If you’ve not been paying attention because you have more important things to do, like supporting your family, this is just a reminder that a week from now it will be Election Day. Once again, you’ll have opportunity to become an enabler to the state’s ongoing addiction for spending money it does not have or you can finally put your foot down and say no.
Like every other addict, the State of California promises that if you’ll just give them one more fix, one more drink, one more sniff and one more ounce of love they’ll clean up their act and never do it again; and like every other addict they are lying. Until the day comes when the electorate calls them to account, the addicts in Sacramento will continue to abuse us and it’s our own fault. We are the enablers and co-dependents who allow them to do it; we believe their lies, their promises of reform, or we’re just too tired to fight about it. Up to now, it’s been a classic dysfunctional relationship.
It’s gotten so bad that one of the proposals is to sell bonds against future lottery earnings. Remember, the lottery was originally promoted as the solution that would save the state’s education programs. Not only did it fail to save education, now it can’t even save itself. When I grew up, playing with “winnings” you do not have was the sure sign that you’ve become a degenerate gambler.
Now that answer is being recommended by the Legislature as some kind of solution. What has changed?
The LA Times recently ran a story about the 160 teachers and other employees of the LA Unified School District accused of misconduct who sit around, some for years, doing absolutely nothing except cashing their paychecks. Meanwhile, the process tries to determine their fitness to teach or work. This systematic abuse costs the taxpayers $10 million a year and as long as you’re willing to pay for it, they are willing to spend it.
Give an addict a dollar and you can be sure they will spend it on their drug of choice and the state’s drug of choice is painless government. No decision is too difficult as long as there is other people’s money to spend.
There is no sense going over the propositions in detail. Except for one designed to punish the legislators if they do not balance the budget, they all have one thing in common, they are just another patch on a boat whose hull is riddled with holes. The worst part is that there is no good reason for it.
The State of California is anything but a tax haven. Combined sales taxes have long put 9 percent behind them, state income taxes are among the highest in the nation as are gasoline taxes, but the Legislature has proven that they can spend it all plus some extra in both good times and bad. The faltering economy is not the reason the state is broke – it’s just the latest excuse. Like all addicts, the state never runs out of excuses.
However, addicts do not operate in a vacuum. They depend on their enablers and co-dependents to allow them to feed their addictions. They will be coming to you with their promises on May 19 and the decision will be in your hands. If you vote no, the world will come to an end, the school budgets will collapse, the state’s services will all go away and terrible things will occur, just ask the addict. On the other hand, maybe, just this once, you can force the state to go into rehab where it belongs.
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident. His column runs Tuesdays. Reach him at cw*****@ya***.com.
