Mega Tuesday!
Do you Californians realize how exciting this is. This might be the only time in our lives that our individual votes will matter in picking the next President. And it is getting excitingly close!
I myself am pretty gung-ho about Obama. Him and Clinton have very similar policies, but attitude and message make a big difference for me. Though I have never been this excited about a candidate, I've been having a disproportionately hard time articulating why. But for all of those who are undecided I encourage you to see for yourself by viewing any full speech of his on youtube, and/or to check out this article. The basic idea is this: politics these days is more about shouting down your opponents and demonizing them to win elections than it is about finding practical solutions to our problems. And, whether by her own doing or not, Hillary Clinton is part of this. Though I think she would govern reasonably well, those old battles of the 1960's and 1990's will follow her and continue to polarize this country. On the other hand, Obama, through his youth, energy, and message, has a better chance than any other politician to overcome this. One thing I've learned pretty well over the last few years is to listen for buzzwords or phrases that will just tick people off, either on the right or the left. Usually they are forms of name calling, or perhaps oversimplifying someone elses position. Almost all politicians use them at some point. But Obama virtually never does, while still saying quite a lot. He's not just saying "let's unify" in a direct way. He's saying it in his tone and in how he points out the problems we face without oversimplifying who is to blame.
Im leaning no on all of the California propositions.
91: No need to discuss this one.
92: Prop 92 would add yet another restriction on legislators ability to fix a budget crisis or respond to the state's needs. It would increase Community College funding each year by the population growth rate of 17-21 or 22-25 year olds, whichever is greater, and even more when unemployment is greater than 5% (which is the case most years). It might make sense to use the total average population growth of 17-25 year olds (or even better, actual community college enrollment!) without the unemployment kicker, but this law dares to make this too strong in 2 ways, without even measuring the correct indicator (what if the UC's become more in demand for our economy? Are they ignoring the fact that the average community college student is 28 years old?). Also, lowering the fees from $20 to $15 won't do much except hurt the State's finances. Our fees are already the lowest in the country, and around a quarter of students already don't don't have to pay due to waivers for those who can't afford it. This is exactly the kind of unsustainable runaway spending that helped get us in this budget crisis and is making it so hard to get out.
93: The basic part of this makes a lot of sense. Rather than making lawmakers play leapfrog between houses for 14 years, they can stay in one for 12. I like that. But 42 current legislators will be grandfathered into having terms potentially longer than 14 years (they can serve up to 12 years total in their current house, so if they already served 8 in the other they could serve 20 total). This is one of those sneaky, disingenuous propositions. But I guess we gotta measure the benefits versus the costs. I'm leaning no.
94-97: No strong feelings here. I mostly just feel that limits to tribal gambling are important. I don't want to see huge expansions, so I'm leaning no.
Please comment for debate!
I myself am pretty gung-ho about Obama. Him and Clinton have very similar policies, but attitude and message make a big difference for me. Though I have never been this excited about a candidate, I've been having a disproportionately hard time articulating why. But for all of those who are undecided I encourage you to see for yourself by viewing any full speech of his on youtube, and/or to check out this article. The basic idea is this: politics these days is more about shouting down your opponents and demonizing them to win elections than it is about finding practical solutions to our problems. And, whether by her own doing or not, Hillary Clinton is part of this. Though I think she would govern reasonably well, those old battles of the 1960's and 1990's will follow her and continue to polarize this country. On the other hand, Obama, through his youth, energy, and message, has a better chance than any other politician to overcome this. One thing I've learned pretty well over the last few years is to listen for buzzwords or phrases that will just tick people off, either on the right or the left. Usually they are forms of name calling, or perhaps oversimplifying someone elses position. Almost all politicians use them at some point. But Obama virtually never does, while still saying quite a lot. He's not just saying "let's unify" in a direct way. He's saying it in his tone and in how he points out the problems we face without oversimplifying who is to blame.
Im leaning no on all of the California propositions.
91: No need to discuss this one.
92: Prop 92 would add yet another restriction on legislators ability to fix a budget crisis or respond to the state's needs. It would increase Community College funding each year by the population growth rate of 17-21 or 22-25 year olds, whichever is greater, and even more when unemployment is greater than 5% (which is the case most years). It might make sense to use the total average population growth of 17-25 year olds (or even better, actual community college enrollment!) without the unemployment kicker, but this law dares to make this too strong in 2 ways, without even measuring the correct indicator (what if the UC's become more in demand for our economy? Are they ignoring the fact that the average community college student is 28 years old?). Also, lowering the fees from $20 to $15 won't do much except hurt the State's finances. Our fees are already the lowest in the country, and around a quarter of students already don't don't have to pay due to waivers for those who can't afford it. This is exactly the kind of unsustainable runaway spending that helped get us in this budget crisis and is making it so hard to get out.
93: The basic part of this makes a lot of sense. Rather than making lawmakers play leapfrog between houses for 14 years, they can stay in one for 12. I like that. But 42 current legislators will be grandfathered into having terms potentially longer than 14 years (they can serve up to 12 years total in their current house, so if they already served 8 in the other they could serve 20 total). This is one of those sneaky, disingenuous propositions. But I guess we gotta measure the benefits versus the costs. I'm leaning no.
94-97: No strong feelings here. I mostly just feel that limits to tribal gambling are important. I don't want to see huge expansions, so I'm leaning no.
Please comment for debate!