Tom on the California 2012 Propositions (McClintock recommendations)

tommcclintock.com ^ | 20 September 2012 | Tom McClintock

[CounterCounterCulture]

Prop 30: Your Wallet or Your Kids. NO

Either approve $36 billion in higher sales and income taxes or else Gov. Brown threatens to shoot the schools. Don't worry, the income taxes are only on the "very wealthy," but it turns out the "very wealthy" include many small businesses filing under sub-chapter S, meaning lower wages, higher prices and fewer jobs. California already has one of the highest overall tax burdens in the country and yet has just approved a budget to spend $8 billion dollars more than it's taking in. Moral of the story: it's the spending stupid.

Prop 31: Rotting Mackerel by Moonlight. NO

This one shines and stinks. On the shiny side, it moves us toward performance-based budgeting, restores certain powers to the governor to make mid-year spending reductions and requires new spending to be paid for. On the stinky side, it provides a two-year budget cycle that makes fiscal gimmickry all the easier and locks into the Constitution an incredibly anal process for local communities to adopt "Strategic Action Plans" serving such open-ended new age objectives as "community equity" and nudges them into establishing regional governments to push this agenda. The purpose of local governments is to provide basic services, not to pursue utopian four-year plans.

Prop 32: Cutting The Piggies Off From The Trough. YES

In the "It's About Time" category, this measure would finally prohibit unions, corporations, government contractors, and state and local governments from deducting money from employees' paychecks for political purposes without their express written consent. As Jefferson wrote, "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." This puts an end to this despotic practice.

Prop 33: Rewarding Responsible Drivers. YES

Here's a no-brainer: should car insurance companies be allowed to offer a discount to drivers who maintain continuous coverage? No, it's not a trick question. Under California's convoluted law, if you switch auto insurers you can't qualify for the continuous coverage discount. This measure says you can.

Prop 34: Lifetime Room and Board (and Sex-Change Operations, too) for Murderers. NO

This abolishes the death penalty for first-degree murder. Enough said.

Prop 35: Red Light on Human Trafficking. YES

Prop 35 greatly expands the definition of "Human Trafficking" (already illegal), and greatly increases existing penalties. The problem is real and growing and needs stronger sanctions, although there are some provisions in Prop 35 that make it ripe for prosecutorial abuse, including limiting the ability of defendants to cross-examine witnesses and broadening the definition of trafficking to include those who never had contact with the victim. On balance, though, the good outweighs the bad.

Prop 36: Gutting Three Strikes. NO

After many years of rising crime rates, Californians finally struck back with the three-strikes law. It is actually a two-strikes law: after two serious or violent felonies - in which one has murdered, assaulted, raped, robbed or pillaged his fellow citizens - he is on notice that any further misconduct will remove him from polite society. Prop 36 would require that the third strike also be a serious or violent crime, giving dangerous criminals yet one more opportunity at atrocity. The Left predicted that "Three Strikes" would have no effect on crime - in fact, crime rates have plummeted. When it ain't broke, don't try and fix it.

Prop 37: Spit it Out. NO

This is the latest effort of the Nanny Left to tell us what to eat. It requires foods that contain any ingredients resulting from biotechnology advances to carry the scary warning: "GENETICALLY ENGINEERED." There is not a shred of evidence that biotechnology is the least bit dangerous - it often reduces the need for pesticides. To avoid branding their products with the Scarlet Warning, food processors would have to prove that every scrap and crumb in their fare is devoid of biotechnology or face crushing lawsuits. Grocery prices high enough yet?

Prop 38: Pay More, Get Less. NO

Not to be outdone by Prop. 30, this measure heaps $120 BILLION of new income taxes on those earning more than $7,316 (the new millionaires and billionaires of California's impoverished economy). It's for the schools, of course. No doubt these dollars (which families would just waste on necessities) will be as well spent as the staggering fortune that we're already shoveling into the sclerotic school system.

Prop 39: Tax Us Before We Hire Again. NO

This is a $1 billion per year tax increase on California businesses to subsidize a whole new generation of Solyndra scams. But remember, businesses don't pay business taxes; they only collect them from employees through lower wages, from consumers through higher prices, or from investors through lower earnings. Prop 39 might be bad news for California's employees, consumers and investors, but it's great news for the Nevada Chamber of Commerce.

Prop 40: Your GOP Donations At Work. YES

This is a monument to the stupidity of some Republican Party leaders, who spent nearly $2 million of party funds to qualify - and then drop - this referendum to overturn the Senate reapportionment because several state senators didn't like their new districts. They had hoped to run in their old seats, but after qualifying the initiative found out they couldn't anyway. A "Yes" vote affirms that the new non-partisan Citizens Redistricting Commission works.

[dragnet2]

Bookmark

[Carry_Okie]

A couple of the requirements of a free market are that both the sellers and buyers have perfect knowledge as to product and price.

That is not a free market. In economics, it is a "perfect competition" model, a progressivist idea. Nice try.

That's a requirement of a free market along with many others.

Nonsense. You don't know what the paint formulation in your car is. You don't know what the plasticizers are. Nor do you know about how the accelerometers for your airbags work. You are full of it. You don't know how a free market works.

To the extent that participants choose to deviate from it, they are moving towards some sort of market rigged to the advantage of some participants at the expense of others.

Now you're sounding like a full blown Marxist instead of the Fabian socialist. You do know that your hero Teddy Roosevelt brought in his trustbusting game to the benefit of JP Morgan at the expense of Rockefeller? You do know that regulations exist to benefit the big players at the expense of their smaller competition? As I said, in a free enterprise system, there are plenty of ways to assure whatever you want to pay for.

Unreal that you can't grasp the simple, free market concept that all buyers and sellers should have knowledge of the product and price,

What you are talking about is physically impossible in practice, which is why it's called "perfect." In other words, what you are proposing as normal is in fact "unreal."

Perfect information - All consumers and producers are assumed to have perfect knowledge of price, utility, quality and production methods of products.

You just contradicted yourself, BTW, see if you can figure out why. And who enforces this wondrous idea if it isn't the almighty collective? That's why it is a socialist idea, and not at all conservative. Go peddle it where it will be appreciated.

[Carry_Okie]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture as well as the California Department of Public Health already have the responsibility of assuring that food is healthy and safe.

That's the claim, but it is not a fact. What the USDA assures is that the producers have gone through the USDA hoops, and nothing more, and if you have ever qualified a product with them as I have, you'd really understand the distinction.

Worse, there is nothing in Article I Section 8 that empowers the Congress to assume that police power.

If you want unmodified products you should shop at a natural foods market and spare the rest of us the expense of your purchasing decisions.

He wants the service but doesn't want to pay for that extra cost, typical of the nanny state liberal he claims not to be.

[Will88]

You’re posting such a mish mash of nonsense that it’s comical. You can’t see, or refuse to see, that the government intervention in the free market has already taken place. It took place, and often takes place, when producers of consumer products go to DC and buy and pay for enough representatives and senators to avoid reasonable labeling requirements about the products they sell.

You’ve gone off on all sorts of irrelevant tangents when all that is required is a simple disclosure about how food products were produced. We’re not talking about car paint formulations, but mostly about whether the corn used to make the tortilla chips was GMO or not.

Producers spend millions lobbying to escape any labeling requirement they think might cause some group of consumers to refrain from buying their products. That goes on all the time and this is just one of the more recent examples. The Big Government, Big Brother intervention in the free market has already taken place, and in this case it was an intervention to deny consumers perfectly reasonable information about products offered for sale.

And, yes, food producers know whether they are using GMO ingredients in foods that contain many ingredients.

Nothing could be simpler: put the simple disclosure on foods and let the consumers decide what they want to purchase. It’s called freedom. What you want is Big Brother style government intervention in the free market, which has already taken place where GMO foods are concerned.

And, no how much you dissemble and deny, perfect knowledge as to product and price are requirements of a free market.
And disclosures about paint formulations are probably available at some point in the distribution chain.

[Carry_Okie]

Nobody else is laughing here. Some are telling you to desist with your tyrannical preferences.

You can’t see, or refuse to see, that the government intervention in the free market has already taken place.

I wrote a whole book about it, idiot, because I SEE where it leads, long before you ever will. You're braiding the rope to wrap around your neck. So get used to crawling on all fours serf.

You’ve gone off on all sorts of irrelevant tangents when all that is required is a simple disclosure about how food products were produced.

I'll bet you are perfectly happy to buy a great many food products that you have no idea how they are made. Ever heard of a "secret recipe"?

We’re not talking about car paint formulations, but mostly about whether the corn used to make the tortilla chips was GMO or not.

Paint can kill or injure you, just like bad food can. You can't see what is in it. That GMO is likely to be a proprietary product.

Producers spend millions lobbying to escape any labeling requirement they think might cause some group of consumers to refrain from buying their products.

So what? They paid many more millions to produce those products and don't want people to steal them. Your option is to pay them what it is worth to tell you what you want to know about the product when you buy it. You want to get government to take that information by force and give it to you for free.

And, yes, food producers know whether they are using GMO ingredients in foods that contain many ingredients.

Insipid comment.

And, no how much you dissemble and deny, perfect knowledge as to product and price are requirements of a free market.

No, it isn't. Trade secrets are part of any free market because they are a matter of PROPERTY RIGHTS. You don't like private property rights, so you build a government capable of forcing you to tell them everything about what you do and where you go and who you do business with and how you do it. Then you sell yourself as a "conservative."

Pathetic.

[dragnet2]

bttt

[EternalVigilance]

Also on the California ballot:

http://www.americaspartynews.com/talk/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=24433&posts=5&start=1

[Will88]

I wrote a whole book about it, idiot, because I SEE where it leads, long before you ever will. You're braiding the rope to wrap around your neck. So get used to crawling on all fours serf.

Lol, now you resort to childish name calling. And there have been countless books published that are filled with nonsense. So what if you wrote a book.

You are one of the most illogical posters I've encountered here. You constantly take off on irrelevant tangents. I'll say it one more time and end this pointless exchange:

Knowledge as to price and product are requirements of a free market. Accurately describe the product and let the potential consumers decide what they want to buy, or not.

Some folks just can't stand freedom.

[Avoiding_Sulla]

“Some folks just can’t stand freedom.”

LOL. You have drunk the Koolaid and come out the other side of Orwell professing that slavery is freedom.

[Will88]

LOL. You have drunk the Koolaid and come out the other side of Orwell professing that slavery is freedom.

You describe yourself. Buyers and sellers in a free market with information about the price and quality of the products is freedom. Free to sell or not sell. Free to buy or not buy.

What you call freedom is nothing but crony capitalism, with government meddling in the market to protect the interests of those making the biggest campaign contributions, allowing them to withhold basic information about the products they offer for sale, information which they know would cause some potential buyers to refrain from buying their products.

But, hey, they sure fooled you.

[Avoiding_Sulla]

You said all that already. Don’t bother repeating yourself further. But I see low likelihood you’ll take that advice. Parrots can hardly be held accountable for how their owners trained them.

[Will88]

Lol, and you’ve done nothing but dish out cliches and childish insults.

[ChowChowFace]

Bump

[twistedwrench]

Thanks!!!

[ErnBatavia]

Una Mas bump.....McClintock’s judgement is generally among the best.

[Dragonspirit]

I don’t trust the government to assure me things are safe.

I want to see the bottom line and labelling requirements ensure that so I support them. “No demonstratable ill effects”? That is trusting nanny government to make sure things are fine rather than letting me.

[concentric circles]

Do you really think a label assures accuracy? Do you honestly believe that a product is pure because a label says so? Do you really want all your friends and neighbors to foot the bill so you can indulge your quest for the grail of purity. I urge you to find a market or co-op that takes the time to investigate the producers it buys from and leave the rest of us alone to make our own purchasing decisions.

[Dragonspirit]

I am fine with you being free to purchase as you wish, it is you that is trying to dissuade me from having full information on what I wish to purchase. If you don’t care that you may be deceived as to what you purchase or you simply put your faith in government agencies over objective labelling to protect you, then that is your business/problem. I however require honest and unobscured information. I trust my individual judgment over a nanny government agency.

[dragnet2]

bttt

[444Flyer]

bflr