CGS-authored
Proposition 71, the initiative on the November ballot authorizing $3 billion in bonds for stem cell research, bids fair to win the chutzpah prize in ballot box budgeting. Nonetheless, scores of highly respected groups, people who should know better, endorse it. The cause is noble, the means deplorable.
What should particularly embarrass the supporters is that the measure is being sold like cheap furniture - nothing down and years to pay. It promises that the money will cost Californians nothing in new taxes. The $3 billion - actually $6 billion counting interest - will just come magically out of the general fund.
Of course it's all the rage these days, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his $15 billion deficit bond leading the something-for-nothing fashion parade. The payback for that also will come out of the general fund, and thus take money from almost every other program, from schools to roads to all other forms of health care, that the state is responsible for.
There are other big money initiatives on the November ballot, but compared to Proposition 71, they're models...
What should particularly embarrass the supporters is that the measure is being sold like cheap furniture - nothing down and years to pay. It promises that the money will cost Californians nothing in new taxes. The $3 billion - actually $6 billion counting interest - will just come magically out of the general fund.
Of course it's all the rage these days, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his $15 billion deficit bond leading the something-for-nothing fashion parade. The payback for that also will come out of the general fund, and thus take money from almost every other program, from schools to roads to all other forms of health care, that the state is responsible for.
There are other big money initiatives on the November ballot, but compared to Proposition 71, they're models...