Monday, May 18, 2009

Tomorrow's election

The special election tomorrow will show a voter population that is grumpy, very grumpy. I will end up voting for many of the measures on the ballot but on Saturday, at a birthday party for my younger grandson, I heard the other side from a pretty diverse group. Almost everyone there, who was voting, was going to just vote no. They weren't confused, as the Economist claimed in their recent article on California. They just wonder why the people we pay to make decisions cannot do their job.

Perhaps this will be a chance to move forward. The legislative leadership will begin a process a few days after the election that will try to reconcile the gulf in the budget. That should be a hopeful sign. I've been through about a half dozen of these tumults in the last several decades. None ever seems to take the time to consider longer term issues - they deal with arithmetic rather than policy math; choosing to go through the budget without much sense of priorities. Perhaps this time will be different.

No comments: