4 ms·

California offers a warning to voters all over the world

30 points by pointillistic 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
erehweb 15y ago
California system is doing exactly what Californians want - my thoughts from Oct 2009, still good - http://erehweb.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/california-working-as-designed/ http://erehweb.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/california-working-a...
- chadgeidel 15y ago
  This is my thought as well, but I wonder why the downvotes? Is there something obvious I'm missing? Downvoters - would you care to enlighten me? (Honest question!)
  - hugh3 15y ago
    Probably for being a bit too self-promoting. "Hey, go read what I wrote about this subject on my blog!"
afterburner 15y ago
When you're not responsible for balancing the budget, of course you're going vote for more spending and less taxes. The public at large has a lack of direct accountability, so of course direct democracy is going to cause problems when applied to budgets.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  True, but that suggest an obvious solution: demand that each ballot initiative demanding spending includes the method by which the spending should be covered.
  - afterburner 15y ago
    Yup, they should try that. Something tells me it's been tried somewhere... I think the resistance will come from the lobby groups pushing these initiatives through, since they'll be annoyed at being forced to make their PR job harder.
    - afterburner 15y ago
      Downvoted, really? Strange.
      - afterburner 15y ago
        Downvoted for that too. Someone's spiteful. Here, downvote this too.
gaius 15y ago
The thing with Prop 13 is, without it or something like it, you could live your whole life in CA, then retire and be driven out when fiscal drag caught up with you. Shades of Logan's Run. So what's the alternative?
- hugh3 15y ago
  If you ask me, the whole idea of property taxes is unconscionable. In Australia the idea is brought up on occasion but the resulting media firestorm about how it would inevitably result in little old ladies who have lived in the same house for fifty years being turfed out always kills the idea. I don't know why Americans put up with it. If we must have taxes, then tax income or spending, not wealth, and especially not non-liquid wealth -- that way you can guarantee that people will always have enough money to pay their taxes, and aren't being billed $50,000 on their $30,000 income just because the cheap cottage they bought in the 1960s just happens to now be in the most expensive part of town.
  - xsmasher 15y ago
    >it would inevitably result in little old ladies who have lived in the same house for fifty years being turfed out That's a "feature" of the property tax system - in encourages people to make the "best use" (economic, not moral) of a piece of land.
    - hugh3 15y ago
      Though the market already "encourages" people on its own... the property tax just forces 'em. What I mean by "encourages" is that if I'm a little old retired lady living in a two-million-dollar cottage in the fanciest part of town then I already have a huge incentive to sell it off to some rich dude and go live in a half-million-dollar cottage somewhere else -- it's the $1.5 million I could pocket in that transaction.
    - gaius 15y ago
      Tell me something, it's still we, the people, right?
gte910h 15y ago
Flagged for politics.
- kovar 15y ago
  Politics or no, it is getting more traffic than some unflagged technical posts.
  - hugh3 15y ago
    And that's exactly why it needs to be flagged and deleted. Politics stories are like weeds -- they'll quickly take over the entire damn garden if you don't aggressively pluck 'em out when you see 'em.
- jpwagner 15y ago
  This article is about the efficacy of the system of "democracy" and whether california is appropriately testing the sociology experiments that have been running for tens and hundreds of years. Politics would be more [he-said-she-said].
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- yonran 15y ago
  I think this is relevant because so many people on HN are in the business of making group software. For cautionary tales, look no further than Google, who have consistently made the mistake of releasing software with a "direct democracy" philosophy of giving everyone a vote for everything: YouTube comments, Blogger comments, Android reviews, Google Maps reviews, Google Moderator. I first became aware of this problem when I read Clay Shirky's "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy"[1] essay in Joel Spolsky's Best Software Writing, and I'm not at all surprised at the complexity of StackExchange's flavor of democracy. [1]: http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
il 15y ago
I do wonder why citizens acting in rational self-interest don't just legislate themselves significantly lower taxes. My guess is that such initiatives would fail mainly because the special interests that are the main beneficiaries of tax dollars would bankroll a huge media campaign against them.
- jpwagner 15y ago
  How about why you bring your own bags to the grocery store, or why you contribute to wikipedia, or why stop to answer someone in need of directions...
protomyth 15y ago
Interestingly ND has referendums (easier to get on ballot than CA) and has a balanced budget. I don't think it has as much to do with direct democracy as it does with the party's inability to stop spending. Nevermind the unfunded pension liabilities.
- rdouble 15y ago
  My sister worked a government job in ND which required a master's degree and paid $18,000/yr. The ND attitude towards government jobs is the opposite of California.
  - protomyth 15y ago
    Yep, you get job security but pay for it with lower pay. Cost of living is a lot less (well housing has gone up because of the oil fields).
- donofrip 15y ago
  A retired public employee can actually make more in pension benefits once they retire than they made during their final year working. Based on how many years of service a public employee has, they can actually make over 100% of their final year salary. That is just an unsustainable model. I don't know who thought these pensions up, but they were not thinking beyond pleasing the immediate voting population. It is criminal that we continue to let politicians buy votes from current voters by robbing future generations. Shame on voters--either for not understanding how they are being duped into this or for not caring they are taking advantage of our country's future generation for their own benefit.
donofrip 15y ago
A representative government of elected officials has its legs cut out from under it by these direct democratic actions. As individuals, we cannot be experts on every subject and thus cannot vote intelligibly on every subject matter. Some people like to think that through technology we can be more informed, but in an ever increasingly complex and interconnected world, we are perhaps less informed than ever. Especially when some of us spend such a large percentage of our time being passively entertained. We need reliable decision makers that can use expert advisors to make decisions that will help us all. The problem that many see with government is the development of career statesmen. Individuals that have spent decades in office. They become ingrained and out of touch. We should instead consider eliminating the ability to easily remove elected officials between elections and put in place legislation that would limit the # of terms our representatives can serve. This would do away with much of the cronyism and lack of action that leaves a bad taste with the public. As far as the direct democracy's ability to balance the budget... that is obvious to understand. People only think of themselves and how these decisions will affect themselves. That is human nature. Any economics or philosophy student would be able to tell you what happens when you let a group of people vote on something like this. Either we need a more educated and selfless population (impossible) or a better structured government for decision making (needs to happen).
jpwagner 15y ago
Here's the thing: true democracy, theoretically, involves individuals voting in their interest with full knowledge of what is being presented. Last election I was discussing some of the spending bills with randoms in line waiting to vote. It became clear that they did not understand the bills but were "told" by friends or media how they should vote. In my view, there seems to be a distorted-abstract-representative that controls these group-voting circles. Just cause they cast the ballot themselves doesn't mean they are not being represented by this abstract representative. It was clear that some of these people were about to unknowingly vote in direct opposition to their own principles.

30 points by pointillistic 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

California system is doing exactly what Californians want - my thoughts from Oct 2009, still good - http://erehweb.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/california-working-as-designed/ http://erehweb.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/california-working-a...

chadgeidel 15y ago
This is my thought as well, but I wonder why the downvotes? Is there something obvious I'm missing? Downvoters - would you care to enlighten me? (Honest question!)
- hugh3 15y ago
  Probably for being a bit too self-promoting. "Hey, go read what I wrote about this subject on my blog!"

afterburner 15y ago

When you're not responsible for balancing the budget, of course you're going vote for more spending and less taxes. The public at large has a lack of direct accountability, so of course direct democracy is going to cause problems when applied to budgets.

tomjen3 15y ago
True, but that suggest an obvious solution: demand that each ballot initiative demanding spending includes the method by which the spending should be covered.
- afterburner 15y ago
  Yup, they should try that. Something tells me it's been tried somewhere... I think the resistance will come from the lobby groups pushing these initiatives through, since they'll be annoyed at being forced to make their PR job harder.
  - afterburner 15y ago
    Downvoted, really? Strange.
    - afterburner 15y ago
      Downvoted for that too. Someone's spiteful. Here, downvote this too.

gaius 15y ago

The thing with Prop 13 is, without it or something like it, you could live your whole life in CA, then retire and be driven out when fiscal drag caught up with you. Shades of Logan's Run. So what's the alternative?

hugh3 15y ago
If you ask me, the whole idea of property taxes is unconscionable. In Australia the idea is brought up on occasion but the resulting media firestorm about how it would inevitably result in little old ladies who have lived in the same house for fifty years being turfed out always kills the idea. I don't know why Americans put up with it. If we must have taxes, then tax income or spending, not wealth, and especially not non-liquid wealth -- that way you can guarantee that people will always have enough money to pay their taxes, and aren't being billed $50,000 on their $30,000 income just because the cheap cottage they bought in the 1960s just happens to now be in the most expensive part of town.
- xsmasher 15y ago
  >it would inevitably result in little old ladies who have lived in the same house for fifty years being turfed out That's a "feature" of the property tax system - in encourages people to make the "best use" (economic, not moral) of a piece of land.
  - hugh3 15y ago
    Though the market already "encourages" people on its own... the property tax just forces 'em. What I mean by "encourages" is that if I'm a little old retired lady living in a two-million-dollar cottage in the fanciest part of town then I already have a huge incentive to sell it off to some rich dude and go live in a half-million-dollar cottage somewhere else -- it's the $1.5 million I could pocket in that transaction.
  - gaius 15y ago
    Tell me something, it's still we, the people, right?

gte910h 15y ago

Flagged for politics.

kovar 15y ago
Politics or no, it is getting more traffic than some unflagged technical posts.
- hugh3 15y ago
  And that's exactly why it needs to be flagged and deleted. Politics stories are like weeds -- they'll quickly take over the entire damn garden if you don't aggressively pluck 'em out when you see 'em.
jpwagner 15y ago
This article is about the efficacy of the system of "democracy" and whether california is appropriately testing the sociology experiments that have been running for tens and hundreds of years. Politics would be more [he-said-she-said].
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
yonran 15y ago
I think this is relevant because so many people on HN are in the business of making group software. For cautionary tales, look no further than Google, who have consistently made the mistake of releasing software with a "direct democracy" philosophy of giving everyone a vote for everything: YouTube comments, Blogger comments, Android reviews, Google Maps reviews, Google Moderator. I first became aware of this problem when I read Clay Shirky's "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy"[1] essay in Joel Spolsky's Best Software Writing, and I'm not at all surprised at the complexity of StackExchange's flavor of democracy. [1]: http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

il 15y ago

I do wonder why citizens acting in rational self-interest don't just legislate themselves significantly lower taxes. My guess is that such initiatives would fail mainly because the special interests that are the main beneficiaries of tax dollars would bankroll a huge media campaign against them.

jpwagner 15y ago
How about why you bring your own bags to the grocery store, or why you contribute to wikipedia, or why stop to answer someone in need of directions...

protomyth 15y ago

Interestingly ND has referendums (easier to get on ballot than CA) and has a balanced budget. I don't think it has as much to do with direct democracy as it does with the party's inability to stop spending. Nevermind the unfunded pension liabilities.

rdouble 15y ago
My sister worked a government job in ND which required a master's degree and paid $18,000/yr. The ND attitude towards government jobs is the opposite of California.
- protomyth 15y ago
  Yep, you get job security but pay for it with lower pay. Cost of living is a lot less (well housing has gone up because of the oil fields).
donofrip 15y ago
A retired public employee can actually make more in pension benefits once they retire than they made during their final year working. Based on how many years of service a public employee has, they can actually make over 100% of their final year salary. That is just an unsustainable model. I don't know who thought these pensions up, but they were not thinking beyond pleasing the immediate voting population. It is criminal that we continue to let politicians buy votes from current voters by robbing future generations. Shame on voters--either for not understanding how they are being duped into this or for not caring they are taking advantage of our country's future generation for their own benefit.

donofrip 15y ago

A representative government of elected officials has its legs cut out from under it by these direct democratic actions. As individuals, we cannot be experts on every subject and thus cannot vote intelligibly on every subject matter. Some people like to think that through technology we can be more informed, but in an ever increasingly complex and interconnected world, we are perhaps less informed than ever. Especially when some of us spend such a large percentage of our time being passively entertained. We need reliable decision makers that can use expert advisors to make decisions that will help us all. The problem that many see with government is the development of career statesmen. Individuals that have spent decades in office. They become ingrained and out of touch. We should instead consider eliminating the ability to easily remove elected officials between elections and put in place legislation that would limit the # of terms our representatives can serve. This would do away with much of the cronyism and lack of action that leaves a bad taste with the public. As far as the direct democracy's ability to balance the budget... that is obvious to understand. People only think of themselves and how these decisions will affect themselves. That is human nature. Any economics or philosophy student would be able to tell you what happens when you let a group of people vote on something like this. Either we need a more educated and selfless population (impossible) or a better structured government for decision making (needs to happen).

jpwagner 15y ago

Here's the thing: true democracy, theoretically, involves individuals voting in their interest with full knowledge of what is being presented. Last election I was discussing some of the spending bills with randoms in line waiting to vote. It became clear that they did not understand the bills but were "told" by friends or media how they should vote. In my view, there seems to be a distorted-abstract-representative that controls these group-voting circles. Just cause they cast the ballot themselves doesn't mean they are not being represented by this abstract representative. It was clear that some of these people were about to unknowingly vote in direct opposition to their own principles.