I know I haven't blogged here for a long time, but I still think its a great medium for discussing things such as the upcoming election. This will be mostly specific to California, but please feel free to post specific to your own local.
City Council (Temecula only): Mike Naggar. If anyone has opinions on this, please let me know. I support him for two reasons, but neither is all that good:
1. I attended a city council meeting where he was the only vote against hiring a law firm to be their "Washington man" The others wanted to hire the law firm to have more lobbying power it Sacramento and Washington. He thought is was misappropriation of funds. I admired his adherence to principle.
2. Whoever is in there is doing an awesome job, because Temecula is a great city. Why not vote the incumbent?
Measure Y (Temecula only): No. Not worth it to me to raise my taxes to have more computers in the classroom. More advanced classrooms does not equate to more learning.
President: Undecided. I am not sure if I will vote for Mitt Romney or Gary Johnson.
Gary Johnson: Gary Johnson stands for most of what Ron Paul stands for, who would have been my first choice. Voting on principle, I would side with Gary Johnson. It is also appealing to me that I could increase the libertarian vote because my California vote will really be going to Obama anyway.
Mitt Romney: I feel like if there is anyone who can make a last-ditch effort to save our current system, it is Romney. I don't think it can be saved, but obviously he would have a lot of advantages to doing this that Johnson would not.
A few examples:
In our fiat-money based economy, nothing is real, therefore perception is everything. If people perceive a good economy, then we will have one. If Romney wins, I think we will see an upswing in the economy just because people count on him to do so, and believe that he can. With Obama, even Obama supporters are depressed, and republicans are hopeless.
Romney has a reputation and record for making things work. It is attractive to me to have a successful businessman in charge. All of the career politicians are just so out of touch with reality. I also think that he may have a chance at getting congress to work together to make some really important reforms, like to healthcare, social security, and medicare.
Finally, I really trust Romney's integrity. In a corrupt world of politics, I believe that he is not. Obama has split the country with his dishonest campaign He has started class warfare, and an us-against-them mentality between the rich and poor. I feel that Romney would be a vote for business, and for integrity. For those reasons, maybe he is a good enough ally for the liberty movement that I feel so strongly about.
I need help deciding. Decisions, Decisions!
Senate: EMKEN. Although I will be voting for ANYONE that is not Dianne Feinstein, I have come to terms with the fact that those two old hags will be our senators until the day they die.
Prop 30: NO. This has been a tough one for me, mainly due to the fact that my union threatens that I will be underpaid or unemployed if 30 doesn't pass. To be honest, I am kind of secretly hoping it will pass, just as I secretly hope that the ATM machine will mess up and give me an extra $20. Then I wake up and realize that thinking that way is not honest to others or to who I am. Just as I would go back inside the bank and give the $20 back to whom it belongs, I will not support a proposition that raises taxes to give money to feed the Sacramento beast, and holds a gun to the voters heads, threatening that all of their children will get screwed if they don't support it. That being said, I am in support of 38.
Prop 31: Yes??? I know the republican party is in favor. They need all the help they can get in California, to stop the waccos from gaining anymore power. I don't know the details though. Can anyone help me?
Prop 32: YES! No automatic payroll deductions from unions to their political puppets. Those two have been in bed together for far too long, and it will bankrupt this state.
Prop 33: Undecided. Leaning to yes, but I need to research it more. Auto insurance companies are in favor and claim it will save $$$ on car insurance.
Prop 34: No. I am in favor of the death penalty for extreme cases. I think it is a necessary deterrent. Yes our death penalty system in California is broken, but that isn't a valid reason to throw out the death penalty, that is a valid reason to reform it.
Prop 35: Yes. Increase penalties for human trafficking and sex offenders. Yes. Those are the guys we should be going after.
Prop 36: Leaning yes. The three strikes law has our prisons are full of drug offenders. We can't afford it anymore. On the other hand, most of those guys I still would like off the streets. It sounds reasonable to focus more on the violent offenders. Still undecided on this one. I know the 3 strikes law has done a lot to decrease crime. Should we really reform it?
Prop 37: No. I have no problem with GMO's. In my opinion, they are a blessing to help us more easily and efficiently be fed. Greenpeace's scare tactics are mostly incorrect and/or unfounded. If people want to know, they should demand it, government shouldn't mandate it. That is government taking a stance, and government should stay out of it. It is decision between business and consumers, and should stay that way.
Prop 38: Yes. To me, this is a much more honest version of prop 30. It taxes everyone, not just goes after the rich. And all of the money will stay at the school level, so it doesn't feed California's waste money pits (perfect example: high speed rail). Yes it does raise taxes to fund schools, but I think it is necessary and justified in our current state of affairs.
It is absolutely astonishing to me that the California Teachers Union opposes this proposition. How is it possible that they favor the one that DOESN'T HAVE TO BE SPENT ON SCHOOLS??? (prop 30). The answer, of course, is simple: the CTA is in bed with the Sacramento politicians. They obviously cut a deal. If the CTA scratches their back to help them get money for their pet projects, then they scratch the CTA's back. This is undeniable evidence that the CTA does NOT have students best interests at heart, and is nothing more than an offshoot of the California Democratic Party. Correction: The CTA is not EXACTLY the same as the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is not in favor of protecting child molester teachers and teachers that refuse to actually teach. (...see why I am in favor of 32?!!)
Prop 39: Undecided. Just need to research this one more.
Prop 40: Yes. Redistrict, and get those incumbents out! Something needs to change in California. There needs to be SOME accountability.
16 comments:
I need to do more reading up on the props but i completely agree concerning 32, as for the presidentials im definitely going independent and i encourage any to do the same... however, between romney and obama i would have to say that despite romneys obviously superior domestic policies I would go wit obama simply due to the fact that I believe the first step our country needs to take is to stop our warfare abroad. The last debate really scared me in terms of Romneys determination to 'crack down on AL-Qaeda' and his statement that USA doesn't war with other nations but 'liberates' them. I mean yuck. besides that his vice president is a total war-mongerer. Therefore because Obama offers nothing in terms of an internal betterment Independent is my obvious choice.
Hyrum,
I will only comment on the vote for President. For the Props, anything that created a tax I said NO to.
President: In my opinion, any vote cast for someone other than Mitt Romney is considered a vote FOR Barrack Obama. California is already so liberal that the vote will probably be a crushing victory for Mr. Obama.
If we have ANY chance of getting Obama out of office, which I believe is a critical need for the well being and safety of our country, then we have to stand together and vote for Mitt Romney.
I understand the **desire** to vote for the candidate that most closely meets your/our political and constitutional beliefs, but in this case we are watching our country launch head-long into Socialism and we must, must, must give ourselves some breathing room and try to redirect that momentum.
As I see it, if you vote for anyone other than Mitt Romney, you will only help Obama institute Socialism along with the shredding of what's left of the Constitution.
Dave Hernandez
If you don't care about the difference between prop 30 and 38, you can ignore this comment, but for anyone that is interested, I thought I would keep you up to date on my research. I e-mailed the Teachers Union president, asking why the union backs 30, but not 38. This was his reply:
Hi, Hyrum,
The money from Prop 30 goes into a special fund which legislators cannot touch, so it IS protected. It will be audited and the audit will be on-line for all to see. I believe the supporters of 38 are trying to misrepresent how the funding will work.
There is not an official stance on 38 from TVEA (no one proposed a vote on it—and CTA voted neutral early in the campaign). However, there are a number of things that make it the worst choice of the two:
•It doesn’t address community colleges or UCs or CSUs at all; ¼ of the country’s community college students are in California—how could we not address community colleges in any education funding plan?
•It’s based on income tax for all—not a sales tax. This delays any funding from reaching schools for at least a year. All the trigger cuts will happen this year if this passes with more votes—that could mean more furlough days and an automatic $6 billion cut across the state for public ed.
•The state income tax increases for everyone with Prop 38 (Prop 30 just increases the income tax rate for the wealthiest citizens)—including people making only $15,000—people who can least afford it.
•Prop 30 sales tax lasts only 4 years and increased income tax rate only 7 years, while Prop 38 lasts for 12 years
•Prop 38 will only pay for NEW programs. It will not reinstate furlough days or bring back core teachers. It will not enable teachers to get a COLA increase if the economy improves.
Regarding the presidential election, I'm sure that you're correct in that CA will go for Obama no matter what. I think that CA would go democrat no matter who was running (even if it was Hugo Chavez!). But I agree that it's still important to try to give Romney as much support as possible to counter Obama's built-in advantage there. I think this election is extremely important. I think we're at a critical crossroads, and am very concerned for the future of this country if Obama is re-elected. This article by Orrin Hatch pretty much sums up my opinion as well: http://www.ldsmag.com/article/1/11676
Regarding foreign policy, I know enough about Romney that I trust that he's not going to be a "warmonger". I believe that he'll try to strike a good balance between standing up firmly for our national interests, and avoiding war and conflict as a very last resort. I think a politician can be extreme either direction, and I think Romney would be moderate in that respect.
I definitely do not want to throw my vote away in Obama's direction, but the thing that really bothers me about Romney (besides the fact that I find him arrogant) is his war policies. The economy is in such a position that no one man in any office can "fix" it in a few years. Just as Obama did not single handedly create the mess we are in within his term, no man will be able to pull us out of it by themselves. However, the quickest most popular remedy would be to boost up the war, which it looks like Romney fully intends to do. This is immoral, wasteful, tragic, and temporary! I hate knowing that the man I vote for will be responsible for more lives needlessly lost.
33 - Sounds attractive on it's face but VOTE NO. Because: 1. It's just more government regulation on business that 2. Will ultimately result in higher insurance rates for everyone.
34 - I disagree that the death penalty actually is a deterrent. Also, here's a paper hubby wrote for a class last year & I helped him with the research so became really familiar with the death penalty debate:
I'll have to email you the paper because I can't seem to post it on here. Worth reading before you make your mind up.
funny how these props are. I'm pretty sure 33 is less govt regulation, and lower car insurance.
Insurance companies are not allowed to give discounts unless specifically authorized. Prop 33 allows them to give another discount. I don't see how that is more govt regulation or higher insurance. Please explain if I'm wrong...
Hyrum I agree with most of your stances as usual. The one that you support which I totally disagree with is yes on 38. It was crafted my Molly Munger who was also one of the chief opponents to prop 209 (which thankfully passed) which ended racial discrimination for college acceptance. Not that that automatically makes everything she does bad, but this definitely triggered some red flags for me. You said in your article that raising taxes to fund schools is justified in our current state of affairs? Why is raising taxes justified? I would argue that taxes are too high already. Our tax burden is a major obstacle to our prosperity. By voting for higher taxes it sends feedback to the politicians that we think that we aren’t getting taxed high enough and that they need to take more or our money to be spent for our good. In some areas there is nothing that will save schools in California because too many parents are uninvolved with their kids, in general schools cannot fix the societal problem of bad parenting. In other areas the only hope for school improvement is vouchers or choice for the parents to move their kids out of mismanaged schools and/or the honest evaluation and removal of bad teachers. If teachers were honestly evaluated then I might support a tax increase to pay them more money. Under the current union run system all the money that we pump into that system will be wasted. This should be obvious because every single election there is another proposition to raise taxes to give more money to schools. No matter how much money we give them the schools will always ask for more, in their mind there isn’t an upper limit to what the tax payer can bear in the holly name of education. The only difference this time is that there are two such initiatives instead of one.
Sparrow, I don't disagree with you. All of your points are valid. Just one correction- keep in mind that 30 and 38 can't both pass. If they both did pass, the one with the most votes would stand.
Despite your good reasons to vote no, I am voting yes. Here is why: 38 is a little bit of a different animal. As education funding has decreased/ been misappropriated by corrupt politicians, there have been a lot of programs cut and kids are taking a hit. Education is on the decline and getting worse. The philosophy behind 38 is a valid one: Have the money go local, and out of the hands of state politicians. That may improve things.
That being said, there are more obvious ways of improving things that politicians just refuse to do, like fire ineffective teachers. Since we are nowhere near making the reforms that are really needed, maybe this is at least a way to mitigate the damage that is being done to our educational system right now.
Hyrum you didn't address my point at all that this is an extra tax. Income taxes will be raised even more in the highest taxed state in the union if this passes for 12 years! If this initiative was just going to transfer power locally then I would be all for it. Taxes are already way to high in California. There is no excuse to make them higher. For example Heidi's business is taxed at 45% (between federal, payroll and state taxes) of all the money she brings in which makes us question her having a business at all. It just isn't worth all the time and effort she puts into it. We're not rich but almost half of that money is being taken from us by the gov't. We already pay property taxes which should be more than adequate to pay for schools. If she decides to quit her business then it will make the economy worse because she hires employees so the unemployment rate would go up. Also instead of the greedy gov't getting 45% of our money now they'll get 0%. When taxes are raised to the point that work and entrepreneurship are dis-insensitiveized no amount of tax increases will fix the situation although the public unions will continue to call for the transfer of wealth from the private to the public sector.
You are right, Paul. I need to re-consider my yes vote.
As I am reconsidering, I am curious to what your answer is to this dilemma: The state's dilemma is this: Yes there is wasted money, but the problem runs deeper. With the decline in the economy, there is obviously far less tax revenue. Despite the decreased tax revenue, public services and schools still require the same amount of money as they did before. What is the answer?
That’s a good question Hyrum. It’s funny how when the economy is doing bad schools reach their hands in my pocket because they don’t have enough money, but when the economy is doing well none of the surplus gets given back. Quite the opposite actually, during the good years they were still complaining about lack of funding. Also this idea of taxing people more when the economy is bad is not a good idea economically. One can argue that since everyone else is cutting back the schools should have to do the same. So the question become which is more important our schools or our economy? It can be argued that since our schools improve the economy in the long run that investing in schools is a good long term solution to the problem so under-funding them to not raise taxes is short sighted. I agree in principle. The problem is that there are lots of things that the schools could be doing to improve which don’t cost money which they won’t or can’t because of the unions. Therefore I think the best long term solution is to underfund schools which will hopefully damage the unions enough to bring about meaningful change. Maybe more parents will home school there kids or send them to private schools and create more competition? Schools won’t be forced to solve their problems if we just keep feeding them more money. I do like that this proposition because it is addressing one of the problems in addition to asking for more money. I might also be in favor of a proposition that established a sliding tax scale so in good economic years taxes would be lower while in bad economic years taxes would be higher to pay for schools. It just isn’t fair to raise taxes for 12 years when every recession hits. The good news is that money is not a very big factor for schools to perform well. Some of the least funded schools in Utah perform the best while some of the best funded in DC perform the worst. Of course there are a variety of factors that play into this result but the point is that student test scores don’t correlate very closely to spending on schools.
My problem with Prop 30 is that according to the voter guide it says that "Revenues available for funding state budget" so this essentially gives politicians to do what they want with the money. It states nothing about restrictions that funding must go to schools. Prop 38 also states, "for four years to repay state debt" so essentially we will be using funding that should be going to schools to pay off Sacramento inability to manage the budget. They attached it to a school funding prop which really bothers me.
I urge you to vote Yes on Prop 34, I have done extensive research on this topic and aside from it not being an actual deterrent, there are too many people who have been wrongly convicted and face the death penalty. We can't resurrect them if we kill them once exculpatory evidence is found. We can release them from prison. The number of innocent people on death row would surprise you. I use to be for the death penalty but after my research for my Masters Thesis, the cost is too high.
HYRUM: I decided to vote NO on 31. Libertarian and other conservative and republicans are against it. Looks like some kind of gimmick to favor the bureaucrats. If it smells fishy, throw it out. We've gotten in too much trouble by letting the weasels in Sacramento sneak this kind of crap by us.
See this link for more info:
http://lplac.org/2012/10/19/thus-spake-jake/
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