The Dumbest Voters In America

California is blessed with a lot of wonderful things: the grandeur of Yosemite, the spectacular coastline that stretches from Mexico to Oregon, a wonderful climate sparkling with lots of sunshine. We also have, I am loathe to admit, the dumbest voters in America.

Let me offer a few examples:

• In 2008--as California was sliding toward insolvency--the voters of California approved Proposition 1A, which authorized the issuance of nearly $10 billion in bonds to build a high speed rail system connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco. I won't comment on the efficacy of such a system. But it is ludicrous to borrow a huge amount of money at a time when California's budget deficits are out of control.
• Speaking of budgets, Californians just approved Proposition 25 which allows the State Legislature to approve a budget on a simple majority vote, instead of the previous 2/3 supermajority needed. The ploy that California politicians used to get this passed was the provision that--for every day past the mandated July 1 deadline--legislators will lose their daily pay and per diem if a budget is not passed. This cynical provision successfully baited the voters to a) allow the current majority in both houses of the Legislature to more easily levy taxes to reduce the deficit and b) essentially guarantees that some kind of budget is passed--even though it says nothing about getting a budget signed into law.
• California--once The Golden State of opportunity and innovation--has drifted over the past two decades into a dismal economic condition. This year California's budget deficit is over $20 billion. The state has been under Democratic control in both houses of the Legislature for more than 20 years--and the Democrats hold just short of a 2/3 majority in both houses. One would think there would be some measure of political accountability for what's happening in California. But one would be sadly mistaken, because the massive majorities of Democrats who have managed to tax and regulate businesses right out of California to neighboring Nevada and other states in the country have just been re-elected with even slightly larger majorities.

As I have written in previous posts, California has one of the most hostile business environments in the country. If you're producing so-called "green jobs" there are plenty of incentives. But if you're not, you're likely being overwhelmed by new and more oppressive regulations requiring huge investment in plant, property, and equipment. You're paying the highest minimum wage in the country. You're staggered by the array of building and environmental permits required to expand your business. You're being hit with among the highest tax rates in the country--and with new taxes and fees that do nothing more than fund more state programs while your bottom line suffers, thereby preventing you from hiring more workers. And you're probably looking for ways to follow so many others and move part or all of your business someplace else--away from the tax and regulatory madness of California. (I know of at least one friendly competitor who moved his business to Sparks, Nevada and willingly pays to truck his raw materials from the agricultural heartland of the San Joaquin Valley over the Sierras at huge cost in order to avoid the taxes and regulations in California.)

So what does this have to do with the voters of California? Well, the voters recently rejected Proposition 23--which would have suspended California's AB 32--the equivalent of California's Cap & Trade law. Yes, while Cap & Trade has been held back at the national level, California is boldly charging ahead. On the surface of it, it all sounds good. Who doesn't want cleaner air and reduction of greenhouse gases? But in a time when our country is experiencing near 10% unemployment (and California's is well over 12%), Cap & Trade is a bona fide jobs killer. Prop 23 would have suspended AB 32 unless and until unemployment fell below 5.5%--a quite reasonable provision to allow the state to generate new jobs and investment from the business community. The measure failed. Which simply means that regulatory pressures will continue to grow, the state will require more and more cost to businesses to comply with new regulations, and business owners will have less and less capital to spend on expansion of their plants and equipment--and will therefore be hiring fewer new workers.

It is a dismal state of affairs. But we are getting exactly what we keep voting for. And that's why we really do have the dumbest voters in America.