I truly don't understand the reporting. We see headlines about the issue being water storage, but this thing is laden with pork. Some have mentioned the enviro stuff, including an FR thread today (See:
CA: Bond includes 'green' money - Environmental causes large part of spending plan).
The tax hike is a headscratcher. The language (or language similar to it) that I posted above was repeated no less than 8 times in the legislation. It's not exactly hidden if anybody actually read the text. Did the governor agree to this?
It depends on the size of the bill - if its the size of a telephone book, no one can read the whole thing in a decent amount of time. They have to go by the printed summary, which may be not be completely accurate either since there are often last minute amendments, deletions and revisions. Payoffs, green money and hidden tax hikes - the Left wish list disguised as an infrastructure plan. Under normal legislative processes, none of this would ever fly. But these things can get under the radar since this is anything but a normal legislative process. There are no checks and balances here when the pressure is on you to vote for something that seems popular but which has a lot of stuff you'd oppose under regular circumstances. That's what the Democrats are counting on - Republican ignorance. In the old days, they might have gotten away with it but thanks to the New Media, we can now blow the whistle on this scameroo in real time.
The question is will we have a deal we can live with? I don't think so since the Democrats have no intention of negotiating with Republicans. They'll try to craft language they and the Governor's people can agree on and then cherry pick a couple of Republican votes to get it on the ballot. The good news is that so far on the GOP side, there have been no takers. Let's hope it stays that way through next week.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")