Voters are the problem

California voters exercise their power -- and that's the problem

Rightly or wrongly, voters in the special election refused either to extend new tax hikes or to cap state spending. They also declined to unlock funds that they had voted in better financial times to set aside for special purposes.

Nearly a century after the Progressive-era birth of the state's ballot-measure system, it is clear that voters' fickle commands, one proposition at a time, are a top contributor to paralysis in Sacramento. And that, in turn, has helped cripple the capacity of the governor and Legislature to provide effective leadership to a state of more than 38 million people.

Clogged freeways, the decline of public schools, an outdated water system and a battered economy are just a few of the challenges demanding action by state leaders. Instead, they are consumed by yet another budget crisis, one that voters worsened Tuesday.

Wait a minute. Voters deciding important budgetary and legislative matters based on a few months of interest group campaigning, impulse, knee jerk reactions, public distaste or like of the person or persons who created the initiative, and shortsighted views on what's happening now, their unwillingness to scale back when budgetary problems occur, a lack of the understanding they couldn't ever possibly get of the complex budgetary, tax, and legal ramifications of these ballot measures and the many varied problems passing or not passing these measures will cause, let alone the myriad of bad patches, overlap problems, and some complete governmental hamstringing that these varied ballot initiatives create.....has become a problem for the state of California?

No shit. The only people worse at making laws than the people we elect are masses of people in the millions, mostly voting off the marketing language in an ad they saw, a "No on ___" "Say Yes on ____, for the children" sign they saw, and whether Tim Robbins or Rush Limbaugh supports or opposes the measure. Who could have ever guessed that voters weren't realistic about tax rates and spending levels? So now the Governator is left with a smoldering budget crater much larger than the one that got Gray Davis recalled. Arnold is about to hit the part where the only solution is to hack at the schools, public services, police, and fire departments randomly with a machete before complete financial chaos causes California to break off and sink into the sea in a shaky, quaky hellstorm of their own devising.

But hey, at least we might get another amusing recall election that might give them an even weirder governor. Cali might also pass some useful environmental regulations before they are swallowed into the Pacific. So...silver linings.