It's a well-travelled quote that Democracy is only stable until the voting public realize that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury, at which point they're doomed. On that point, we can see that Washington and Seattle are clearly doomed. Doomed, doomed, doomed. They pulsate with doomedness.
Why?
Well, in Washington State (seperate from Washington D.C., which is doomed for a different reason, namely all those political egos collapsing in on themselves into a black hole of surl), apparently they've discovered that they can pass public referendums on such things as car tabs, thus saving themselves money that would otherwise be spent on such things as, oh, roads. But hey, it's the government, they'll get the money from somewhere, right? Now here's where I get to use everyone's favorite arguement, the slippery slope. You see, the cheeky monkies who came up with this particular wossname, which included such things as barring any future tax increases unless they're ratified in a public vote (yeah, like that'll ever happen) have figured out that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. Or, rather, vote to keep their money from going into the public treasury. People can be surprisingly intelligent when they're being incredibly stupid. What'll it be next time, we wonder? Lowering property taxes, perhaps. The revenue from which, of course, the state can't make up the way Florida does, by raising taxes on everything else, because they've already passed that bit with the blocking of any tax raising.
You know, that's got the makings of a really, really evil plan to it, doesn't it. Makes me sad I didn't think of it first. Because, really, who WOULDN'T vote for something that feels like you're getting free money? Even people with the brains to think, hm, depriving the state government of essential revenue is probably a bad thing, might be tempted.
The other state which I can think of which is currently enacting such stupidity is California, land of the immigrants, home of the internet startups. Previous amusements from California involved some politico suggesting that gas stations shouldn't charge for (some service or the other) because, gosh darn it, those gas prices are just huge. Not mentioning, of course, that gas prices are so huge because gas TAXES are so huge, and really, gas stations don't make more than a pittance a gallon. I don't know wether that passed, but it certainly could have. Something that did pass, amusingly, was a California law that banned ATM fees. Now, as someone who's used to having sometimes exhorbitant fees charged at ATMs far from home (most recently, at AWA, I got slapped with $2.50 from the remote bank for pulling out cash (which I admit I should have taken out before I left), then hit with another $1.50 from the local bank because they were pissed at having to deal with this other bank. Bastards.) I can see the appeal of this. On the other hand, now, wait a minute, it's their damn ATMs. If you want the convenience of not having to toddle over to one of your own bank's ATM machines, then damn it, you oughta shell out a few bucks. ATM machines don't grow on trees, you know. This was, of course, immediately slapped with an injunction from the local courts when the banks inevitably stood up and said "the hell you say".
Ah, the courts. The last great bastion of intelligence in a world of complete idiot lawmakers.
Anyway, it makes me glad I live in a state of surly old retirees, where the only referendii we vote on are things like cleaning up bits of crufty text in the state Constitution. The only amusing thing we've had politicos do down here lately was this attempt at removing quotas... oh, I'm sorry, affirmative action from state hiring procedure. Now, admittedly, the only thing that could make a politico stick their neck out like this is the fact that a surly fellow from California has come down and started work on a referendum to crush affirmative action completely, and by adopting a moderate removal of it, they're hoping to steal his thunder around here so he'll go pester someone else. But, hey, that's life in the political world. I'm sure there'll be lots of joyous debate on the issue, lasting long into the night, despite the fact that most of the politicos will have been wheeled off to have their naps by that point.
Was there a point to this? Um... no, actually. Sorry if you expected one.
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