Special election May 19, 2009! (Arnold: school, income, sales tax)

[killer2021]

How is everyone going to vote?

Read up on the props here:

Voter Information Guide - California Secretary of State

Here is how I am going to vote:

1a: No
1b: No
1c: No
1d: Yes
1e: Yes
1f: Yes

I think the most significant one is the 1a which if you vote yes would extent the recent tax increases (sales tax, income tax, vehicle license fees etc.) by two years. This tax increase generates about 13$ billion in revenue for the government. Pretty significant considering the government collected about 100$ billion, so pretty much a 10% increase.

The last three propositions are minor spending cuts but not much. Like 1-2 billion cut for special interests.

If these propositions don't pass the government has to figure out a way to make more cuts. I say just do a straight line cut until you get back in balance. We can't afford all the spending we are doing. That is the real problem. A lot of these are stop gap measures (borrow from future lottery profits, temporarily cut, tax increase etc.) They don't tackle the real problem which is spending. The school system even has the nerve to set up a payment plan to repay the money we cut from the budget this year! It never ends!

[Lovehound]

Um... There is already a topic California Special Election May 19.

Originally Posted by killer2021

A lot of these are spot gap measures ...

I think you mean stop gap.

[bhcompy]

I will be voting no on everything except D and F, eventhough I have reservations about D and F. F is funny since it includes people that do not have a vote on the budget(constitutional officers? governor is a bit tenuous as well)

[sav858]

This is a good article on Prop 1A: Colorado's woes don't augur well for Prop. 1A

If you guys want less govt spending right now would be one of the best times to enact a cap due to the lower revenues:

"If you start the cap in the depths of the worst recession since the Great Depression, that 10-year average isn't going to be very helpful" for needed social programs, said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California.

But keeping spending from growing too quickly when the economy recovers is one of the main purposes of any cap, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger bluntly put it in a visit to The Chronicle last month."

"The Taxpayers' Bill of Rights has saved our fiscal fanny over the years" by keeping the Legislature from boosting spending in the years when the money was flowing in, he said. "If not for (the spending cap), we'd be in the shape California is in."


But Colorado's fiscal problems have shifted the political winds, with labor unions, social reform groups and liberal activists pointing to the state as an example of troubles revenue limits can bring. "


So just look who opposes spending caps and ask yourself if you really want to side with these groups on fiscal issues.

[Curmudgeon]

After almost 20 years of working in, not for, the legislative arena in California I generally vote "No!" on all propositions. I view them as an end-run around what our elected representatives SHOULD be doing and have found most of them to be poorly written, badly applied and requiring more fixes than the worst lemon car on the lot.