Posted by
grad_1986 on Friday, May 01, 2009 3:14:51 PM
I am sure many of us have heard either one of our parents say that when we pose a difficult request to them such as , "Can I go camping with some friends" or "Can I take the car on a 2 hour trip to the city". As one parent, who feels like a deer caught in the headlights, searches for an answer. They quickly respond with this easy and non-threatening answer. We call this "passing the buck". The child then often runs off to ask the other parent, now claiming the other parent "said it was OK". The child calls this "divide and conquer".
This is what our wonderful elected officials in Sacramento are doing today by holding a special election (which will cost millions of dollars we don't have) to essentially "Go ask the voters". The decision to cut the budgets and anger their union bosses is too BIG of a decision for them and so they need us to make the decision for us. They would rather have an ill-informed voting population make the decisions that could impact our state for years to come. But why in HECK do we even have a state government then in the first place? Why don't we just conduct business like American Idol. We could just have Arnold stand up on a stage and have 2 people give us a 5 minute speech on the bill and we can then vote by texting YES or NO to an 800 number. The reason is simple that difficult matters require lots of thought and discussion. Its why we have a true Republic and not a Democracy.
I am voting NO on 1A-1F mostly because I don't believe its MY job to make these difficult decisions and I feel we need more radical cuts before we should consider extending our glutenous taxes for another 2 (or more) years. (Frankly speaking, I wish the whole PROP system would just go away altogether as all to often voters are manipulated by rich and powerful lobby groups running commercial after commercial on radio and TV who don't have the voters best interests in mind).
I hope you will too.