and inflexible politics in Sacramento”; the problem is radical and inflexible Republican politics in Sacramento. When even a relatively moderate Republican like Schwarzenegger starts out with a rigid no-tax-increase-ever position, it’s clear that the Republican party has gone way off the ideological cliff. Democrats in the legislature compromised and compromised and compromised some more, but in the end it was Republican intransigence that was the obstacle.

    A little California history – We voted in Prop 13 to get rid of a property tax that was literally forcing us out of our homes.

    And here’s a little California history for you: there was a competing proposition on the ballot that would have made sure nobody got forced out of their homes, but wouldn’t have de-funded government on a massive scale and wouldn’t have given billions in free money to big corporate landowners. Anyone who was genuinely concerned about the problems of, say, fixed-income retirees should have voted for that one instead of Prop 13. Anyone who wasn’t an extremely wealthy owner of multiple properties who did vote for Prop 13 is simply too fucking stupid to live.

  29. I like ballot initiatives.

    I have some concern about how ballot access is financed – paid signature gathering has some issues. There are also problems with how campaigns are financed once a proposition is on the ballot – the out of state money for proposition H8 is a good example.

    A third state constitutional convention seems like a good idea. Limit it to budget, tax and referenda reform.

  30. I’ve lived in CA my entire 48 years. Don’t mind paying increased taxes to help our state, but the government here seems to suck. They will not cut anything substantive, only raise taxes. We need to do both.

    I don’t believe we should be bailed out. It’s our mess.

    But also, please remember, before you piss on all of us, that one reason CA is in this situation is Bush letting the energy producers gouge the state for years. Gotta love the free market.

  31. Felicity got it right. I lived in So.Cal. from ’74 thru ’89. I didn’t own a home until’79, but I remember the Jarvis-Gann prop 13. Many retired people who bouht property, particularly in areas like the Palos Verdes Penn. that were’n’t desirable in the 60’s but became “hot” in the late 70’s ans 80’s were in jepordy of loosing their holme because they couldn’t afford the sky rocketing taxes due to the rediculously hot real estate market….. which crashed in ’89-’90, and didn’t recover for about 15 years.

    From ’79 thru ’98, I ran a very sucessful commercial diving company, my personal income was between $70,000 – $90,000 per year. My income tax was 55%.
    When you’re 25 years old and the govt takes home more than you do off the sweat of your labor ( not to mention the danger involved and the insurance requirements), it gets to be a bit of a pisser-offer. But on the flip side, I lived VERY well, and those were the best years of my life in regards to being young, fit, and financially solid.

  32. I certainly do not know much about California law or politics or the history of how it got itself into the present mess, but I do have some observations based on my state’s situation and the national scene. First, it seems that things have to get very bad before people will consider higher taxes or,in California’s case, even bothering to vote. On the national scene, I doubt whether Obama would have won and won as convincingly as he did if the economy had not collapsed. Even with Katrina, 2 wars, the disregard of human rights and the U.S. Constitution and Sarah Palin, McCain would have won or made it a nail biter if the economy had been humming and I suspect that turnout would have been much lower. For the life of me, I can not fathom a 19% turnout. In Wisconsin we would get a 19% turnout just from the teachers union and state and local government workers and they would not be voting to end their jobs. At least the folks whose livelihood depends on state money must believe in the Tooth Fairy. While there will undoubtedly be great misery disproportionately visited on the poorest folks in California (they could have voted!), I believe that only by watching the state collapse will Californians realize that less taxes and smaller government may sound good, but it is a recipe for dystopia. The great thing is that it will do away with the need for proposition 13–Grandma’s house will again be worth the $3000 she paid for it 50 years ago because nobody will want to live in the state. On a much smaller scale Wisconsin is facing the same thing. The difference is that we have a Democratic governor with Democratic majorities in the legislature and apart from sin taxes they refuse to raise taxes or cut services because they are all politicians who care about nothing but the next election. the end will be the same as California without the referendum and two thirds majority requirements.

  33. You know what’s funny about all this?

    Or, I should say, what’s enfuriating about this is that this is the same discussion that always caused us progressive to throw things at our TVS when they bring it up on mainstream-news-stations. I’m talking about that old canard about how “both parties share equally in this partisanship issue.”

    We all know that the Republicans are playing far dirtier and being far less flexible, and they have proven again and again that they don’t care who gets hurt in the process.

    It’s the same situation in California, but in miniature, and for some reason this has to be explained all over again. Even to supposed progressives.

    THE CURRENT CROP OF REPUBLICANS CANNOT BE REASONED WITH. And it’s no different in California. If anything, they’re more marginalized here, so they end up behaving even more radically.

    Sorry for all the bolding, but I do that when I get frustrated.

  34. I think there’s a massive misreading of the current mood of Californians based on what I’m feeling (and I am of course the final arbiter in these matters). I don’t mind paying reasonable taxes in exchange for services, I’m just sick to death of the scurvy bastards in Sacramento going into vaporlock and punting the difficult issues back to voters, over and over and over again. I think we just voted for the Governator to get off his rock-hard butt and show his own Republicans that he carries a bigger stick than Grover Norquist. The Repubs in Sacto, and their Dem enablers, have done all they could to avoid a come-to-Jesus meeting – looks like the time is now.

  35. Maha U R off target …again. But I do read your blog everday (for years). I also live in California. I remember we used to be the fifth largest economy in the World. Now we are the eighth largest economy in the World. Not sure if anyone on this site was fond of the “bailouts” for Wall Street (investment companys). But the California budget defecit is nowhere near what has been given away to the likes of Goldman-Sachs/AIG.
    I also like the initiative system. I just don’t like how they are written. And who writes them. They seem that they are written to be totally confusing to the average person, so that the voter is not sure if they are for it, or against it. I didn’t bother voting yesterday because the lunacy of the initiatives. They would not have “fixed’ anything. Only delayed the problems. So that the Governator could pass the buck to the next administration. (Sound familiar ?)
    By the way Maha. California IS the Most Progressive state; Gay Marriage, Medical Marijuana.
    Again, Prop. 8 is a perfect example. This Proposition banned Gay Marriage by writing the ban into the California Constitution. This garbage should not have even been on the ballot the way it was written (by Republicans and their homophobe friends). By the way not everyone in Cali is gay and smokes pot.

  36. The question on the table is whether the Federal governement should bailout California and a 21 BILLION dollar deficit. Some sideissues are a 2/3 supermajority rule, and Prop13 mandate which holds taxes down, ultrapartisan Republicans, gerymandering, etc. Put the sideissues aside.

    I was born in California; lived in N. California for over 30 years. I love the state and the people. They’re in a hell of a mess, and they are going to have to find a way out. They have an obligation to balance the budget, and they can’t/won’t raise taxes. They’re screwed unless DC comes to the rescue.

    CA is going to be front & center for the GOP revolution. Republicans intend to ‘starve the beast’, forcing the government to live within the means of the no-tax-increase commandment that Reagan brought down from the mount. If ‘we’ bail the state out, the Republicans will claim we spoiled what they were going to prove & illustrate about how low taxes and small government is the one true path.

    So let ’em. California will look like the return of the Great Depression. People will die for lack of medical care. Schools will fail; entire governements will be unable to provide basic services or even make payroll. We may see riots. Keep the national focus on California and make sure the other 49 states understand – this is where the Republicans will lead ALL of us!!!

    The Federal Government should make it clear we want to assist California, but we won’t subsidize a State Government that’s totally dysfunctional (year after year). Pass a State Constitution that the experts say will work, and we will write a blank check for all past debts – once. But until you can come up with a plan – we are sorry.

    “It’s no kindness to hang a man slowly.” We have to hang back and let this play out. Trust the good people of California to revolt and restore sanity. If we subsidise this mess, we delay the revolution that CALIFORNIANS must lead.

  37. California voters have rejected the false choices presented to them in yesterday’s election – not because we prefer mugging the Tooth Fairy or that we expect to be bailed out like the wealthy banks that we were told would cause a global melt down – not that we know for sure if that really would have happened but we did it anyway just in case they weren’t lying this time and we’re never lied to, doncha know. And we didn’t reject these false choices because we were irresponsible. We know that these choices were very difficult. Propositions 1A-1E were the final leg of a fundamentally broken California budget and budget process. If these propositions passed, there would be some additional funding in the short run for education, but we would permanently crippled our ability to meet human needs by capping spending, even compared to its current recession level.

    In addition, these six propositions would have slashed mental-health funding, capped spending for essential services at a time when they’re needed most, imposed new taxes and fees that are especially hard on poor and middle-class Californians. The longer term costs if these propositions had passed were far too high.

    The problem in California is not one of overspending. The problem is that California plays by rules so extreme that only two other states follow them. These rules take a situation made difficult by a severe recession and make it literally impossible. We have to change the rules.

    Currently, there must be a two-thirds vote in the legislature to pass a budget or any new taxes. California needs to change this rule so that democracy can work by majority rule.

  38. And here’s a little California history for you: there was a competing proposition on the ballot that would have made sure nobody got forced out of their homes, but wouldn’t have de-funded government on a massive scale and wouldn’t have given billions in free money to big corporate landowners. Anyone who was genuinely concerned about the problems of, say, fixed-income retirees should have voted for that one instead of Prop 13.

    I did a little researching – I think this is referring to Proposition 8 on the June 6, 1978 primary ballot along with Proposition 13. Reading the California voters pamphlet for that election Proposition 8 didn’t guarantee relief for owner occupied homes, it only allowed the legislature the option of doing so. Prop 13 in contrast guaranteed immediate relief. The arguments against Prop 13 in that pamphlet did point out the loss of revenues, but remember there was the Cadillac Welfare Queen as a target for that spending decrease and essential services were promised to be kept whole. It also appears that the argument against a 2/3 majority to raise taxes wasn’t made, and the policy issues of this portion of Prop 13 weren’t noted by the legislative analyst.

    It’s arguable that the no revenue increases without a 2/3 majority is a bigger problem than the restriction on property taxes most of us think of when we think of Prop 13.

  39. How would repealing Proposition 13 work in practice?

    The main problem with it is that state tax revenue can’t increase without 2/3 of the legislature agreeing. I think we might be able to change that to a 55% super majority – Prop 39 on Nov 7, 2000 used a 55% threshold for voter approved taxes for school facilities.

    In practice that would mean Democrats could raise tax revenue without republican help given current Assembly and Senate partisan composition.

  40. “were the launching of the Iraq War, the torture scandal, economic deregulation, and the response to Katrina, the fault of “American voters” for installing Bushco into power?”

    Yes, yes, yes!!!!!! Especially in 2004.

  41. Several comments:

    I’ve read that the earliest the supermajority requirement can be challenged (by a proposition) will be mid 2010. Agree with commenters that a minority of far right Republicans holds the state hostage. It should be “majority rules” period.

    I hate ballot propositions. They’re way too easily subverted by special interests of all kinds, and they mostly yield unintended or unrealized consequences. They hamstring the legislature – many of the propositions on Tuesday’s ballot were about undoing the effects of earlier propositions for the end of balancing the budget. I long for boring but mostly effective government, such as I enjoyed growing up in Pennsylvania. What we have in California is just plain nuts.

    I am tempted to agree with The Economist, when they say the whole edifice should be scrapped and CA state government started over. I suspect it would be impossible to unify the state were this attempted.

    Expect to hear more calls to legalize marijuana. Our budget woes could be solved nearly instantly were our number one cash crop made legal and taxable.

  42. Ok (and I’ve not read the comments, and only hit the first part of the post (up to the comment about the tooth fairy).

    That’s not what happened.
    1: The combined effects of the propositions was to take an already buggered system, and make it worse. They were designed to straightjacket the state in times of plenty, and hamstring it in times of dearth. Gover Norquist couldn’t have planned a better way to starve a gov’t.

    If the state saw a surplus, it had to sock the money away for rainy days. If the rainy days came, it had to do the same, but could tap into the surplus. The Surplus, however, is the first thing which needed to be spent on when the better times came back.

    2: The real problems with California’s finances are structural, and both are directly related to Prop. 13.

    First, Prop. 13 made it a requirement that 2/3rds of the legislature approve of a budget. That gives the various whackjob factions of the minority the ability to hammerlock the process. The dems were guilty of a bit of that when they were in the minority (no, I misspeak, there were parts of the Democratic Caucus who engaged in some obstructionism), but nothing like the Republicans have been.

    Second, Prop 13 made it impossible to raise taxes. Property taxes cannot be raised above a 1 percent total of the value of the property. Properties cannot be reappraised except at sale, or when certain types of improvements are done (so taking equity out; for things which don’t affect the house has no impact. The new valuation from the mortgage appraisal is not an issue). When a property is reappraised, the new tax is eased in. Not more than a 2 percent increase on the previous years payment can happen.

    Non-property taxes require a 2/3rds majority of the legislature, or a 2/3rds majority of the voters.

    Bonds, on the other hand, only require a simple majority.

    But Bonds are more expensive than taxes. The average cost of a bond-issue is twice the value of the bonds sold. The only bond issues which have not been that way are the CalVet Bonds, which are the California Equivalent of the Veternans Housing Administration loans. Those have actually paid for themselves.

    So, what happens is taxes (which Calif. has a great record of raising for special needs, and then letting sunset) are presented as initiatives (because no politician is all that willing to propose a new tax; not in the climate since Reagan), and they get about 56 percent of the vote.

    But Bonds are presented as initiatives, and they pass with about 52 percent of the vote.

    Adding insult to injury, the bonds are paid from the General Fund, which means that other services have to be cut to pay for them. Which leads to more bonds, which leads to more cuts and the positive feedback loop leads to this.

    And the intiatives (esp. the first two, which were linked) were going to make it worse, because they were going to take more money from the general fund to make the rainy-day fund.

  43. a significant percentage (maybe a majority) of California voters maintain a delusional belief in the Anti-Tax Fairy, who bestows all the services of government without anyone having to pay.

    There’s a name for this belief system.
    It’s called “Reaganomics”.
    It was invented in California, and aggressively inculcated in the state’s wealthier citizens by the Jarvis-Gann direct-mail organization (which bypassed the relatively-sane Republican party organization).
    The nation got treated to a mild dose of it during Reagan and a stronger dose during Bush 43 — here, we got the straight stuff, and it drove every sane and responsible person (e.g. Tom Campbell) out of California Republican political organizations.

    The Republican Party’s radical anti-tax wing created this monster out of raw material comprising normal, self-centered, short-sighted everyday citizens. A different, more responsible, less selfish and greedy sort of leadership would have found and led the way toward more workable long-term solutions.

    If Californians believe that there is too such a thing as a free lunch, I submit that the political party that has spent thirty five years campaigning on the idea that “Cutting taxes on the wealthy produces free lunch for everyone” might possibly be somewhat responsible for that belief.

  44. wonders how all of those repugs got into office… I thought Cal. was a dem state.
    Remembers the energy meeting behind closed doors and how enron really screwed Cal. To me.. it is stunning that everyone in the state isn’t out there voting and calling their reps daily…

    glad VA is a balanced budget state
    but remembers we have a bunch of repugs in our capital that does the same slimey stuff (like burying a bomb in our budget for the dem governor to sign, that until the courts said it was illegal, had the residents of the state paying triple any moving violation fines that people out of state that messed up in the state got)

    Maybe everyone should start underlining exactly who is tearing our democracy apart.

  45. I thought the chronological list of polls on Ballotpedia told the story best:

    When people first heard about them, the polls were overwhelmingly favorable: 1A was at 57% approval. But over the course of the next few months — presumably as people began to understand more about them — their approval plummeted (down to 29% for 1A, ending at 32% in one poll).

    I think most Republican proposals tend to follow the same curve:

    “Pay more taxes to fix the problem? I guess we can do that if we have to … What’s that you say? This will permanently cripple the structure of government so we can’t even spend the money we have in an emergency? No thanks. Try again.”

    Or how about this:

    “Healthy Forests Initiative? I’m all for it! Wait — it’s all about giving more logging rights to clearcutters? WTF?”

    Or

    “Patriot Act”? Sounds great! Wait — the government gets to do WHAT? He** no!”

    I’m just surprised Maha was pulled into this one. Where is she today, anyway?

  46. I thought Cal. was a dem state.

    California is above all a divided state.

    Democrats running for Senator have a fairly reliable statewide edge; but in recent years the Governor has been Republican more often than not (and either odious, as in Deukmejian and Wilson, or worthless, as in Schwarzenegger). Our Congressional caucus is even more polarized than the nation at large — we send to the House some of the best liberals (Waxman!) and many of the most recondite reactionaries (Pombo, Doolittle, Duke Cunningham, Dana Rohrabacher, etc.).

    The San Francisco Bay area as a whole is strongly Democratic, as is much of the Los Angeles basin.
    But wherever the wealthy live, there you find enclaves of strong I’ve-got-mine-Jack-so-fuck-everyone-else Republicanism. And the Central Valley and “Inland Empire” (who could not thrive without sucking on Federal water projects and agricultural subsidies) are all very very Red State, and continually demand that the Federal Government stop taxing and regulating and go away, (except first please build more dams and irrigation and highways and and oh also we need bigger subsidies for our vast agribusinesses).

    I know where there’s an unincorporated placer-mining community in a fold of the Sierra Foothills that calls itself a “freehold”: where most of the adult men go armed, and a sign states that the local vigilante posse is “sovereign”, and claims to nullify all other law — sort of a libertarian paradise, except that placer mining is hard work and doesn’t pay much, so you don’t get to live like Dagny Taggart or Reardon.

    And as we’ve seen nationally, nearly-equal division of power between strongly polarized parties is a recipe for ineffective government if a small minority has the power to obstruct.

    I think an important part of solving California’s problems is to break the iron control that the most extreme elements of the Republican party exercise on Republican nominations. The Republican activists here simply will not nominate anyone to the left of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. I think that open primaries would help a lot. I assume that Democrats will not be happy with the possible effects of open primaries on our own party, but that it must be done because the last fifteen years of California state politics constitute an untenable situation that has now reached crisis proportions.

    I sure wish that Hari Seldon would show up soon to tell us how we’ve already figured out the inevitable solution.

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