Almost all of the measures in today’s ballot involve correcting some of the mess created by prior propositions. Somehow we thought the rational solution to an out of control populist political nuke would be to… return fire. That’s right! More Ballot Measures! This might actually some degree of sense if we were engaged in combat with someone other than ourselves. So, like Scrooge at Christmas, we are forced to visit our past misdeeds…

Proposition 1A: Buying an umbrella as the Tsunami strikes.

No better time to talk tough about saving food in case of famine than… during a famine. Politics and prudence are rarely found together, and in California they appear to be barred from even using the same washrooms. This proposition may seem familiar to voters, having voted for a rainy day fund with 2004’s Proposition 58. It turns out that 58 was neither sufficiently restrictive to prevent abuse nor sufficiently flexible as to provide the government with options for addressing budgetary shortfalls. Now, a wise man might reach the conclusion that rainy day funds have a feel good quality to them but really only work if your electorate (and therefore your politicians) have a certain degree maturity, foresight, and responsibility. Fortunately, wisdom is a rare enough commodity around here that we’re voting on this “revised 58”. It does do some sensible things, things that might have made sense to do over a decade ago, or maybe four years ago. They mostly seem pointless right now, with the possible exception of the clauses to increase taxes (depending on your views on such measures).

The conceit of propositions and bills like 58 and 1A is that they appear to present a view that our current problems are somehow just a temporary glitch, a byproduct of a cyclical economic downturn. That would be more plausible if we essentially been stuck in this mess for the better part of eight years, with brief flight of fancy that now appear to have been built illusory wealth created by delusional optimistic lenders. California needs to recognize that this is a structural problem. Our budgets only balance when we have insane economic booms, and even then we have knock-down, drag-out budget fights.

Summary: Most of this bill is just reshuffling provisions in 58, but the one thing that is new is the extending of the Legislature’s tax increases. I think I’m going to vote for this one, because it is the closest hope I have to seeing those tax increases remain. I hate tax increases as much as the next guy, but I don’t believe our current mess can be addressed through tax cuts alone (really, it’s like 100x bigger than any sane set of cuts I can come up with). Our insane super majority rule on budgets allow legislators the luxury of not having to lead the charge in directions their constituents don’t want to go to, but need to, so this is the Sophie’s Choice we’re left with.

Proposition 1B: If you are ignorant enough, maybe you’ll vote for this.

So, Prop 1A locks up funds for rainy days… and Prop 1B unlocks funds ear marked for education spending… so that we can afford to set up a rainy day fund. :-(

It isn’t quite that stupid, until you read the part about Prop 1B only taking effect if Prop 1A is passed. Genius. There is supposedly an old Inuit expression: “The best place to store surplus food is in the stomach of a neighbour. This protects you against the future, and means that both you and your neighbour have a better world to live in.” As far as state funding goes, the proper analogy is our electorate’s heads. If I had to guess which investment is most likely to pay off in 10 years: money kept in the California Treasury for times of need vs. improved education for Californians, I’m going to show profound faith in the Thomas Tusser’s assertion: “a fool and his money are soon parted”. One need only point to the last decade while contemplating those words of wisdom to see evidence suggesting that improved economics and math education for the electorate (for starters) could really pay off dividends in the years ahead.

Summary: This whole bill is a rob Peter to pay Paul kind of maneuver. While on one hand it is tempting to vote for any measure that loosens the budgetary handcuffs imposed by our always entertaining but rarely helpful ballot measure process, I just can’t see it being a smart move to take funds from our current education spending while simultaneously socking away money, all on the promise of paying this off a couple of year’s later. I have a different proposal: spend the money now and put off saving for the rainy day fund for a day when the proverbial economic sun is out.

Proposition 1C: A fool and his money are parted much quicker if a casino is involved.

I kind of like Proposition 37 when I first encountered it (my excuse is that I was young and foolish). It seemed like one of those few bits of legislation where the solution was funded by the problem, ensuring responses proportional to the size of the problem. Then I realized that for those who were sufficiently economically disadvantaged, “investing” in the lottery, while incredibly likely to result in a net economic loss, was the most rational course of action. In that light, Prop 37 stops being a tax on stupidity and starts being a tax on poverty.

Prop 1C decides to do one better: it unlocks the Prop 37 funds from the State’s massive education budget and lets them plow it where they need it. I like the way it neatly uncuffs our government’s budget management capabilities, but I more than a bit despise the borrowing part, which dramatically increases the cost. I could almost go along with it if I didn’t know we were applying even more cuffs ensuring money for the rainy day fund. On that basis, I’d much rather see 1C fail, than risk the case where both of them pass (what would that say about our state).

Summary: You must think I was educated by our public schools systems of the next ten years if you think I am going to vote for this and 1A. I might vote for just this and let 1A go down in smoke, but voting for 1A and kicking this one to the curb seems like the better call.

Proposition 1D: Stealing candy^H^H^H^H^Hmedicine from a baby.

This proposition is brought to you by 1998’s Proposition 10. Prop 10 was a “can’t fail” proposition that really needed just a simple tagline to make it work: “think of the children”. If you are crafting a ballot measure, throwing in benefits for children is like taking steroids: it ought to be considered cheating, even if it isn’t. I’m just waiting for the day when some genius comes up with a proposition that demands public beatings and robbery of rich lawyers and politicians who smoke and are convicted of a sex offense, and then takes the proceeds and provides them for so babies and kittens can have free pot, manicures and HDTV.

In short, this bill re-diverts ~$1 billion in funds diverted from tobacco lawsuit settlements and redirects it to the general fund, because the real consequence of the tobacco companies’ deception was to unbalance our budgets. Wait, that can’t be right? I like everything about this bill except that we’re still not spending tobacco settlement money where we claimed we were damaged by the tobacco companies. Still, we’re desperate enough right now, and I like the chance to knock down a proposition that locks up funds, so who knows, I might go for it. Anyone who votes against it probably ought to be required to climb on a roof with a violin and smoke whilst playing the violin, waiting for Rome to burn. If you vote for it, you have to do the same, but aren’t required to have a smoke.

Proposition 1E: Steal from the rich… and the schizo’s… and give to… everyone else!

Proposition 63 raised on obvious question: who do we care about less than crazy people? The answer, in retrospect, seems obvious: rich people! We grabbed some money from rich people and allocated it for providing mental health services. This was presumably based on some secret evidence showing a causal link between wealth and insanity which we’ll all be reading about in the next issue of Nature. ;-)

Prop 63 seems so inherently cynical about populism, I doubted it could be topped in subsequent ballots. Prop 1E demonstrates why I should never have doubted: we can always sink lower. So, now we are going to divert Prop 63 funds away from their intended recipients and towards child mental health services… only, we already spend money from the general funds there, so basically we are just redirecting Prop 63 money in to the general fund, but putting a fig leaf on it to avoid news programs and political shows being fined by the FCC for indecent content.

It gets stupider though: both Prop 63 funds and EPSDT funds are typically subject to Federal matching funds. So, by doing this, we’ll likely reduce the Federal matching funds we receive. This wouldn’t be quite such a stupid move if we a) weren’t trying to get our economy out of the worst tailspin since Longeshoremen’s Association was formed and b) weren’t one of those states that sends far more money to the Feds than we ever see back.

As much as I hate Prop 63, 1E seems worse… so much so that I propose that everyone who votes for it be institutionalized… in California’s public mental health facilities.

Proposition 1F: Be more cynical about populism and ballot measures.

That’s right, we’re in the middle of the worst budget crisis our state has ever seen. Billions of dollars are at stake. The way to fix it is to pass a silly ballot measure that clamps the pay on elected officials.

Let’s go over the ways this is stupid:

• Our elected officials make between $116,000 and $212,000 a year. Nice money, sure, but a pay raise to them isn’t exactly going to make or break our budgets.
• The entire budget impact of this measure is less than half a million dollars. This would make it worth voters consideration if our current budget crisis was over a shortfall of a couple of million dollars. Seems pretty silly when you realize how many zeros we have to add for this to matter.
• It wouldn’t actually curtail pay raises during tough economic times. It curtails them when a budget deficit is declared. Sure, this is more likely to happen during a bad year, but it is entirely possible to foresee the scenario where we have a balanced budget (or even a surplus) while the economy continues in to a downward spiral.
• Many of our elected officials have limited (which is a nice way of saying “effectively none”) influence on the budget. The Governor, and to a lesser degree individual legislators do, but AFAIK the Attorney General only has influence over how his office’s money is spent. So why are we going after his paycheck?
• It perpetuates the notion that our budget problems aren’t structural, but rather the fault of incompetent or spineless politicians.
• I believe this measure influences ~1/100th the budget of the other measures.

Summary: This whole thing smells of a Red Herring offered up to appease the populist gods because our government holds so little credibility with the populace. I can’t say it is morally reprehensible to vote for this one, but I wouldn’t do it.

I didn’t see the Prop I would have voted for without question: the one repealing the super majority (okay, or the one repealing Prop 8 ;-). I was also generally disappointed to see that both these measures, and the public’s reaction to them, seem to be filled with a profound ability to blame everyone but oneself for what is clearly an outcome we bought in to. I fear, unfortunately, that we won’t grok this problem until they literally have the collection agencies showing up at the Governor’s House (which I admit would be kind of funny).

People online are apparently averaging 77.6%, which forces one to the conclusion that people who take random quizzes on the Internet are actually way smarter than the average American. I took the quiz myself (without using Google or Wikipedia) in an effort to gauge if the test was unfair or difficult and I did manage to bugger up two of the questions, both of which struck me as having answers which missed the mark, though most of the questions and answers didn’t strike me as being at all ambiguous (but in all honesty I should have been able to get them right). A number of the questions did appear to play upon popular misconceptions, but a lot of them were straight up questions had laughably wrong alternate answers that only a White House Press Secretary could get wrong. I think my favourite was the one asking what “business profit is”, with possible choices including “cost minus revenue” and “earnings minus assets”. Bottom line: this was NOT a hard quiz. I’d say the 77.6% that online quiz takers were averaging ought to be about what an average American can achieve, and elected officials ought to do much better than that (if they are Federal or State elected officials they ought to get near perfect).

Interestingly, the authors of the study are pushing for better civics in college, but to my way of thinking all of these questions should be covered in a high school curriculum (sure students may not absorb all of it, but hopefully subsequent life experience would reinforce this learning). Why should one have to go to college to become an informed citizen?

Honestly, I’m of two minds on this. I kind of think the recording industry (I’ll be damned if I’m going to call them the music industry) deserves what will come their way if this bill doesn’t pass. On the other hand, I really like and support what the Pandora guys have done. I’d feel better if I could actually find the text. Could someone less lazy than me find a pointer?

• The pundits did get one thing right: Obama clearly had the better footing on the economic discussion while McCain clearly had the better footing on the foreign policy discussion.
• I use the term “foreign policy discussion” loosely, because it was mostly about confronting our enemies. Partly this was a function of the abbreviated nature of said portion of the debate (due to the economic elephant in the room), but frankly I think it is a sign of just how f’d up things have become. When what you think about first is your enemies, you’re in “circle the wagons” mode, and this is not the kind of outlook that promotes progress or the better world we all want (please tell me we all want it). When all you see is your enemies, it’s hard for your friends to work with you.
• For all the talk about oil and energy independence and the economy, McCain failed to bring up free trade. It just so happens that the two biggest oil suppliers to the US are not enemies, but rather NAFTA trading partners. NAFTA actually provides certain guarantees about access to their oil, and Obama has talked about trying to renegotiate NAFTA. This is a dangerous line of thinking, particularly given how much both of those countries would like to renegotiate NAFTA to improve the terms for themselves. I’d have thought McCain would have jumped all over that. Maybe he’s saving this for the real economics debate.
• Obama made some dangerous word choices. When he was talking about the economy, he started using “I” a lot, as opposed to “my plan” or “we”. This does make him seem more forceful and aggressive, which he needs to do, but he said something sure to cause a shiver down the spine of conservatives and independents: I pay for every dime of it.. I’m outright shocked that McCain didn’t immediately interrupt him and say, “No! The tax payers would pay for every dime of it.” and then grin that scary smile of his so wide that the top of his head threatened to fall off.
• Obama had one weakness on the economy discussion: his response on the ear marks. He had an excellent point about McCain’s targeted tax cuts being the moral equivalent of ear marks, and much worse due to their largesse. I’m sure people caught the difference in the numbers, but I think he didn’t make the case well enough for how they are equivalent to ear marks. Obama needs a better story on this in general. His candidacy is all about foresight, principles, doing things a different way, and going after ear marks for a while and canceling them later is… weak.
• I was just tremendously disappointed with Obama when it came to the foreign policy debate, mostly because I know he’d been preparing for this for a while, and because this was the only night to debate the issue. When McCain went after him about confusing tactics vs. strategy and about how the surge worked in Iraq and will be how we’ll win in Afghanistan, Obama should have hit back hard with “this demonstrates your failure to see the larger strategic failure: the story about the surge should already be about our success in Afghanistan, not about how we’ll employ it there in the future”. When McCain made a reference about learning a lesson from when the US pulled out of Afghanistan after fighting off the Soviets, the obvious response was, “but you supported doing it again, pulling support from Afghanistan in order to serve our interests elsewhere… Afghans and our NATO allies there have every reason to lose confidence in our ability to focus and follow through in our support for them.”
• Obama also tip toed around the whole Georgian issue, not pointing out clearly enough that the Georgians had done some sabre rattling of their own, and the whole mess was the kind of thing that a President and our State Department should and could forsee and prevent.
• Worst case of the pot calling the lid on the kettle black: “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” McCain chastising Obama for saying publicly that the US should take out Al Qaeda and Taliban forces if Pakistan couldn’t, even when they were in Pakistan. I’m glad Obama didn’t let him get away with that one.
• How does McCain get to say that the US forces aren’t capable of being peacemakers in Somolia and at the same time tout his support for the surge (whose entire point was to make peace in Iraq?!). Forget about Obama letting him get away with that one, how come Lehrer didn’t follow up with a question on that point?
• If we spend one more minute in one more debate talking about whether Presidents vs. Secretaries of State ought to meet with or without pre-conditions, I’m going to write a letter to the Attorney General demanding the moderator be arrested on charges of treason. For goodness sakes man! We’ve invaded two countries, people literally might not get paid on Tuesday, the world has lost confidence in us politically, economically, scientifically, diplomatically and even to some extent militarily, and this is the most important thing you could come up with as a discussion point?! (Oh, and for the record, Kissinger was undoubtedly deliberately vague in his statement but obviously supports McCain, and visits are not preconditions, and you both know that, so stop with the trying to score cheap political points?)
• McCain owned the floor when it came to talking about Russia. I think, for a moment there, he actually seemed not just older, wiser and more confident, but maybe even smarter than Obama. Better watch that stuff John, or you are going to lose the anti-elite vote.
• Trying to pretend that your opponent is against storing and disposing of nuclear waste is just silly. If anybody believes that drivel, you already had their vote anyway.
• At the end of the debate both candidates seemed to be a bit off their game. McCain’s mumbling about SDI not being proven back in Reagan’s day (why is it that every time he goes back to talking about Reagan’s “foresight” he seems a bit lost?) and what came after seemed like a series of disconnected stump speech ramblings from a guy whose brain was on auto pilot… without a good compass. Obama’s response also shockingly lacked polish. Rather than chart a clear vision through the challenges the country faces, it seemed more like he was meandering from one problem to another. At one point he almost seemed to be lost in it all without a clear direction, and I’m sure a good chunk of the audience was. His transitions from one topic to another just weren’t clean enough. It seemed like he was off script. Again, given all the focus and preparation for this debate, I’d have though that the closing statement at least would have been stronger.
• While you can’t blame McCain for trying to bring up his war record at every opportunity, I thought it was a bit weak to end his debate touting the work he did to resolve the POW-MIA issue. The man keeps touting all his years in the Senate, surely there is something he did there in the last two decades that was worthy of being his closing note.

UPDATE: Newsweek was kind enough to publish Factcheck.org’s analysis of the debate. I know Factcheck.org has their own site, but I figured they probably actually get some revenue from Newsweek’s site.

There are simply too many checks and balances in place for such a huge and complex system (it probably worked well when California was a relatively small, fast growing state). The default action is to do nothing, and the only way to overcome the default action is to get pretty much every stakeholder to agree with your plan: in other words you have to please everyone or get nothing doing, which means you accomplish nothing. A functional government is one that ticks off a subset of its population with most everything it does, but hopefully across all of its actions spreads the love around enough that few can make a credible case that they are being singled out. We’ve got to make some serious changes here.

Propositions I’d vote for if they existed on the next ballot:

1. A proposition revoking all propositions enacted in the last 15 years.
2. A proposition revoking all propositions that lock down a portion of the general fund.
3. A proposition recognizing the sanity of only requiring a 2/3rds majority for a budget if the governor vetoes it.
4. A proposition ending term limits, but forcing the entire state legislature to resign and barring them from running in the next election if they don’t get a budget completed on time.
5. In the event that #4 was deemed too harsh, I’d support a proposition requiring the legislature to come to work nude every day the budget was past its due date (yeah, we’d probably not want to look, but that’s not the point now is it?).
6. Any credible anti-gerrymandering proposition.
7. A proposition requiring propositions get support from at least 1/4 of the legislature before making it on to the ballot.
8. A proposition requiring voters be able to name one unique fact (that isn’t printed on the ballot) about any of the slate of judges being considered for election before being eligible to vote for them, and if at any time 50% of them can’t, judges become appointed by the governor.
9. A proposition requiring the attorney general to prosecute for fraud any politician who claims taxes aren’t raised in a budget where expenditures go up, with sentencing guidelines having as a mandatory minimum of having their mouth taped shut for the remainder of their term.
10. A proposition requiring that after a budget is signed off on, it must be read by ten randomly selected CPA’s who are kept in isolation . If any one of them breaks out in uncontrollable laughter or pounds their fist in to the wall, the budget is considered null and void and the governor and the leaders of the legislature prosecuted for accounting fraud.