Election Day

It's morning in Manteca. It had rained during the night and it was still overcast and drizzling, but the sun has peeked out and there is a great rainbow visible. I picked up a newspaper at the local convenience store, the clerk gave me the usual "have a nice day!" I grumbled back "Not likely. But thanks for the nice thought."

Thank you, everyone who supported the cause for more government accountability and opposed the tax increase. When you champion unpopular causes, you don't often see clear victories.

You might be surprised that I think we did put the issue before the voters. We made our arguments, we had plenty of press coverage, and some was fair coverage too. We made our case in letters and articles and in the semi-official "arguments" in the voter guide. We can't simply say we were steamrolled by the big money juggernaut, although having a boatload of money to pay various "civic groups" sure does help. We may have the facts and logic on our side, but the voters rejected our arguments. Maybe for some very pragmatic reasons.

You can see from the overall election results, the idea that voters simply saunter up to the Diebold machine and punch buttons based on guesses or pure emotional appeal isn't entirely true. That's just not supported by what occurs on election day, and yesterday was no exception. For example, voters rejected the emotional appeal to tax the "big oil companies" and to tax cigarettes more, and the so called "clean money" argument was rejected, despite powerful spending. Another bright spot in an otherwise depressing election was that proposition 90 was approved. There's no more complex issue than eminent domain and the concepts of governmental virtual "takings" and yet the voters were able to separate fact from hype in spite of the big money spending on scare tactics about it being "a taxpayer trap!" All this suggests, to me, that the voters do think about the issues carefully.

Added 2:17 pm: The latest returns are showing prop 90 being disapproved, even though "smartvoter.org" is still showing it passing. Maybe I need to revise my thinking a little and just say, at the risk of offending, what has to be said - the people need to educate themselves a little more and start thinking for themselves a little more and listen less to the self interested "experts."

Nevertheless, it would be easy to say that Manteca was simply swayed by emotional appeals from paid support groups, but maybe that's not the whole story. It's also possible that the voters of Manteca made a hard but practical decision. After all, the mayor all but said "if you don't want any more police and fire protection, fine, then don't vote for the tax increase!" And no matter how wrong he is, he's still the mayor! It's possible people don't want to fight for things they need for the next four years. Also, just about everyone is aware that the city has been trying to get some kind of new tax approved for the last few years. They tried a parcel tax, and a sales tax, and talked about a phone tax and complained about the repeal of the utility tax, increased taxes on new homes ("developer fees"), hiked business license taxes ("fees"), a motel room tax, etc...and etc.. It's possible that the voters simply said "enough" of the arguing, and realized that "they," the city, are never going to quit trying to get some new tax passed -- and, if we have to have a new tax, at least a sales tax is better than those other taxes. Most people view a sales tax as the more "fair" than other taxes, maybe because we at least have some control over how much we spend to buy things.

Of course, this logic is sort of based on the questionable belief that if we "give them a sales tax" that will somehow satisfy government's insatiable appetite for more money. But at least it's a nice thought.

So, coupled with the emotional appeal, the mayor and council's threats to stop funding police and fire, the voters probably made what could be seen as, under all the circumstances, a "wise" choice of the lesser of various evils. Somehow we survived when the sales tax was raised from 2.5 percent to 7.75 percent in small increments each time, and I guess we will survive with 8.25 percent.

If anything, the lesson is that it's not enough to just concentrate on taxing, the collection of money -- but rather, we should redouble our efforts on the control of the other side of the equation, government spending. Unless spending is controlled, it's almost fruitless to try to control taxation.

I should have known the anti-tax movement in Manteca was in trouble. I had a while back I had a chat with a friend who was describing his trip to Montana. He remarked how amazing it was there and described a visit to a burger joint. He said how it astounded him when he gave the clerk too much money, and the clerk returned it. He said "I'm used to, you know, just throwing in an extra dollar for the tax. But there was no tax!" He waxed on about what a wondrous land this was, where, amazingly, you just pay for what the thing costs! And everything was so much less expensive, and how we don't realize how we're just conditioned to throw in an extra dollar for everything here in California..." All that sounded good. But then I remarked, "and they are trying to raise that tax, too!" But he retorted immediately, with no sense of irony apparently, "but that's a 'good tax' -- it's for the police and fire." Like I said, I should have known it was an uphill battle. My friend was right, we are sort of conditioned to accept things. By the way, do I have to mention this? The fellow is employed by the City of Manteca.

Oh, that reminds me, I have to write about my experience as a "poll worker" ... and don't worry, I'll find some other unpopular cause to champion.