CBC: California as "America's Greece". (bankruptcy vs. "too much" democracy)

[pampango]

'America's Greece,' California dreams of raising taxes

Watching the twist and turns of the financial/political crisis gripping Greece can make you wonder whether there's such a thing as too much democracy. ... On the opposite side are people who believe there can never be such a thing as "too much democracy." To them I would say, come to California.

Asking whether California is America's Greece seems like a fair question to more and more people. It's in financial crisis and, like Greece, has teetered on the brink of bankruptcy (With a GDP of about $1.9 trillion it also has an economy that is nearly six times that of Greece, so California's too-big-to-fail impact on the global economy is not inconsiderable either.)

And once again this election year California voters are poised to make an even bigger mess of things through their devotion to direct democracy: the ballot initiative, which has made a mess of their tax system.

The most recent example of how the democratic impulses of Californians can morph into a tyranny of the majority was the 2008 ballot initiative (Proposition 8) that extinguished the court-ordered right of gay people to marry. But prior to Prop 8, California's most famous ballot initiative was Prop 13 which, in 1978, handcuffed the legislature's taxing ability.

Brown is once again governor of California and this time it is he who is using a ballot initiative to try to restore some fiscal responsibility to the state budget, which is currently $16 billion in deficit. It would be a clear choice for voters, except that Brown's tax increase isn't the only one likely to be on the ballot in November. There are several, including Molly Munger's.

Unless they split their vote between the governor's tax plan and Munger's, which they likely will. If that's how it turns out it in November, it will boggle the minds of many clever people, but in California, perhaps not unlike Greece, this is what democracy looks like.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/05/21/f-rfa-boag-california-greece.html

There's a big difference between "too much democracy" in Greece (parliamentary elections - an essential aspect of democracy) and in California (ballot initiatives that have a problematic history there).

[xchrom]

1. as long as the initiative system is in place -- cali lawmakers will always kick the can to the voter

why work when the masses will do it for you?