On the propositions, we won the two most important -- defeated the effort to kill the global warming law, and passed a majority budget rule -- but lost everything else (at least, with respect to my own vote; I ended up having mixed feelings about 19, since I found my friend Wade's arguments against it fairly persuasive, although I still kinda think that any step towards ending Prohibition would probably be better than what we're doing, and that if there were bad consequences we could sort them out by further steps in that direction). I'm particularly disappointed about 26; now ANY measure to raise revenue requires a 2/3 vote. So we can pass a budget, but we're constrained, basically forever, to the revenue structure we currently have, which has shifted, over the past forty years, to be more and more regressive. You cannot provide everyone in society a decent infrastructure to live their lives in, if those who benefit the most from gov't services do not pay their fair share. Instead, we'll continue trending towards a return to the 19th century: the very wealthy can buy their own private services -- gated communities with private security, private sources of clean water, etc. -- and the rest of us can have inadequate police and fire protection, water that may from time to time poison us, etc.
- Mood:
indescribable
Results...
On the propositions, we won the two most important -- defeated the effort to kill the global warming law, and passed a majority budget rule -- but lost everything else (at least, with respect to my own vote; I ended up having mixed feelings about 19, since I found my friend Wade's arguments against it fairly persuasive, although I still kinda think that any step towards ending Prohibition would probably be better than what we're doing, and that if there were bad consequences we could sort them out by further steps in that direction). I'm particularly disappointed about 26; now ANY measure to raise revenue requires a 2/3 vote. So we can pass a budget, but we're constrained, basically forever, to the revenue structure we currently have, which has shifted, over the past forty years, to be more and more regressive. You cannot provide everyone in society a decent infrastructure to live their lives in, if those who benefit the most from gov't services do not pay their fair share. Instead, we'll continue trending towards a return to the 19th century: the very wealthy can buy their own private services -- gated communities with private security, private sources of clean water, etc. -- and the rest of us can have inadequate police and fire protection, water that may from time to time poison us, etc.
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