primitives discuss results of California referendum

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5689099

Oh my.

napi21  (1000+ posts)        Wed May-20-09 10:13 AM
Original message
 
I see that only ONE of Arnold's proposals passed in last night's Special Election in California. Sp what happens now? I don't know a lot about what's going on in Ca. but I got the impression from the talking heads that the State was in really deep "Sh**" if these proposals failed.

Well, I'm hoping it means Doug's ex-wife's own state representative has to give up her taxpayer-paid-and-maintained luxury vehicle.

That blew my mind, when I learned of it.

In California, mere state representatives, the bottom rung of the legislative ladder, get taxpayer-paid-and-maintained luxury vehicles for their personal use.

State representatives; barely above the status of janitors.

Geezuz.

Gormy Cuss (1000+ posts)      Wed May-20-09 10:17 AM
Response to Original message
 
1. The state's in deep trouble anyway.

Had Arnold's proposals passed the budget deficit would have dropped by about one quarter, but either way it's a serious deficit -- 21 billion without the Props,and 15 billion dollars had they passed.

pnutbutr (1000+ posts)      Wed May-20-09 10:21 AM
Response to Original message

2. repost of my post in another thread on this

Californians shooting themselves in the foot

We won't pay any more in taxes to reduce the $21.3 billion deficit but go ahead and cut hundreds and even thousands of firefighters which we rely on every year to put out our wild fires and save our lives. Lets cut the police who deal with the violent gangs and dangerous drugs like crack and heroin which always go up during recessions and hard economic times. Lets cut access to healthcare despite the healthcare crisis the entire nation is feeling right now. Lets cut the school budget despite it being severely underfunded already. Lets just make our state the shittiest in the nation even below ****ing Texas.

WTF is wrong with Californians?

What's wrong with Californians is that they don't like high taxes that provide them little, if any, governmental goods and services.

That's all there is to it.

lunatica  (1000+ posts)      Wed May-20-09 10:27 AM
Response to Reply #2
 
4. Hey, no cuts are necessary if Ahrnuld stops the tax cuts to the wealthy Republicans

Californians are tired of bailing the state government out while the wealthy get tax cuts. It's that simple. We're tired of the partisan politics and the fact that our legislators refuse to try to work together to fix the problems and then just put the false fix on the people.

Both our feet are already shot. You want us to do it again? Every time we've bailed the non bi-partisan legislature out we've shot ourselves in the foot. No more.

Remember, where California goes so goes the nation. This is the people saying it's enough. Force the legislators to stop expecting the citizens to bail them out while they do nothing to put yet another temporary fix on the problems with more bailouts. Ahrnuld always borrows like this and promises to pay it back to the state coffers and then when the time comes he says he actually needs more and can't pay anything back. He loves to take it to the people while begging for bailouts. It's just not working anymore. It's happened too many times and nothing ever gets fixed. Things actually get worse.

Isn't Bags Streisand one of those wealthy Californians?

pnutbutr (1000+ posts)      Wed May-20-09 10:39 AM
Response to Reply #4
 
6. gotta ask

for a link to tax cuts for wealthy republicans. The proposals that got voted down would have been temporary tax increases on all Californians.

Luminous Animal  (1000+ posts)      Wed May-20-09 11:11 AM
Response to Reply #6
 
15. In 1996 the 2 top tax brackets were eliminated. Now someone making $40,000 a year is in the same bracket as someone making $4 million a year.

In California the bottom 20% pay 12% of their income in sales & income taxes. The top pay 7% of their income in sales & income taxes.

Just curious here.

Who was governor of California in 1996?

Which political party controlled the California legislature in 1996?

cabluedem (743 posts)      Wed May-20-09 10:42 AM
Response to Reply #2
 
7. Firefighters: YES. police: No. We already pay them too much to collect fines from motorists to pad ....the coffers of their counties. They waste a lot of fuel with all the needless patroling by car when they could be walking the beat and become part of the community again, not strangers. The cops in my county are getting brand new patrol cars as I write this. Its cheaper to run their three year old cars another three years like the rest of us do. Phooey on that needlass expenditure.

ComtesseDeSpair  (447 posts)      Wed May-20-09 10:51 AM
Response to Reply #2
 
8. The Public Has Too Much Power There...which may sound backwards, after all isn't that democracy? But any state that makes it possible to amend the state constitution with a simple majority vote, that allows tax increases to be decided by popular vote, that makes it easy to recall their governor, that sets term limits on their representatives so that the committees are constantly being run by novices etc. is setting themselves up for failure.

People are selfish bastards who will not vote for propositions that hurt them, no matter how much they are needed. I saw it repeated all my life: everytime there was a local measure that increased taxes by even the tiniest fraction of a percent but brought about a greater public good, such as funding libraries or parks or other public services, I would vote Yes and 80% of my fellow citizens would vote HELL NO! This pattern has been repeated for years - ever since Proposition 13 and its disastrous legacy.

California is so dysfunctional. I live in Illinois now and I am amazed to see how much power the government has to make changes without consulting the public at all. They don't even have propositions here. It's quite the opposite of California - and it is ripe with its own abuses and frustrations. I think California has a better approach, overall, but they need to fine tune it so that they can actually accomplish things.

I suggest everyone read the above primitive comment once more, to be sure one knows exactly the sentiments really being expressed.

Johonny  (1000+ posts)        Wed May-20-09 10:56 AM
Response to Reply #8
 
9. I agree

The voters are to blame for the current budget mess. They're the ones that passed horrible proposition laws that hamstring the current California Government and make it impossible to handle either surpluses or deficits.

The government a victim of the people?

Throd (1000+ posts)      Wed May-20-09 11:04 AM
Response to Reply #2
 
11. I voted no on all those bullshit measures.

Uh-oh.

pnutbutr (1000+ posts)      Wed May-20-09 11:05 AM
Response to Reply #11
 
13. may I ask why?

Frances  (1000+ posts)      Wed May-20-09 10:37 AM
Response to Reply #3
 
5. My local paper recommended No on all amendments and a convention to write a new Constitution

As it is now, a minority of Republicans control the legislature. The majority has no power.

Also, the initiative process allows corporations to write the laws in the state. It takes HUGE money to pay people to gather enough signatures to get an initiative on the ballot. And it takes HUGE money to buy advertisements to get people to vote on the issue. I think there was an analysis showing that the way people vote on an initiative is directly related to how much money is spent advertising the issue.

In a small state, initiatives might work because people dedicated to a certain cause could collect enough signatures themselves. And the dedicated people could use word of mouth to get people to vote for their cause. California has too many people and too large an area for this to work.

I feel that I could best get my views represented by contacting my local representatives in the state legislature--IF that representative had any real power. But corporations would not be happy with that scenario because they would lose power.

What the fu.....dge, the primitive comment in bold, above.

sojourner (1000+ posts)      Wed May-20-09 11:11 AM
Response to Original message
 
14. and you sure can trust those talking heads, right!

yes the state's in deep doo-doo. but the propositions were NOT written to help people. they were stealing from the poor to help other, more "popular" pockets of poor. they actually intended to cut services to the disabled, and to foster children! and boo-hoo! the legislature now has to "make do" with their salary when the state's in deficit. no 5% raise each and every year (while rest of the state -- workers AND programs, continue under freezes instituted eons ago! ask a state worker when he/she last got a COLA).

[USA4ME]

Their cries of the rich Republicans not wanting taxes raised would have some teeth except for the fact that this whole thing failed miserably state-wide.  I heard where even San Francisco County voted against it.  When it's too liberal that one can't even get the freaks in SF to vote for it, then you know its bad.

In fact here's a map.

http://projects.latimes.com/elections/2009-05-19/california-propositions/results/map/

The whole state voted No.

.

[thundley4]

Their cries of the rich Republicans not wanting taxes raised would have some teeth except for the fact that this whole thing failed miserably state-wide.  I heard where even San Francisco County voted against it.  When it's too liberal that one can't even get the freaks in SF to vote for it, then you know its bad.

In fact here's a map.

http://projects.latimes.com/elections/2009-05-19/california-propositions/results/map/

The whole state voted No.

.

It's not like California doesn't already have higher taxes for the wealthy, which there is anybody with a job.

[ReaganForRushmore]

California is reaping what it sowed.......they chose to be the land of fruits and nuts, promising everything to everybody without even taking the cost into consideration. My fear is that Arnold will now go to D.C. for a bailout and in effect "federalize" the State of California budget. You want the money, you have to do business the way we want it done. Sort of like "Goodfellas", when Paulie becomes partner in the Bamboo room, the Dems have stripped all the value out of the Bamboo Room, and now they're going to torch the place after telling everyone "F*** you, pay me!"

[Lord Undies]

I suggest everyone read the above primitive comment once more, to be sure one knows exactly the sentiments really being expressed.

I read it three times.  The Little Goon defeats its own point about every other word.  It is amazing the depths they will go to try to make sense of the senselessness of their ideology.

[Lord Undies]

As it is now, a minority of Republicans control the legislature.

Then should not the democrats be rushing to become the minority? 

[BannedFromDU]

California is reaping what it sowed.......they chose to be the land of fruits and nuts, promising everything to everybody without even taking the cost into consideration. My fear is that Arnold will now go to D.C. for a bailout and in effect "federalize" the State of California budget. You want the money, you have to do business the way we want it done. Sort of like "Goodfellas", when Paulie becomes partner in the Bamboo room, the Dems have stripped all the value out of the Bamboo Room, and now they're going to torch the place after telling everyone "F*** you, pay me!"

     No, CA is just going to have to make some cuts. The sane thing to do would be to stop feeding, educating, and healing illegal ****ing aliens, but I suspect that the mere fact that they pick avocados and cut lawns will imply that the cuts will be too small and will come from elsewhere. I really, really want to leave California.

[ReaganForRushmore]

     No, CA is just going to have to make some cuts. The sane thing to do would be to stop feeding, educating, and healing illegal ******* aliens, but I suspect that the mere fact that they pick avocados and cut lawns will imply that the cuts will be too small and will come from elsewhere. I really, really want to leave California.

But will the Dems cut their own throats politically and make the deep cuts necessary?.....no, I fear Arh-nold and the Dems will take the easy way out and approach B.O. (BBUHN) and get a bailout. Come to Texas! (everyone else is!)

[jukin]

Since the democrats raised the tax rates in the last 8 years many, many wealthy people have moved out of state.  That is bad but the major companies moving out is far worse.  A local mortgage insurer moved out of our town in 2001. I knew one of the head honchos and he told me that by moving to Florida the company would save $30 million the first year and it was a no brainer to move. He also said they went to state, county, and city officials to see if they could offer anything for them to stay.  All told him to "not let the door hit you on the way out."

Add in the government regulation for employees, ecology,... and you have an economy bleeding companies, jobs, and people for the past few years.  Sadly, so goes California so goes the USA.  I fully expect obama to come in and save california so as to keep the concept liberalism is sound. 

[USA4ME]

I fully expect obama to come in and save california so as to keep the concept liberalism is sound. 

I agree that's what will happen.  IOW California's debt will become everyone's debt.

.

[Texacon]

And again the DUmmies don't see the forest for the trees.

KC

[Vagabond]

Rush Limbaugh speaks of how governments manipulate voters by laying off stree cops, firefighters, and teachers first when they have eaten a hole in their budgets.  All of these have at least one or two bureaucrats that could be cut loose before they are, and yet it never happens that way.  Why?  Because the government wants the layoffs to be as visible as possible so they can cram their next round of taxation through.

Our government is woefully corrupt at almost all levels.

[docstew]

I read it three times.  The Little Goon defeats its own point about every other word.  It is amazing the depths they will go to try to make sense of the senselessness of their ideology.

the point that I read from it was that, despite it being the will of the people, those people are too damn greedy and stupid to do the right thing and vote yes.  Because of this greed and stupidity, these props should just be forced on them, regardless of what the will of the people is for or against.

[thundley4]

the point that I read from it was that, despite it being the will of the people, those people are too damn greedy and stupid to do the right thing and vote yes.  Because of this greed and stupidity, these props should just be forced on them, regardless of what the will of the people is for or against.

Much like Prop. 8.