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Yahoo!HOW LOW CAN IT GO: I knew there had to be a rational explanation why inanimate objects had begun filing temporary restraining orders against me. Naturally, I couldn’t have had anything to do with it.
April, it turns out, has been designated Stress Awareness Month. It’s also National Anxiety Month. With that kind of music in the air, no wonder so many of us are singing a discordant note or two. For good measure, I just got it on good authority from Sacramento lobbyist Dave Mullinax — who represents the League of California Cities — that as bad as things are, they’re only going to get worse. Ever cheerful, even in the face of the oncoming apocalypse, Mullinax explained that to bounce back, one first has to hit bottom. But in Sacramento, he discovered the normal laws of physics do not apply. “There is no bottom,” he confided.
Angry Poodle
I prefer to dwell on Sacramento these days because it allows me not to ponder the outbreak of swine flu. Initial indications suggest this latest flu — karmic payback for those of us who love a good BLT or who got rich investing in the pig belly futures — has crossed the borders delineating three separate species, not just multiple national jurisdictions. The flu outbreak probably started in a small Mexican town, La Gloria, where 3,000 inhabitants are kept company by 1 million hogs raised annually for slaughter by the U.S.-Mexican conglomerate, Granjas Carroll. Early reports are contradictory in the extreme: The town is enveloped by biblical swarms of hungry flies eager to feast on the rivers of excrement flowing from the pig farms; the farms dispose of pig waste in sanitary concrete vaults that meet or exceed all industry standards. Half the town came down with flu-like symptoms earlier this year; no pigs and no hog farm workers have been infected. You figure. Of course, it’s even more complicated. It appears that the latest bug combines not just pig and human flu viruses, but avian flu strains as well. Whatever the mutant makeup of this new mongrelized super bug — pig, human, bird — people on both sides of the border have already blamed illegal visitors from the other side for its introduction. Naturally.
In Sacramento, at least, the mess is entirely of our own making. That the mess apparently can’t be unmade is beside the point. At least we had a chance. Maybe California was never really the paradise its mythmakers would have us believe. But it was pretty close. As the gringos arrived en masse about 150 years ago, and kicked out the Californios who kicked out the Mexicans who kicked out the Spaniards who kicked out the native tribes, they elected representatives to serve in a legislature to pass laws. Naturally, the Special Interests were a step ahead. To rectify this imbalance, Californians embraced The Initiative about 100 years ago, giving citizens the power of direct democracy, allowing them to pass their own laws when the legislature could not or would not. Nice try.
In 1966, Californians adopted a full-time and professional legislature, and for about 15 minutes, reason reigned, the flowers bloomed, and the Golden State glistened. By the late ’70s, however, the legislature began its slide into a perpetual food fight and The Initiative emerged as the political equivalent of the Saturday Night Special. Since then, California has been the victim of one drive-by shooting after the next, all self-inflicted. Paralyzed, corrupt, or incompetent, the legislature consistently has failed to deliver. The citizens, furious and frustrated, increasingly availed themselves of the initiative, passing measures — like Proposition 13, term limits — that effectively have made governance all but impossible.
This year, the absurdities inherent in the legislative and initiative processes achieved critical mass simultaneously. Facing a prospective budget deficit of $42 billion — that’s bigger than all the deficits of all the other states combined — our trusty elected officials failed to pass a budget until 85 days past the deadline. Given that budgets in Sacramento require a two-thirds majority — a ridiculously impossible standard given that Democrats oppose spending cuts almost as religiously as Republicans oppose tax increases — it’s amazing we ever got one. Even more amazing, the budget included $15 billion in spending cuts and $12.5 billion in tax increases, all approved without benefit of even one public hearing. Surgically implanted into the budget was a requirement that we hold special elections this May 19 — two weeks from now — to codify a host of five excruciating “robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul” measures and one that’s just silly.
If approved, these measures should reduce the state’s deficit problem for the next two years. Somewhat. If not, we’re back into the same hell hole. Prop. 1A requires the state impose a spending cap and double the size of its operating reserves to mollify Republicans upset about having approved tax increases. Prop. 1B is designed to appease the teachers union, upset about having endorsed 1A. If passed, 1B requires the state to pay back $9 billion of the $12 billion it has already raided from education coffers during the next six years. Prop. 1C allows us to borrow $5 billion from future lottery ticket sales; 1D allows the state to rip off $650 million in tobacco tax dollars otherwise earmarked for programs serving kids ages 1-5; and 1E allows the state to rip off an even smaller chunk — $250 million — that would otherwise go to treating the mentally ill.
That’s as simple as it gets. Don’t even try reading your voter info packet; no one can understand it. Would you rather be eaten by a wolf or a lion? Die of tuberculosis or cancer? Even if all these are approved, the state’s still looking at deficits ranging from $8 billion to $14 billion. Only with the stock market on steroids and the real estate market rebounding can we hope to break even. Like the man said, “There is no bottom.” The good news, if you can call it that: Swine flu hasn’t killed any Californians yet. I’m so glad that National Stress Awareness month is almost over. In the meantime, be sure to wash your hands. Frequently.
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Am I too obvious? How about cutting a stare you in the face expense that nobody wants to comply to?
The Republicans can scream that it is like cutting taxes.
The Democrats can puff that it is helping the poor.
Delete the mandatory auto insurance statutes.
Those who want protection from the other guy can get their own policy.
I thought the government only had the power to levy fees, taxes and fines. With mandatory car insurance you are forced into giving your money over to a non-government agency, the insurance companies, engaging in a contractual relationship with another private party. I thought that was called duress. And the service the insurance companies give you is too often grief rather than cash, trying to figure out how they can wiggle out of paying.
"We auto delete auto insurance."
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Bird (anonymous profile)
May 19, 2009 at 1:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)
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