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>>> "So California's problems are not because of direct democracy." Saying someone else's arguments for X aren't good isn't the same as making an argument for

by akeefer 15y ago

>>> "So California's problems are not because of direct democracy." Saying someone else's arguments for X aren't good isn't the same as making an argument for not X, and you've totally failed to do that. There have historically been two major issues in California: Prop 13 itself, and the 2/3 requirement for budgets. Prop 13 has not only made it difficult to raise taxes as necessary, it's forced the state (and municipalities) to rely on less-stable, less-efficient methods of financing. Property taxes are historically a much more stable source of revenue for states than income taxes, and states that rely heavily on income taxes (like California) tend to have less stable revenues than states that rely more on property taxes. Prop 13 forced California to rely more and more heavily on income taxes, destabilizing its revenue. The 2/3 requirement to pass a tax has also made that basically impossible, so initiatives are financed through even-more-expensive bond measures. Also note that Prop 13 helped shift the tax burden away from corporate property owners (since corporations can live forever, they never have to transfer property), further drying up a source of revenue for the state. So while the best analysis I can find indicates that the initiative "earmarks" of funding are at worst a minor hindrance, Prop 13 is really the elephant in the room, and it couldn't/wouldn't have happened outside of the initiative process. But without it, we wouldn't be talking about the initiative process as an issue, because the CA budget wouldn't be such a mess. Meanwhile, the 2/3 budget requirement also made things a mess by historically making it impossible to get a budget passed without compromising/buying off enough legislators to get it through. Since everyone knows the majority party needs every last vote to get things through, they can all hold out for their pet concessions, making it impossible to come up with any kind of a responsible, honest budget. Thankfully that issue was sort of resolved by another initiative this past year, though by not addressing the tax side of the equation it's only a half-measure: spending cuts can now be done with a simple majority, but revenues can only be increased by a 2/3 vote, which means that the legislators are basically trying to balance the budget with only half the available options.

TomOfTTB 15y ago
Did you read my comment? Because you certainly didn't respond to it. My argument in regards to Prop 13 and taxes was "if it's so hard to raise taxes to an acceptable level why are we already the 9th highest taxed state (I mistyped 5th)". You counter with "The 2/3 requirement to pass a tax has also made that basically impossible,". That's not a response to the argument I put forth (which is a valid one). So again my point is this: If 41 states can make it by with lower per-capita tax revenue than California COULD as well meaning the 2/3rd rule is not the root of the problem. As far as compromise every state legislature has to compromise and the arguments you make could be applied to any close legislature. Even those ruled by majority vote. We see the same shady deals being made in the U.S. Congress all the time and it's run by majority too.
- akeefer 15y ago
  As was already pointed out elsewhere, using per-capita $ numbers instead of percentage-of-GDP is fairly misleading, and if you use percentage-of-GDP it's more like 19th for California; I didn't feel the need to point that out again. So California isn't particularly exceptional in the amount of their revenues. Those numbers were likely also for prior to the economic bust; I'd be interested to see where they fall for 2010-2011. Remember, for 2008, there were no budget problems for CA; our revenue has cratered since then because we're so reliant on personal income. I also made the point that the shift from property taxes to income taxes made the budget harder to balance by destabilizing revenue. California's problems are often caused by revenue volatility, and the state's budget is fine during booms and blows up during busts. States that rely more on property tax and less on income tax have much more stable revenues. I don't believe that's something that you've find much controversy on among either researchers or academics. And your counter-argument around "everyone has to compromise" is, I'm afraid, just straight-up incorrect. Sure, everyone has to compromise. The point is that the more votes you have to get on board, the more watered down it gets. The budget you get with a 2/3 majority required is demonstrably worse than the budget you would have gotten with a 51% majority, because getting those extra 16% on board almost certainly required a bunch more one-off compromises to individual legislators. If you've seen the CA budgetary process in action, you'll know it worked pretty much exactly like that, and pretty much every year involved a late budget and some holdout congressman demanding pork for his district in exchange for his vote. Imagine how much already has to go on to get the vote to 51% on any given budget, and then just add a bunch more of it.

by akeefer 15y ago

TomOfTTB 15y ago

Did you read my comment? Because you certainly didn't respond to it. My argument in regards to Prop 13 and taxes was "if it's so hard to raise taxes to an acceptable level why are we already the 9th highest taxed state (I mistyped 5th)". You counter with "The 2/3 requirement to pass a tax has also made that basically impossible,". That's not a response to the argument I put forth (which is a valid one). So again my point is this: If 41 states can make it by with lower per-capita tax revenue than California COULD as well meaning the 2/3rd rule is not the root of the problem. As far as compromise every state legislature has to compromise and the arguments you make could be applied to any close legislature. Even those ruled by majority vote. We see the same shady deals being made in the U.S. Congress all the time and it's run by majority too.

akeefer 15y ago
As was already pointed out elsewhere, using per-capita $ numbers instead of percentage-of-GDP is fairly misleading, and if you use percentage-of-GDP it's more like 19th for California; I didn't feel the need to point that out again. So California isn't particularly exceptional in the amount of their revenues. Those numbers were likely also for prior to the economic bust; I'd be interested to see where they fall for 2010-2011. Remember, for 2008, there were no budget problems for CA; our revenue has cratered since then because we're so reliant on personal income. I also made the point that the shift from property taxes to income taxes made the budget harder to balance by destabilizing revenue. California's problems are often caused by revenue volatility, and the state's budget is fine during booms and blows up during busts. States that rely more on property tax and less on income tax have much more stable revenues. I don't believe that's something that you've find much controversy on among either researchers or academics. And your counter-argument around "everyone has to compromise" is, I'm afraid, just straight-up incorrect. Sure, everyone has to compromise. The point is that the more votes you have to get on board, the more watered down it gets. The budget you get with a 2/3 majority required is demonstrably worse than the budget you would have gotten with a 51% majority, because getting those extra 16% on board almost certainly required a bunch more one-off compromises to individual legislators. If you've seen the CA budgetary process in action, you'll know it worked pretty much exactly like that, and pretty much every year involved a late budget and some holdout congressman demanding pork for his district in exchange for his vote. Imagine how much already has to go on to get the vote to 51% on any given budget, and then just add a bunch more of it.