With the desire to find compromise in what is now a year-round budget standoff, some of the same old ideas come back to the forefront after all the ‘creative’ ones are shot down.
The creative approach to go around Republican legislators, Prop 13, [placed into the Constitution in 1978 by voters] and even Prop 218 [voter approved just 12 years ago in 1996] by voting in new taxes [known as new revenue] without a 2/3 vote via some creative [there’s that word again] legal wordsmithing has, thankfully for our economy and the rule of law, been stopped once again.
So another new old compromise idea takes center stage. "We can’t get the Republicans and the courts to let us trample the law on taxes…lets get the People to decide!" What the proponents of this approach forget is that the public thinks Sacramento and DC waste too much now and have spoken repeatedly on taxes. The brothers in the old cereal ads would be right this time as "Mikey hates everything." Just like term limit extensions…you keep asking, they keep telling you "no".
What gives the pro-taxers hope is that the knowledge that all the usual suspects will be whipped into a frenzy to get the people to buy into, or be scared into voting for these new taxes. Many millions of dollars will be extracted to pay for a full blitz of ads to threaten the public the loss of their health care, their schools, their public safety, Mom, and apple pie if these new taxes aren’t approved.
What makes this not a fair fight in 2009 California is that taxpayers own dollars are used more and more against them in these fights, via their own associations or, even arms of government and their department heads carefully [or not] walking the tightrope of using taxpayer dollars to advocate for more via new taxes. We’ve seen these coalitions organize very effectively the last few years to heavily fund, and coerce their members into supporting issues that even sometimes have no direct bearing on their business.
Those that advocate for taxpayers don’t have this unlimited well to draw from to fight these campaigns. So what must happen is everytime one of these issues qualifies, taxpayers, people in small businesses and all that think the proposal is harmful or wrong, must stop their productive activities to fight the lastest grab by government. They must commit time, dollars and angst, to defeat yet another tax, wondering how much longer is it worth the BS involved to stay in this state.
This brings me to the bottom line: When Republicans get sucked into this "let the people decide" to tax themselves, they are simply adding to the burden of those that work to 1) stop taxes and 2) promote instead government accountability. Republicans then are complicit in causing the need for the productive people of California having to stop what they’re doing and devote an additional portion of their precious time, from their families, their businesses, their "free time" [ask any small business owner in this state about free time] to defeat a new tax.
We see that it is rather stacked against the taxpaying public in 2009 California politics, that it takes a Herculean effort to defeat all those that would line up to feed at the trough, newly filled with hard earned taxpayer dollars. It is a good thing we have a 2/3 vote requirement for raising taxes and placing ballot items to do so. With so many that don’t have to pay them or that write these initiatives for their own payoff later, of course they’ll vote for them.
The pro-taxers make it sound like the end of the world without more of what you earn. Or in the case of all the bonds that keep getting passed, they deceive a more and more cynical public that has checked-out of paying attention to what they are really getting from government, with mounds of feel-good debt for things like High Speed Rail and Stem Cell Research bonds…very improper roles of state government, especially in the mess we’re in.
There is so much lament about overuse of the initiative process. Legislators, don’t do us a ‘favor’ and put it to a vote of the public. Pay attention to the word "Republic" on our state flag. The legislature needs to do its job, as the professionals that are sent there to understand fully the budget problem and fix what doesn’t work…not dump the responsibility on the lap of the public, who doesn’t have the time or inclination [and rightly so] to do their legislators job for them.
Republicans cannot be part of a "make the people decide" compromise that just hurts those that produce. We the public, will strive to save our initiatives for preserving our liberties and keeping Sacramento in line.