|
|
|
|
Barry’s ballot guide It’s voting time. As usual, we are presented with an interesting collection of initiatives. While several are retreads of old ideas or just someone’s whim, one in particular has won my nomination for worst initiative ever. I know, that’s a very high bar, but it’s such a cynical measure that it merits special attention. Think you know which one it is? Read on to find out. The titles are the official ones from the voter information guide. As always, I welcome your input. I reserve the right to be entirely wrong as well. Without further delay, here we go. Proposition 19 Many years ago, voters were asked this same question. The answer was overwhelmingly no. It will be much closer in 2010. We have the usual arguments (let people be adults and make their own decisions versus it’s a slippery slope that leads to bigger trouble). I find it interesting that most politicians oppose the measure because they are afraid of being seen as weak on crime. There are questions on how much legalization would hurt drug lords in Mexico. It certainly would not help them any. It all boils down to this: is our current policy working for us? I have to say no. It’s time to try something different. It’s just like prohibition was for alcohol, and we are better off for having cut that experiment after a few disastrous years. Frankly, I think pot stinks – literally. I never liked what the stuff did to my friends, but they all survived it. I saw a lot more of them hurt by alcohol, and not all of them did survive that. It can’t get any easier to get than it is for high school students already. Let’s admit this isn’t working. Let’s legalize it and tax the hell out of it – just like alcohol. Plus, we’ll save a bundle on currently wasted enforcement dollars. Say bye to the drug dealers. Recommendation – YES Proposition 20 In 2008, we voted to take the creation of state legislative districts away from the legislators. Hooray! I applied to be on the commission to create the new districts. Wisely, they told me no. Proposition 20 adds congress to that list. If you have seen the shapes of the districts, you know why we need to take away redistricting from the politicians who want to represent those districts. It makes the state budget process look brilliant by comparison. If you want Congressional districts drawn by a balanced citizen’s commission with the goal of forming compact districts, vote yes. If you want the legislature to keep drawing the districts, vote no. If only redistricting nationwide were taken away from the politicians! Recommendation – YES Proposition 21 State parks have been cut like everything else in the state budget. In fact, they’ve been hurt more because they do not have the constitutional protections education and other parts of the budget have. The result is a huge maintenance backlog that is creating a painful eventual cost. The backers of Proposition 21 came up with this measure as a way to bring in $500 million a year, primarily for maintenance. The deal they came up with gives cars with California plates free use for day access, which is the most common fee. The surcharge does not apply to commercial vehicles. Opposition to the measure says the state should cut other things instead and that the measure is promoting wasteful spending. They also claim it is really a way to bring back the car tax. Uh, no. It’s a tax to pay for state parks. We can decide if we want to tax ourselves to maintain our parks or not. That’s all. I am afraid we are going to have to close many parks due to deferred maintenance if we don’t do something soon. Paying a bit now to save a lot later seems like a pretty good idea. Recommendation – YES Proposition 22 Disclosure: I gathered signatures for this measure. For the last several years, the California legislature has begged, borrowed and stolen from wherever they could to balance the budget. They should have made some big cuts AND raised some taxes years ago, but that’s water under the bridge now. They have made matters worse by taking money from cities and counties. That’s like balancing your budget by taking cash from your neighbors. Very nice. Proposition 22 says the state can’t take money designated for local governments including redevelopment agencies. Let me comment on redevelopment agencies since I work for one. We are the state’s only real economic development engine, and we use only local property tax dollars to do that, not income tax, gas tax, sales tax or anything else. We invest in development, affordable housing and business assistance. The state took $9 million from us alone. That’s a lot of projects I can’t do and money I can’t get out there working. Let me know if you want the details. It’s all posted on line on the city web site. I almost forgot to note the state changed the gas sales tax into an excise tax to be able to use it on debt service instead of transportation. Very clever, but it’s time to knock off the accounting tricks. Recommendation – YES Proposition 23 The legislature passed AB 32 in 2006, which was pushed by the governor. It follows California’s history of air pollution reduction leadership. The law is not a constitutional amendment and can be changed by the legislature. It contains a clause allowing the governor to suspend the law. Proposition 23 circumvents all that to throw it out. The measure is sponsored by out of state oil companies and is not supported by the other oil companies. Some business groups support the measure, saying it will safeguard jobs. Other business groups say the measure will wipe out new jobs in emerging industries. Clearly this is not a simple matter, so the sledgehammer action of Proposition 23 hardly seems appropriate. In my work, I hear all the time that companies want certainty and stability in regulation. That is what is feeding the renewable energy sector and actually creating jobs in the manufacturing sector. Proposition 23 is an attempt by some companies to sacrifice those businesses to help themselves. Perhaps that’s good business, but it’s hardly ethical. If there are changes to be made, it should be handled through the deliberative process and not by a proposition. Recommendation – No Proposition 24 In 2008 and 2009, the legislature approved changes to the way businesses are taxed. These impact how a net operating loss is counted, how a multi-state business counts its California portion of operations and how businesses with multiple entities share tax credits. Proposition 24 moves to repeal these changes to bring in more tax revenue. Proponents want to bring in more taxes to support state programs. It seems they have selected these particular items by a focus group and polling to see what would fly. That doesn’t seem like good public policy. Are these tax changes good for the economy overall? Are we creating uncertainty for businesses? It does not appear that these issues were important to the authors. Tax laws like this should not be done by referendum. There is no room for review and discussion. Maybe some of these should be changed, but this is not a good way to do it. Recommendation – No Proposition 25 Changes legislative vote requirement to pass budget and budget-related legislation from two-thirds to a simple majority. Retains two-thirds vote requirement for taxes. As it is now, it takes a two-thirds vote of both the state assembly and state senate to pass a budget. Only Rhode Island and Arkansas have this requirement. The other 47 states manage to have budgets that require only a majority vote. Proposition 25 changes that to a majority but does not change the two-thirds requirement for taxes. For those who think going to a majority budget would be worse, I can only ask one question: how’s the current system working for you? For the last several years, it has meant the budget is a cobbled together mess with lots of “special” side deals to get enough votes. I might add that even in the good years, we couldn’t get a truly balanced budget. There were gimmicks and one-time shifts to make it work. The official opponents of this change seem to like the current system. They say the change would make it easier to increase taxes. Section 3, sub-section 2 of this measure specifically states says, “This measure will not change the two-thirds requirement for the Legislature to raise taxes.” No court could say this means anything else. So why are the opponents saying otherwise? Heaven knows why. Maybe they were treated badly as children. In any case, they are lying. Maybe that’s not a nice word for it, but at least it’s correct. Proposition 25 will cut way back on the hidden deals every year and get us a budget sooner. One more detail – if there is no budget, legislators don’t get paid. Many cities have such a requirement, and it makes a huge difference. Recommendation – Yes Proposition 26 Requires that certain state local fees be approved by two-thirds vote. Fees include those that address adverse impacts on society or the environment caused by the fee-payer’s business. How’s that title for an interesting one? As the law states now, taxes need a two-thirds vote of the legislature for state taxes or a public vote for local taxes. Fees can be approved by the legislative body. Proposition 26 reports to be fixing this situation to make it harder to implement fees that are really taxes. Like what? Tobacco companies have to pay some fees for health impacts. Oil companies have to pay into clean up funds. They create the problem, so they have to pay for it. Sounds fair. Some companies don’t believe they should have to pay such fees, so they want them called taxes to avoid them. Nice. They say agencies could still impose many fees, but the burden of proof that it is a fee and not a tax falls on the government, which is the rest of us. These companies will threaten to litigate, and cities will fold under the pressure. The result is that the burden for these costs will fall to everyone else, which again is the rest of us. By the way, you’ve probably heard business taxes are higher in California than other states. While we could certainly do better at smart and easy to follow regulation, our tax burden is pretty much in line with other states. Property taxes are much lower. Here’s a study on the subject: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-adv-biz-taxes-20101024,0,3837807.story Recommendation – No Proposition 27 Eliminates state commission on redistricting. Consolidates authority for redistricting with elected representatives. They saved the best for last. That was sarcasm. Redistricting has been a real mess. If you look at a map of the current legislative districts, you will be amazed at how bizarrely shaped they are. The reason is the political parties worked together to create safe districts. There is very little turnover between the parties, which has ensured more extreme members of each party win. The voters approved a new citizen redistricting commission in 2008. The commission will soon begin work on new districts based on creating compact and sensible districts. The folks in charge don’t like the new system. They want the legislators to draw their own districts. Heck, I think we should all set our own pay rates too, just like in Bell. They claim letting the legislators do the job will save money. Letting junior high school students build highway bridges would save money too, but the price of the savings would be very high. Yes, this is the winner of the “worst initiative on the ballot.” Congratulations to the authors, and congratulations to you for reading this far down! Recommendation – No way, Jose!
|
|
