Off the beading topic and onto politics!

OK - this post has nothing to do with beading - instead I'm doing a brief foray into politics - in this case proposition politics. I spent part of last night reading through most of the California propositions and wanted to let folks know what I think about some of them.

First - if it says "bond" I'm voting no. With all the budget problems we have right now we DON'T need to go into debt further to create/do something that obviously the state can't currently afford.

Second - vote NO on proposition 5. Not because it is a bad idea - but because the funding for it is a never ending siphon from our taxes! If you take the time to read the "fiscal impact" section of the actual proposition you will see that funding is based on a percentage of the STATE population (which will most likely continue to grow) rather than on the prison population. Also - to change anything after this proposition passes will require a 4/5 majority. There is NO chance 4/5 of our state politicians will agree on anything and certainly not on reducing the funding for prison rehab. So the funding for this rehab proposition is NEVER ENDING, CONTINUALLY GROWING and since it is a proposition, ALWAYS HAS TO BE FUNDED!!! So if we're having a budget problem - too bad - all the money required by this proposition has to be found somewhere - no cuts possible (unless 4/5 of the politicians agree). So ... please vote NO on prop 5. In fact I'm going to start reading all the fiscal impact sections more closely in the future since part of our budget problems are due to REQUIRED funding for many of the propositions that were voted into law in the past. Most of these do not provide an easy way to reduce the funding during bad economic times - so first we use our tax money to pay for all the REQUIRED funds that we have passed, and then the leftovers get distributed to all the other things that have to be payed for.

That's it for now and even if you don't agree with my ideas - at least take the time to read the actual proposition text so you'll know EXACTLY what you're agreeing to if you vote YES on the proposition.