Are Californians Finally Getting Smart – To Get Public Services Like Education and Police Protection You Have to Pay for Public Services

Voters Learning That Maybe Voting Increased Spending and Lower Taxes Doesn’t Work

When asked about a public referendum on some issue Newt Gingrich replied that we don’t do that in this country, that the U. S. was a republic.  So once again ignorance triumphed over knowledge in the case of Mr. Gingrich.  The U.S. is a republic but in the U. S. the referendum is in place in many places, none more than California.  And Californians have used the process to vote to limit taxes and increase government spending. 

The result is just what everyone said it would be.  California is a fiscal nightmare.  Finally facing up to the problems newly elected Gov. Jerry Brown produced a budget and called for a public vote on whether or not to raise taxes to fund it.  When Republican blocked having that vote (Democracy getting in the way of their governing philosophy again) California was forced to undergo even more drastic cuts in public spending. 

Now the report is that Californians may have at long last come to their senses, and realize that if they want government services they have to tax themselves to pay for government services.

A survey of California voters conducted from Oct. 30 through Nov. 9 by The Los Angeles Times and the University of Southern California found that 64 percent of all respondents said they would pay more taxes if the money went to public schools, with support for taxes high among Democrats and independent voters. And voters in local elections across the state approved a variety of bond and tax measures last month, raising taxes on businesses, hotels and property owners to pay for schools and to offset reductions in services that communities and the state have imposed during these difficult years. Those results are now being seen as a harbinger of next year’s election.

So the mood in California is the place something, maybe even a lot of things on the ballot next fall.

the backers of the Think Long plan said they have $20 million to run a campaign for their initiative. The committee is a powerful assembly of California figures, which could give it extra credibility in the fight. The members include Eric E. Schmidt, the chairman of Google; Gray Davis, a former Democratic governor; Eli Broad, a prominent philanthropist; and two former United States secretaries of state, Condoleezza Rice and George P. Shultz, both Republicans.

And while the Neanderthals of the state will oppose any and all tax increases (without saying what vital services they will cut) there is a chance that voters will approve the increases.  At any rate, if taxes do not increase and education and public safety and transportation and medical care are all reduced to the level experienced by developing nations, the citizens of California will have only themselves to blame. 

And that Mr. Gingrich, is how the country operates.  As a famous historian we would have thought you knew that.