The voters rejected the spending cap that was being promoted. They also rejected the continuing cutting of state services. As an indication that the voters were not making a turn to the right, the vote percentage of Cindy Varela Henderson, the Peace and Freedom Party nominee in the 26th State Senate District special election, went up almost five times from the results in the primary in March. Henderson campaigned on a platform of raising taxes on the wealthy.

"The right wing has tried to spread the myth that this was a rejection of taxes. This was a rejection of regressive taxes placed on the backs of those who can least afford them. The Peace and Freedom Party recognizes that there is no such thing as a free lunch and calls upon the legislature to provide the funds necessary," said Kevin Akin, the party's State Chair. "But tax the wealthy who benefit from our system, not those impoverished by it."

"The Peace and Freedom Party calls on the state legislature to do its job. Do not let a minority party dictate regressive taxes, or terrible cuts in programs needed by working people.. There are solutions. But the solutions may have to wait until the broken structure that requires a 2/3 vote to pass the budget has been replaced by majority rule," said Akin. "The real basic problem is that both parties in the Legislature represent the wealthy, not working people."

"The Peace and Freedom Party calls for the the burden of taxation to be shifted from working people and the poor to those who have gotten wealthy off the system. Raise the tax brackets on the super rich; pass a split-roll property tax to provide relief to home owners, and have corporations pay their fair share; tax oil production as other states do; plug tax loopholes; collect uncollected taxes; release non-violent drug offenders from state prisons; and pass a single-payer health care bill. All of these proposals will either save money or bring in billions of dollars to help balance our budget." Akin describes the Peace and Freedom Party as "a working-class party that favors socialism, feminism, democracy, environmentalism and racial equality."

I voted for 1-A. It was confusing as hell, but, it seemed like it would have created enough of a buffer to allow for some deficit spending... and also force revenue collection afterwards. Keynsianism encoded into law.

Anyway, since these things didn't pass, the legislature is going to be cutting the budget, and raising taxes. It's going to hurt.

There's no hope of getting rid of the lotto, now. It would have been nice if, somewhere down the line, the lotto could be eliminated. It's very regressive.