Free Republic

Prop. 88's statewide parcel tax would begin to chip away at state's property-tax protections. Proposition 13 faces one of its most serious challenges on the ballot this fall, in the form of Proposition 88. Prop. 88 is a statewide parcel tax – the first such statewide tax in California since 1910. Finally, this breach in the bulwarks of Prop. 13, although small, could be widened in the future should Prop. 88 pass. As has been seen with other taxes, such as those on cigarettes, the victory of one tax leads to attempts, sometimes victorious, to impose more of the same...

Thirteen propositions that have qualified for the Nov. 7 ballot ask voters to authorize billions of dollars in bond issues and new taxes, creating political land mines for the candidates for governor, especially Democrat Phil Angelides. The cumulative weight of the measures could make it more difficult for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sell his ambitious package of public-works bonds. In the June primary election, voters decisively rejected a seemingly routine library bond issue whose price tag was a tiny fraction of what the Republican governor is promoting. The proposed tax increases on the November ballot complicate life for Angelides, the...

California's reformer-in-chief looked a lot better in the previews For an action-hero politician who likes to taunt "girlie-men," Arnold Schwarzenegger sure turned out to be a wuss. Two years after sweeping into office with promises to "blow up boxes," perform "the Miracle of Sacramento," and "not rest until our fiscal house is in order," California's Milton Friedman–quoting governor is wasting our time with a special election that does little more than tweak his unionized political tormentors and tinker at the margins of mis-governance, while the state's fiscal house maintains its disorder of $6 billion budget deficits. The governor is tramping...

Style over substance. It's the California way. And nowhere is it more apparent than in this year's nasty special election campaign. The whole range of initiatives on the ballot has been reduced to bumpersticker simplicity. Both sides swing the broad brush of special interest to tar their opponents. And, of course, it's working. Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has shown himself to be tone deaf from time to time, seems to have gotten the message that much of the campaign has boiled down to 'Arnold is bad' vs. 'reform is good.' Ah, if life were only that simple. The Schwarzenegger...

SACRAMENTO ---- California's chronic spending imbalance has generated multibillion dollar deficits each of the last four years and is set to create another $6 billion shortfall in the next fiscal year. A state government spending beyond its means was one of the main reasons for the recall effort against former Gov. Gray Davis, the 2003 special election that catapulted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger into the governor's seat. Schwarzenegger's solution for taming the perpetual budget deficits is a 6,000-word ballot measure that would completely overhaul how the state spends money and would give the governor authority to make midyear cuts if spending...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Fueled by pharmaceutical companies and fights over the governor's ballot measures, spending on the eight propositions on the Nov. 8 special election ballot has already topped $230 million. The record for spending on ballot measures in a single California election is $253.6 million, set last November, according to figures from the secretary of state's office. Drug companies alone have spent more than $76.5 million to pass Proposition 78 and defeat Proposition 79, the rival medication discount measures on the ballot. A campaign committee backing Proposition 79 and opposing Proposition 78 has spent only about $503,000. Proposition 79,...