Measures B, C, D, and E


My take on the 4 Orange County measures appearing on the ballot

This is part of my ongoing series of posts on each of the Propositions we'll be voting on. Here is the original post, with my ground rules for evaluating propositions, my scorecard and links to each of my arguments.

Measures B, C, D, and E - No on all 4

Summary - These local measures seek to carve up the extra money that the county received when we raised our taxes via prop 172 (these measures actually lead me to create rule #4 for any cases like this in the future). None of these measures would raise taxes, rather they would force a set distribution of tax money. Each of them are competing strategies for how the extra tax revenue should be spent by the county.

Commentary - This is another case of ballot measure hubris - where we attempt to make the voters do the job of county planners. If I were well versed enough in the county budget and new all of the different revenues and who deserves how much, I would be on the board of supervisors. I don't care to know all of these nuances, thats why I elect representatives who's job it is to take care of the budget. If we have to decide the budget for them, what service are they providing for us? On the flip side of that, what makes us so sure that we know enough to make this decision? My friend Van sent me an email saying he couldn't make heads or tails of the stuff in the voter guise, and thats exactly how I felt when I first read it as well.

It appears that we raised our taxes for 172 to fund essential services - fire, police, jails, etc (always a bad idea, and hence the formation of rule #4) - fire, police, jails, etc. These measures are an attempt to redistribute that new found wealth amongst the various service providers. So the fire department got Measure D, to make sure they got a bigger chunk. The sheriff/police fought back with Measure B, to make sure that fire gets nothing. Someone who loves bureaucracy and wants to cash in on people's fear (and President Bush's example of spend wildly to create feelings of safety), decided to come up with Measure C to create a county homeland security board. Not to be outdone by all of this, the parole/probation officers thought they'd throw on their Measure E to carve it up a bit more and make it even more complicated.

The only thing I know for sure that these measures will do is give the county one heck of a headache if they all pass and we have to sort out which one takes precedence over the others. It looks like its a big cat-fight between a bunch of government agencies (or more likely, between the unions that have the money from the workers of each government agency and don't want to see dues slip). Each agency wants to make sure that their pie-slicing wins out.

So what's a voter to do? The answer is simple - remember rule #1, tie goes to No. None of these measures can provide a clear and cogent argument as to why their pie-slicing is better than the board of supervisors (the people we've elected to do it for us). Furthermore, as I mentioned above I don't think this is our job, which is another reason for a No vote. Lastly, since each of these measures is crafted by a different special interest, none of them are likely to be balanced the way we would want them to be. When given a choice between police and fire, I would think most people would say "Both!" - so why would we want to carve up our money in a way thats forced to choose between the two.

All of these reasons combine to form a convincing argument to vote No on all four measures. Don't get caught in the midst of a weird government turf war. Instead, vote them all down and tell them they can talk to your representatives - which is what they should have done all along.

Posted: Mon - November 7, 2005 at 05:44 PM | | | | | | |

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