Financial blizzard covers California. Actual photo of blizzard from Jan 2008.
Will California be saved by a blizzard, like Nebraska?
by JEC
Once upon a time, in the State of Nebraska, the citizens, excited from voting out the State Income Tax, decided to follow up with eliminating the State’s last source of revenue, the 2.75% Sales Tax.
November’s election rolled around, the voters spoke and eliminated the State’s sales tax, choosing not to believe those politicians who warned that the State would close the doors.
Winter approached as the State began the process to go out of business. First blizzard and the citizens were stranded; no more state run snow plows.
Panic, regret and a quick emergency election and the voters brought back a 3.75% sales tax – a dollar higher than it was. Sometimes it takes a crisis to gain perspective on why do we do what we do?
California’s budget crisis will become a crisis of conscious.
What we do and how we do it is already being examined and judgments, moral judgments are soon to follow.
Our time to take our democratic responsibilities seriously has arrived. This is not about the politicans or the greedy corporations or some other unnamed son-of-a -bitch; it’s about us. It’s our society, our government, we send those politicans back to Sacramento over and over again. We do that.
It’s time to accept the responsibility for the consequence of our indifference. Question is – will we fracture along our many subcultural divisions or discover our common ground?
As we watch the battle take shape keep in mind the question; why did we fight and die for a democracy in the first place?
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JEC – excellent point and well made. Of course California is much more complex and dispersed but the idea is a simple one: why are governments instituted among men and women?