We have a small blog in our local paper about Prop 1E. I posted to quote a part of your ballot argument and said “I don’t make recommendations on how to vote but you should understand that this is what political leadership is about in terms of facing up to tough choices”.

So I count you as a friend and hope you take these comments as a sign of a friend sharing your care for our state’s future.

You just penned an honest and gut-wrenching story of how you came to support these propositions and how tough the legislative climate is.

Yet I now know that what might make me vote no is the ads for the propositions. I am developing a different take on what this “the voters don’t trust government” issue. I think politicians often treat voters as children and voters know they are listening to a lot of bs.

Take a look at the ads. How are we ever going to pull together and face tough choices if this is the way we communicate to voters? Somebody must be telling you all that speaking truth to voters as you did so eloquently above is bad for winning elections.

Well, for me, the track record of approaching voters this way ranks right up there with Bernie Madoff and purchasers of securitized home loans in terms of track record.

Why should voters listen to leaders given the way we handle state initiative debates, ballot arguments and ads? Your statement on 1E was a shining light on how to lead but I don’t see much courage elsewhere.

I am all ears here. I invited people to give me a good reason to vote no. Mark, what would a citizen who owns the enterprise do here since he or she aren’t dictators.

The Field Poll today said that eliminating the 2/3 voting requirement polled under 30%.

Jean, you say that Prop 1A would restrain spending to populaiton plus inflation, which I agree is bad policy. I don’t think Fred or Tim read it that way and neither do I though I do not favor spending limits.

You both hint that these propositions are terrible policy,

My question remains “What practical outcome can you point me towards that is reasonably feasible or should I just vote no and hope for the best.

Life is about choices. Show me another choice that is better.

Steve

I am all ears here. I invited people to give me a good reason to vote no. Mark, what would a citizen who owns the enterprise do here since he or she aren’t dictators.

The Field Poll today said that eliminating the 2/3 voting requirement polled under 30%.

Jean, you say that Prop 1A would restrain spending to population plus inflation, which I agree is bad policy. I don’t think Fred or Tim read it that way and neither do I though I do not favor spending limits.

You both hint that these propositions are terrible policy,

My question remains “What practical outcome can you point me towards that is reasonably feasible” or should I just vote no and hope for the best.

Life is about choices. Show me another choice that is better.

Steve

While I agree that the character of state spending will likely shift as a result of Proposition 1A as Mark argues, that shift might not be as significant as he seems to think. I think a portion of current General Fund spending for debt service and infrastructure will shift to being funded from the rainy day fund, thereby moving some of these costs out of the General Fund.

Second, the revenue cap imposed by Proposition 1A would be imposed on existing revenues. Thus, if taxes are raised (admittedly not easy to do), those new revenues can be spent without regard to the revenue cap. Over time the revenue cap would be adjusted to accommodate these new revenues.

More important, I think the question that we face in trying to decide whether to vote for these measures is, as Dan Weintraub has said, “compared to what.” While the Legislature and the Governor should have set funds aside when they could have, the severity of the recession means that we’d be in a deep hole even if they had. And while I would have crafted a mechanism for managing revenue spikes differently (such as not trying to build a rainy day fund while still recovering from the recession), I worry about the impact on programs from the loss of $15 billion in revenue a couple of years from now if Proposition 1A fails.

And though I agree that borrowing from future taxpayers to pay for current services, as Proposition 1C would do, is generally not good public finance practice, might it make sense in this instance to cushion the recession’s impact on programs and not hit the economy with even more spending cuts?

Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves what the alternative is given the hand we’ve been dealt, even though we may not like the way the game’s been played.

In other words, should we be voting as calculating political analysts (this is lousy but we can’t expect our politics to produce something better or different)? Or should we be voting as citizens who own this enterprise and are setting the standards for the management to live up to?