Governor Brown has been making the case for a vote on extending the sales taxes since January. It’s not had much effect on the Republicans in the Legislature, but it does seem to making some headway with the people:<\/p>\n
California voters agree with Gov. Jerry Brown that tax increases should help close the state budget deficit, and they want to vote on his plan for raising the revenue, according to a new Times\/USC Dornsife poll. … <\/p>\n
Sixty percent of those surveyed, including majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, said they back such an election. The alternative being pushed by most GOP lawmakers – forgoing an election and balancing the budget by cutting more from state services – was supported by just 33%.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
You can view the full poll here<\/a>, but there is some really interesting information. It might drive pretty much any politically interested person crazy as much of it is wildly conflicting, but that’s kind of what you get when you ask questions that drop nuance in favor of simplicity. Not that there is anything wrong with this poll, but asking questions that really focus on values is more of an art than a science.<\/p>\n
The bold face numbers aren’t so bad, with only 25% of voters preferring a cuts only budget when they find out that such a budget would require cuts to K12 education. Later on down the line you see that when asked if they support a state budget cap at the rate of inflation, a pretty strong majority supports it. Of course, the fact that a budget that only increased at that rate would require some pretty heavy cuts due to population growth didn’t come up. Oh…and we still have outstanding debt that has to be paid at some point.<\/p>\n
This really does reflect the bigger problem of a system of governance with no real leader. There isn’t anything wrong with the Governor, it is just that the system is designed to fail. The elected leaders are subject to the whim of the initiative system, a process that favors feel-good slogans over sound policy. For now, we have to deal with it, as Republicans are increasingly recalcitrant. But, this is really no way to run one of the world’s largest economies.<\/p>\n
After all, what it comes down to is that Californians want their cake, and they want to eat it too. They want their two Santas, one to give them stuff, one to cut their taxes<\/a>. While there are these competing visions (one of which, the Laffer-curve mania, has never been shown to work for anybody but the rich), we really can’t be surprised with these type of results. After all, the Republicans have been telling everybody that they can get something for nothing for years.<\/p>\n
If we can get it on the ballot, a focused campaign can pass revenues, of that I am confident. My certainty doesn’t extend much past that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Governor Brown has been making the case for a vote on extending the sales taxes since January. It’s not had much effect on the Republicans in the Legislature, but it does seem to making some headway with the people:<\/p>\n
California voters agree with Gov. Jerry Brown that tax increases should help close the state budget deficit, and they want to vote on his plan for raising the revenue, according to a new Times\/USC Dornsife poll. … <\/p>\n
Sixty percent of those surveyed, including majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, said they back such an election. The alternative being pushed by most GOP lawmakers – forgoing an election and balancing the budget by cutting more from state services – was supported by just 33%.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n