Prop 8 and the Supremes
Thursday, the California Supreme Court heard the Prop 8 oral arguments. The Court itself put on a tour de force showing of great public relations by making publically available not only all the legal briefs, court orders and case histories of the various cases brought together for this landmark contest of Constitutional law, but also televising the three hours of oral arguments, accessible in real time in streaming video (go to http://www.calchannel.com/images/tcc_live.html and it should be archived now).
Proposition 1A: Too High a Price—and Voters Shouldn’t Buy
California has become like that ne’er do well cousin who is always hitting up generous relatives for more money, while never changing their irresponsible ways. Proposition 1A, scheduled for the May election, is merely the latest example of Sacramento politicians returning to taxpayers for $16 billion in higher taxes, during a time of record high 10% unemployment, plummeting retirement account funds, record high foreclosures, and overall economic jitters, for more money to feed wasteful programs.
What’s most outrageous about the situation is that the authors of the ballot argument in favor of Prop 1A are attempting to hoodwink voters into extending the largest tax increases in state history under the guise of budget "reform." Rather than being honest with Californians, the official ballot summary will omit $16 billion in higher taxes and only mention the spending cap portion of this measure.
Spending Limit and the Orient Express
The early, private polling I’ve seen is all over the map on Prop 1A, the new spending limit. Much depends on how the complicated limit is described – and on the nature of the opposition to the measure.
But common sense indicates the limit faces a steeply uphill fight. Why? The measure has bitter enemies everywhere – among liberals who hate any limit on spending, among conservatives who hate that the limit is linked to taxes, among anyone who hates the legislature (a solid majority in California) and even among pointy-headed centrists who won’t like the details of the limit as they learn them. One imagines that even the legislative leaders who negotiated it won’t shed a tear if Prop 1A goes down. The Democrats didn’t want it, and it was less than the hard spending cap that Republicans pined for. If the limit goes down, everyone could be a suspect, even politicians who endorsed it.
Mayor and Business a Poor Union
Antonio Villaraigosa’s re-election Tuesday is OK. After all, he is a pretty good mayor.
My only complaint: He’s no friend to business.
That’s always seemed evident but it became even more clear last week when, in a late campaign swing, he stopped by the Los Angeles Business Journal offices to meet with reporters and editors. Our first question: Since businesses here are stuck with unusually high costs and high tax rates – and soon will face among the country’s highest sales tax rates – is his administration doing anything to help L.A.’s businesses combat those disadvantages?
Instead of talking about what he plans to do, he talked about the past. He said that when the city was facing a big budget deficit, he refused to suspend the third year of a scheduled tax cut for businesses.