Few people that I know have not seen the movie Groundhog Day, where 
comedian Bill Murray plays a television news weatherman who keeps re-living the same day (starting at 6 a.m.) over, and over, and over again. It would appear that San Diego City voters are being treated to their own real-life version of Groundhog day – this one not so funny.
In early 2009, politicians in Sacramento cooked up in a back room Proposition 1A. This measure contained some purported reforms (the credibility of which was debunked) in exchange for California voters approving a two year extension of car, sales and income taxes to the tune of over $14 billion dollars. On May 19 of last year, the voters sent a very loud and clear message to the political class by rejected Proposition 1A, and not by a small margin. In the final tally 65.4% of voters – nearly two-thirds – voted no. By any measure, a landslide loss for the measure. Voters were simply not willing to tax themselves more to feed the enormous spending appetite of state legislators.
In San Diego, election day is, in fact, their Groundhog Day. Once again, a group of politicians (this time from the City of San Diego) have cooked up another back room deal, and have placed yet another tax increasing ballot measure before the voters – Proposition D. Once again we have another measure that purports to contain meaningful reforms (umm, no they aren’t) that will be adopted in exchange for, you guessed it, higher taxes. In this case, voters are asked to foist a ½ cent sales tax increase on themselves to generate an estimated $100+ million in new tax revenue for city coffers. It would appear that voters are going to have to send a message to the political ruling class – that they are not willing to give a city that has misplaced spending priorities even more money to spend.
If politicians think that there are reforms that will help the city, that require voter approval, than they should place them on the ballot without a “poison pill” of higher taxes. According to April Boling, an acknowledged expert on city finance and a former candidate for City Council, “there is nothing in the ten triggers that the mayor and council have not already had the opportunity to do, but chose not to do.”
A particularly disingenuous ballot statement in support of Proposition D (signed by, among others, bosses of two of the city’s largest and most influential public employee unions) actually purports that passing the measure will lead to some sort of pension reform – which, of course, it does not. If it did, Proposition D would not have labor support. As Lani Lutar, President of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association says, “Proposition D does not guarantee any funding for priority services including public safety. The funds could just as easily go to salary increases and skyrocketing pension costs.”
Leading the successful statewide coalition that defeated Proposition 1A last year was the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. This year, HJTA is an important part of the broad group of folks opposing San Diego’s Proposition D. HTJA President Jon Coupal says of the measure, “Prop. D is one of the most misleading and deceptive tax increase measures we have seen. We urge voters to reject this measure in November."
One thing that is unfortunately very clear is that in the midst of this recession, when everyone is having to make do with less, is that San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders and most of the City Council (with the noted exceptions of Kevin Faulconer and Carl DeMaio) seem to think that they should not have to shrink city spending and prioritize better with less money coming in the door. Voters will have a chance to send a message to these politicos loud and clear by soundly rejecting Proposition D.
No doubt when they decided to title this ballot measure as D city insiders joked about “D” standing for, “Dumb voters.” When election day comes and goes, however, it will be clear that that “D” message going back to the politicians is, “Do your job. Do it with less.”
Flashreport Publisher Jon Fleischman has served as the elected Vice Chairman, South, of the California Republican Party since 2007. Both the San Diego County Republican Party and California Republican Party strongly oppose Measure D.