No, not that Bond; I’m talking about certificates of debt. Every election cycle, the shortcomings of the state budget are dangled in front of Californians. The state legislature, as a body, cannot bring itself to bring in revenue at the rates necessary to fund the projects they want, and the executive branch cannot bring itself to manage the funds it is allocated properly, so we the people have the opportunity to force their hand.

I’m generally disinclined to vote for bonds, they are the governmental equivalent of credit card debt. This year, we get Propositions 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, and 84 to consider. If they pass, we’re looking at 6% of the general fund, the state’s discretionary income, going to interest payments in 2010.

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Pardon the sophomoric pun; it’s inevitable given the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District acronym. Measure R, at its core, is a sales-tax hike of $0.0025 for every dollar spent in Sonoma County and Marin County for twenty years. For the duration of the twenty years, this sales tax increase is to be used for subsidizing a passenger rail system from Cloverdale to Larkspur.
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In California, we have a voter-referendum system by which ballot initiatives can introduce laws that the state legislature, for a variety of reasons, cannot or will not act upon themselves. Large bond measures, constitutional amendments, and the like are required to go before the general public for approval. Other issues, such as legalization of marijuana, denial of services to undocumented immigrants, or dealing with the notion of same-sex marriage are simply too sensitive for our assemblymen and state senators to address in a straightforward manner. This can result in a bewildering array of issues laid at the feet of the electorate.

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