Here is a nice analysis in the Los Angeles Times of why the ballot measures designed to deal with California's budget crisis went down to crushing defeat yesterday. The voters want the legislature to deal with this problem, and are rightly frustrated that they cannot. We resent being presented with a bunch of complicated propositions that represent a compromise solution. At the same time we voters have rigged the system to make it nearly impossible for the legislature to deal with the problem. So basically the voters want to have their cake and eat it at the same time. Or as the story reports, a poll found that "voters oppose cutbacks in 10 of 12 major categories of state spending, including the biggest, education and healthcare. Yet most voters were unwilling to have their own taxes increased, and they overwhelmingly favored keeping the two-thirds requirement for tax hikes."
Well, there you have the problem in a nutshell. We don't want to cut spending and we don't want to raise taxes. That's what the voters expressed very clearly yesterday, and now the ball is back in the legislature's court. Good luck.
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