Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Governor and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass make up excuses

The news has carried the comments of Governor Schwarzenneger and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass that make up excuses for the loss of 5 of the 6 items on the budget issues (taxes, mainly). And of course they have excuses that miss the real point. In Arnold's case, he says that the voters were tired of all the elections- well, most of the people voting wanted to keep their taxes from making an even steeper climb than already is happening. That's the real story. People, at least the majority of voters showing up at the polls couldn't miss the opportunity to shut down that attempt to gouge taxpayers again.

Speaker Bass is somebody I am finding who makes up her own interpretations and sticks to it, even though wrong. Bass said the voter "were confused" about the ballot measures and that they didn't understand them. Well, she's right as to the part about not "understanding" them- at least that was an accurate statement. The language chosen was their choice and they muddied it up on purpose. Most people don't read this kind of language everyday and even if they did, it was largely vague and loaded with conditional items that WERE confusing. Looking at the title of Prop.1A for one example, you notice that it had "Rainy Day Budget" as a very innocent and thrify sounding term. THAT term itself was a hint of the trickery they use to lure a voter into approving these traps.

Bass is wrong when she thinks the voters shut down the propositions because they were confused, they rejected this because they were being lied to and it was apparent that "clarity" in the language was intentionally avoided. A political shell game was going on and the voters wouldn't bite this time. No, Speaker Bass, the ones who did not understand this were you politicians, not the people. The condescending tones of some of these politicians is often just too much for me to take quietly, but since we don't have interactive news coverage to converse with them in real-time, I just am left to post my comment here.

Arnold has maneuvered with the party leaders of the state legislators, it comes out now and celebrated when they came up with these proposals. They are such phonies and liars, making themselves more culpable for what deceptions they create when they deny it. If they took the losses of their proposals personally, then that's how they SHOULD take it, as rebuke to their handling of state affairs, and not due to what sounds like any kind of "voter inadequacy."