{"id":2985,"date":"2002-10-29T09:54:55","date_gmt":"2002-10-29T09:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=384"},"modified":"2002-10-29T09:54:55","modified_gmt":"2002-10-29T09:54:55","slug":"elections-day-2-this-one%c2%92s-for-bob-morris-and-ross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2985","title":{"rendered":"ELECTIONS, DAY 2 (THIS ONE\u0092S FOR BOB MORRIS AND ROSS)"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Erratum by omission:<\/b> I forgot to clearly mention that Bob Morris of Politics in the Zeroes<\/a> and Ross of the Bloviator<\/a> had been all over these issues.]<\/b>
\nI live in Los Angeles County, and we are for a variety of reasons at the cutting edge of the healthcare crisis. Illegal immigration, poverty, gang violence, small low-wage employers and an inept and isolated County Board of Supervisors all are combining to create a public healthcare system (as well as a public health system) that has been teetering on the brink of disaster for a decade.
\nBy any objective measure, the system is insolvent.
\nAnd so the voters are being asked to bail it out with a $0.03\/sf property tax overlay.
\nNow this is the fiscal equivalent of charging the mortgage on the credit cards. You can do it once, and it will buy some time, but in no way does it solve the underlying problems you are facing.
\nThe opponent of the measure make a good argument:<\/p>\n

Don’t let the state off the hook for its responsibility to pay for the County’s trauma\/emergency care system. The State has mismanaged its budget, and Measure B is asking you to foot the bill by increasing your property taxes by at least $175 million a year. This tax will go up as the cost of living increases.<\/I><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And they are right. This crisis is a symptom of a deeper crisis at all levels of government, federal, state, and local as our elected officials seem to be unable to manage their way to performing the core functions of government. Check out today’s L.A. Times article, State Spends Its Way Into Budget Crisis<\/a>: “Davis, legislators of both parties lavished windfall on programs. Analysts see years of pain ahead.”<\/i>
\nThe California leadershop spent money like a crack addict on vacation in Cali, and like the addict, the hangover is going to be a bitch and the family is really going to suffer.
\nThere are a lot of reasons for this, but I\u0092ll suggest two books as good primers:
\nArrogant Capital: Washington, Wall Street and the Frustration of American Politics<\/A>, by Kevin Phillips and Government’s End: Why Washington Stopped Working<\/A>, by Jonathan Rausch.
\nBut, as Jeff Cooper pointed out, life must go on while we struggle with these deeper issues.
\nAnd the reality is that we won\u0092t solve them for decades, if at all. And while we do, people will still get sick, be struck by cars, get stabbed and shot, and need medical care.
\nWe can simply let them stack up in the halls of the few remaining hospitals, or we can do something. Something, in this case, involves putting the mortgage on the credit card in order to buy some time in the faint hope that we will work to try and sort our way through this mess.
\nSo I\u0092m urging a \u0093yes\u0094<\/b><\/font size> vote on Los Angeles County Proposition B.
\nSupporters of Prop B include: The L.A. Chamber of Commerce AND the AFL\/CIO<\/a> and a scattering of local elected officials.
\nThe supporters are mounting a piss-poor campaign in an election guaranteed to have light turnout (not good for the spend-it-all folks), and California law requires a 66.6% \u0093yes\u0094 vote to prevail, so I\u0092m not hopeful.
\nI\u0092ll actually be phonebanking on this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Erratum by omission: I forgot to clearly mention that Bob Morris of Politics in the Zeroes and Ross of the Bloviator had been all over these issues.] I live in Los Angeles County, and we are for a variety of reasons at the cutting edge of the healthcare crisis. Illegal immigration, poverty, gang violence, small […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2985"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}