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Thursday, November 17, 2005Just did a Polling Point survey for my very own county of Santa Clara. They're investigating a ballot measure to raise the sales tax a quarter point for worthy causes.Santa Clara has some very fine worthy causes, including a not half bad network of low-cost hospitals and a law enforcement system where it seems like every third car on the road is a state cop, sheriff's deputy or local cop. But... All the measures included three magic words: not limited to... And while the survey did a lot to find out which hot buttons would earn my vote, they did little to address those three words that left me telling them that every ballot wording would draw a "no" from me. It's like they're not even trying. If they want to threaten to take away law enforcement, decent roads and health care unless we vote a tax hike, fine. But if they want to divert funds elsewhere, they should at least have to be sneaky and underhanded enough about it that their opponents in the next election cycle can call them on it and hard. Right-wing, anti-tax Republican that I am, I could still see myself voting a small tax-hike specifically for the county health system, which does a lot for the uninsured - if I thought they would get it. Or the county road system, which is important to our local economy - if I thought they'd spend as much on the roads regular joes use for the godawful morning commute as on driveways for office parks and pothole free drives from the commissioners' homes to the county building. Which, I guess, puts this conservative sucker for the Bay Area lifestyle in a rough spot: What do you do when you agree that "the government should..." but know better than to trust the government to do it? If only there were a way to privatize the public sector, but not quite... 
posted by gbarto at 9:47 PM |
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