Xblog

I’m sorry, but I have to be cynical about this one. The state has already passed one proposition (on top of the wording for the initial taxes themselves) to keep the gas tax money for spending on transportation infrastructure. Yet time and time again, our legislature and our governor keep spending that money on other (less important?) things.

Remember our last budget crisis? Part of the problem was that with all the propositions and rules, it turns out there is very little room in the budget for the legislature and the governor to address a short fall in revenue. Of course, the problem was compounded because the previous year the legislature had used up every last accounting trick to make things work out.

The bottom line is you vote your elected officials in to govern. You figure out how much you want to be taxed, and you figure out what you want to spend things on, and then it’s up to them to make the best of it. If you think they are doing a lousy job, you vote them out (although term limits have dulled the sharpness of that particular blade).

These kinds of measures essentially treat the legislature and governors like children, and limit their governing abilities to those of children as well. I’m sorry, but if that’s the approach we’re taking, we’re paying those children way too much money.

If we have a budget shortfall, it’s easier for me to live with traffic congestion and a few more potholes than to hear the second grade has been canceled this year, or that we’re going to let a few thousands houses burn to the ground, or that a few of the prisons have been closed for a year and their inmates are running the streets. It sounds nice to think that this money is locked away for transit infrastructure, but when you think about it, if anything was more important than transit infrastructure, you’d probably prefer the money be spent there.

This one is going to get a thumbs down.