Hi, just read your blog and thought iy was cool. Im plenty interested, but i have a question: what authors did your read while you were researching this? Thanks Jim…

The idea that this will be solved by chanting “cut spending” is ludicrous. California needs a plan, not mere rhetoric.

calbear on November 2, 2009 at 2:26 PM

Deport every illegal alien that is identified by a government agency.

Institute a state wide school voucher system.

Require voter approval for all pay/benefit increases for all state employees.

Stop all increases in welfare benefits. (including cost of living, and additional children)

Sounds like a good idea for my home state of Colorado as well.

You realize of course this all the fault of the South and those lousy red states.

Sackett on November 2, 2009 at 10:03 PM

That dang competition stuff will get ya’ every time.

That’s why it must be stamped out early.

If they didn’t have low taxes and less regulation people wouldn’t be moving out of the blue liberal states just because they needed to “increase revenue”.

No joke, National Journal tried to argue that very point. Compared the South to Mexico and India.

Proposition 2 – They claim it limit property taxes, just like the property tax limit passed in the 90′s worked…not. It will add a sales tax to real estate, not good. Just like in the 90′s and all the promises not to raise rates. Appraisal districts play with appraisals and exemptions to get the tax dollars the local pols want.

In short, a new tax.

Proposition 3 disingenuous of them. No, it will not create a statewide property tax authority. It will allow local property tax authorities to band together. And it also starts as an umbrella for a sales tax on real estate…a new tax.

Proposition 7 okay, they may have swayed me. But here too they are sort of disingenuous. This only covers the state level guard. Others are already able to hold more than one position.

Proposition 9 Beaches move, state or local authorities need to protect their beaches, but just as the current can change the course of a boundary river, the state long ago gave access to state beaches. There are cases for eminent domain and this is one. And I know people with beach houses on Bolivar peninsula. If this passes, state and local agencies will have to take greater responsibility in caring for the beaches in order to keep the tax base. If it fails the beaches can be allowed to erode without fear of losing properties that pay taxes. In a perfect world I could go either way on this one, but as I said earlier, not even Texas is perfect.

The rest of them, we are in agreement.

I happen to personally know the owner of Buck Knives, Chuck “CJ” Buck, and his family. I’ve eaten dinner at their home, attended a couple of birthday and Christmas parties there, and I have done some shooting in his underground shooting range in his backyard. His company, Buck Knives, had been in business in Southern California since his grandfather and father built the company from scratch in the early 1900′s. Buck Knives raked in a huge amount of money for California and Chuck employed thousands of Californians. He tried everything, desperately, to help California keep him in business in California. They basically told him to piss off with their responses to his efforts. So, he pulled up stakes and moved his entire company and his entire family out of California. He was literally driven away by outrageous state taxes, California business guidelines/laws/mandates, and the reprobate politicians that run this state. Chuck now enjoys a much much less state burdened business that is thriving anew.

The never-ending infestation of illegal immigrant’s, the dysfunctional tax and spend liberal legislature(s), and the true-blue welfare state that California has become has sealed its fate. There will be no ‘rescue’ for California. Ever. It will only get worse. It has always only ever gotten worse. At every opportunity to change course and/or ‘rescue’ this state, it has never materialized. It has only ever gotten worse. The voters in this state have demanded that which they now receive every two and four years for over 20 years. If it hasn’t stopped by now, It will never end.

In four years, six months, and sum-odd days, I will retire with a healthy pension and an even healthier portfolio. I and my family have already planned for and are preparing to pull up stakes and depart California forever. Along with my healthy pension and rather beefy portfolio that is leaving this deviant infested and thieving reprobate politician run State of California, two additional tax-paying wage earners and a future wage earner are departing as well. There is no deviating from it. It will be done. It is written in stone. We are so happily and willingly gone as residents of this cesspit of a state.

I await my retirement day as much as a child awaits Christmas morning. Every month that my retirement draws closer, the anticipation and excitement grows exponentially stonger. I figure I will have reached condition giddy the night before I have the moving bigrig truck in my driveway with the loading doors open.

I promised my family we would depart California never to return as residents. I am a man of my word, through and through. I get a little bit giddy just thinking and writing about it now. Five years will almost feel like an eternity, but the move and the destination are already sealed and now it is just a matter of May 2014 arriving. Hallelujah!

Check these out and let me know what you think. Still time to change my vote.

docdave on November 2, 2009 at 7:14 PM

I have some problems but it will take a while and I am about to start making dinner with the family. Will return later.

In the meantime, here is the actual amendments to peruse:
PDF
if you want it in html:
HTML

More illegals!

Mooooore!!!!

I guess that means I mostly concur. Are you for the other five?

cozmo on November 2, 2009 at 6:17 PM

I was kind of concuring to the recommendations of Lone Star Times.
http://lonestartimes.com/2009/10/30/print-out-10000-copies-of-this-post-and-distribute-them/
Check these out and let me know what you think. Still time to change my vote.

Another unintended consequence to consider is that the ceiling on property taxes wound up directing investment into real estate in the search to find profitable, i.e. low tax, areas of investment. Thus, the coming Option ARM tsunami (over 40% of all option arm mortgage loans originated in CA) may have resulted from the artificially inflated demand for real estate caused to Proposition 13. It is, of course, always best to respect the principles of the U.S. Constitution and limit the size – and thus tax appetite – of government. When distortions, such as Proposition 13, are incorporated into the system, before the power of government is controlled, the results are what can be seen in CA today.

Did you know that California is the only state mentioned in the Bible?

Song of Solomon 6:11:

“I went down into the garden of nuts…”

pilamaye on November 2, 2009 at 5:34 PM

Oh, please. Oklahoma is mentioned all through the Bible.

“How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” Genesis 28:17

I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you established your faithfulness in heaven itself. Psalm 89:2

As you go, preach this message: “The kingdom of heaven is near.” Matthew 10:7

I could go on.

So the left-tards from Cali move to red states which have kept their fiscal houses in order, and which still pay some attention to the Bill of Rights. They then begin to vote to implement their same failed social experiments in their new states. Witness Colorado. Once a bastion of Republicanism, Denver and Boulder, centers of immigration from Kalifornia, now have anti gun laws which would make Joe Stalin and Adolf Hitler proud.

Maybe we could build a wall around Kalifornia to keep them all in.

With machine gun towers.

You agree with the rest of my NOs?

docdave on November 2, 2009 at 5:42 PM

Hmmmm….

All you Texans vote NO for amendments 1,4,5,6,8,11.

docdave on November 2, 2009 at 3:45 PM

As of now,I am only in favor of amendment 9 and 11.

#1 would give back a little power taken away if #11 passes. Nothing changes if it fails, but passing it would give local pols power they don’t already have, and would most likely have to ask voters for permission to do it if it didn’t pass.

#2 and 3 should be subsets of 1 and 5, so they get a no.

#4 I understand the reasoning for this one, but if it was a good enough idea to pass on its own within the legislature, it would be funded. Texas public universities got traded some worthless west Texas land for their prime east Texas farmland many years ago. I don’t foresee them getting that lucky again. I say leave the university fund alone. That’s what makes higher education affordable in Texas.

#5 You (not you, but any Texan thinking about voting for this one)want the Dallas Central Appraisal District spread all over the state? Nameless faceless bureaucrats in charge of appraisals for taxing purposes. In a perfect world it would be okay…not even Texas is a perfect world.

#6 and 8 I am not quite sure of at this time. If they fail, nothing changes. I don’t see why permission cannot be asked of the voters on a case-by-case basis.

#7 is one I could be persuaded to vote for as a time saving measure, but see answer for 6 and 8.

#9 is self evident.

#10 I have had a hard enough time trusting pols for 2 years, I ain’t gonna’ double that.

#11 self evident and the most important one on the ballot but 1, 2, 3 and 5 are close.

I guess that means I mostly concur. Are you for the other five?

At one time, decades ago, the state had one of the nation’s best education systems, both in compulsory levels

I have heard this many times from Californians. I don’t believe it. My three eldest were in grade school until 1971 in a very small school district, which included Palos Verdes Estates, CA. This district was supposed to be one of the best in California. It was much smaller and less diverse than the current district which has grown by merger and population growth. We moved to Fairfax, VA. Fairfax schools are among the best in Virginia. My kids were behind in the new system. The school system here deals with a current poulation of eight hundred thousand. It was probably 70% of that in 1971. It is very diverse.

It limits eminent domain. This is one to vote for.

cozmo on November 2, 2009 at 4:44 PM

You agree with the rest of my NOs?

that state and local government expenditures for all purposes in 2005-06 were 46.8% higher in California than in Texas:

One salient point here, is that during this period, Texas also took in a couple hundrend thousand people from Hurricane Katrina – which means that during 2005 – 2007 their expenditures were artificially higher than then should be after those people are able to assimilate into the communities in Texas, and begin to contribute back, which will lower that number.

Song of Solomon 6:11:

“I went down into the garden of nuts…”