Are Californians taking the lead again?
The People Reject 5 Out Of 6 Ballot Props
| Do voters have more sense than lawmakers? We trim and append this 2009 article from CBS, May 20, on Tuesday’s election results. |
by CBS 5
California’s budget has a $42 billion deficit.Tossing aside warnings of impending financial doom, California's voters rejected five of six propositions intended to close the deficit that included a mix higher taxes and borrowing and funding shifts. The sixth of the measures on politician pay was approved.
Here are the six statewide propositions:
- Props. 1A: Spending Restraint, Tax Hikes
California voters rejected a spending cap while prolonging temporary tax increases. Proposition 1A was the centerpiece of efforts by Schwarzenegger and other state officials. State employee unions opposed the spending cap, while anti-tax groups criticized the $16 billion in tax increases it would have triggered.
- Prop. 1B: School Funding
Voters rejected giving California schools first crack at about $9.3 billion in state funding they say they're owed. 1B was part of a deal Schwarzenegger and legislators worked out with the powerful California Teachers Association.
- Prop. 1C: Lottery Borrowing
Voters rejected letting the state to borrow $5 billion against future lottery earnings and authorizing larger jackpots. Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders said doing so would have encouraged more players, boosting revenue.
- Prop. 1D: Funding For Young Children
Voters rejected redirecting money from “First 5”, leaving $1.7 billion in a program that voters created 11 years ago for children age 5 and under. The program is funded through higher tobacco taxes. Each year, the program takes in less money as fewer Californians smoke.
- Prop. 1E: Mental Health Budget
Voters told lawmakers not to take money from mental health programs. 1E was backed by Senate President Darrell Steinberg who championed the original 2004 initiative that taxed millionaires to raise funds for mental health programs. Critics had warned the measure would cost the state more in the long run if mentally ill people were left without treatment.
- Prop. 1F: Lawmaker Pay During Deficit Years
If California is running a deficit, lawmakers shouldn't get a raise. Voters approved Proposition 1F, capping pay raises for lawmakers and statewide officials whenever state government runs a deficit.
California will now have to cut about 20% of its general fund spending to balance the budget through mid-2010. It could shorten the school year by seven days, lay off up to 5,000 state employees, and take money from local governments, which could mean cuts for police, firefighters, and teachers.
JJS: Instead of citizens paying taxes to politicians to pay bureaucrats to pay providers to service citizens, we could pay ourselves directly. That is, we could save money and geonomize. We could pay land dues into the public treasury and get “rent” dividends back, cutting out many middle people and obese bureaucratic overhead.
Presently, we pay both taxes to government and “rent” to landlords or lenders (directly; indirectly, the price of everything we buy includes the seller’s payment to landlords and lenders, too). Under geonomics, we’d replace taxes on income, sales, and buildings with taxes, fees, and dues that recover the annual socially-generated value of sites, resources, and ecosystem. By redirecting our “rental” payments into the public treasury, we can eliminate the counterproductive taxes we now pay, saving ourselves all that money.
Further, when we shift taxes off our efforts, onto our locations, we spur people to quit speculating and get busy putting prime parcels to best use. That attracts more investment and employment, raises wages and reverses inflation, and pretty much eradicates poverty. Hence no child of any age would need the state’s charity.
The greater commerce and more efficient land use also bids up the rent for prime lots and fattens our “Citizens Dividend” (a la Alaska’s oil dividend). With a generous share of society’s surplus -- all our spending on all the nature we use – plus enjoying a tax cut, people could easily afford both their land dues (or land taxes) and to hire the teachers and doctors of their choice. Police, of course, would remain a legitimate part of government, along with courts and roads -- truly essential social services.
As for those who can’t fend for themselves, instead of a centralized, hierarchical approach of institutionalization, might a voluntary, conscious approach work, even work better? In Costa Rica, when someone has a misfortune, the TV stations run ad campaigns to raise funds, a bit like how in a developed nation the media might help raise funds for victims of natural disasters. Whenever that wouldn’t work, government could be a backstop, but fewer people should feel ill, mentally or physically, when they’d have far fewer worries, as in a world of economic justice.
And with discretionary spending in the hands of citizens, not politicians, then a raise would not only be out of the question, a cut in legislative pay would be in order!
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Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics.
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Also see: Is Keynes correct after all?
Shifting taxes and subsidies would make the economy serve us
Obama promised change, so redo federal spending |
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