(Untitled)

[firelizard5]

Happy post-election day! I hope that your favored local candidates did well, and that no one managed to shove through any stupid local laws with a ballot measure*. My favored mayoral candidate looks like he will win, though as our local ballots are paper, it might be a couple of days before they are all counted.

It is November, which means that

Comments

[elanor_two]

fix spending at recession levels forever!

We had one of those in Washington! By Tim Eyman, the horse's ass who continually tries to cut taxes by ridiculous ballot initiatives. Thank god, it's getting resoundingly defeated this time around.

[firelizard5]

But wouldn't such a bill also mean that your taxes are forever stuck exactly where they are now?

[elanor_two]

Sort of...but the focus was more on the budget of the state's government rather than actual taxes, and how much the government would be allowed to spend on things like, y'know, schools and parks and roads and things that I like.
Also, I basically vote no on everything Eyman on principle, because I have never once agreed with anything he's said about taxes or government...so. Yeah.

[firelizard5]

How sad for Tim Eyman. Surely at least someone agrees with him. If you can't get the support of a few crazy people, than what are you?

[elwood012]

Things went pretty well here-Eyman's latest initiative going down in flames (see above), our expanded domestic partnership law being upheld, the stealth republican running for county exec getting defeated, and a very competitive race for mayor (less than a 500 vote margin).

Regarding Eyman, the No on 1033 campaign had some of the best flyers ever, with a header saying that the initiative was sponsored by Tim Eyman + usual ominous copy text, with the rest of the flyer being instructions on how to vote no, showing a magnified ballot with a giant arrow pointing towards the appropriate box, marked no. Not sure if they sent these outside of King County, which went 67% against, but that's evidentially all they need to do here...

Oh, and yeah, amendments, we had a few of those this year, including 'strike obsolete language' for some administrative thing that didn't exist anymore :p

[firelizard5]

We prefer to just let our legislators handle that sort of thing. That's why we pay them. Sort of. We give then $13k a year, anyway, and free tickets to Duke and UNC games, which means that they are paid slightly better than Americorp volunteers, and slightly worse than graduate students.

[elwood012]

Indeed. Unfortunately, since we do have a strong initiative system, they tend to end up rather straightjacketed by unfunded spending mandates and tax cuts enacted by initiatives, as well as a balanced budget amendment and a requirement that any tax increase requires a 67% supermajority in the legislature or a public vote (this is from a previous Eyman initiative).

As a result, instead of getting set by representatives who get paid about as much as postdocs (~$36K, though cost of living is substantially higher up here) to spend most of their time legislating, much of the fiscal policy here is set by people who may or may not even read their voter's pamphlets...

[firelizard5]

Wow, your voters get pamphlets? We get a postcard when we initially register to vote, telling us our polling location. We are supposed to just work it out from there.