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[stonebender]

Hello,

I just thought I'd drop a note and let everyone know I'm still alive. I have been particularly depressed the last few weeks. I'm coping and what energy I do have has been going into fighting California Gov. Schwarzenegger's proposed

Comments

[19_crows]

I'm glad to hear from you and glad you're mostly okay.

I love my state but right now it's so fucked up and I can't see it's going to get better. And there's all this whining about how we pay such high taxes now, wah. I'll gladly pay high taxes if it goes to something worthwhile like Medi-Cal.

[stonebender]

*sigh* me either, but I'll go down swinging.

[necturus]

It's not just California. There simply isn't enough money to pay for the services Americans have come to expect from government. In the long run, I can't see a way to resolve this, unless people's expectations diminish or we institute some sort of mandatory community service.

As for the initiative/referendum system, I feel it is pernicious. We are cursed with it in Massachusetts too. At least the legislature here is not afraid to repeal referendum decisions, as they did in the case of the seat belt law a few years ago.

Our version of Proposition 13 is Proposition 2 1/2. I thought it was a thoroughly bad idea, but it has had the effect of boosting voter turnout and getting people more involved in the affairs of their towns, so it has turned out to be not so bad.

[stonebender]

I'm sorry I don't buy that we can't afford it. While there has been an increase in people who need services, at the very same time (at least in the United States) tax cuts for the rich keep going up. As long as people are more interested in protecting the right to have multiple dwellings that each cost millions of dollars. Rather than provide services for the most vulnerable. I don't think we can make the "we can't afford it" arguement.

[necturus]

Yes, there are some people in this country who have grown rich at the expense of everyone else, and they should certainly pay. But are there enough of them? And many of them have been hit as hard as the rest of us by what went down last fall. The richest university in the world, whose business school has produced more bloodsucking parasites than Okeefenokee Swamp, lost half its endowment.

This is the end of life as we have known it, I think. The years to come are not going to be pleasant.