So here is California with a sledgehammer swinging at her head. To make sense of those pesky propositions, here are, rapid-dating style, a few musings:

They Want to Borrow How Much?

That mighty beast known as California’s budget took a chunk out of Gray Davis. Question is, have Gov. Schwarzenegger and the folks in the legislature fared any better? Does anybody even understand California’s economy? Sure, we can play around with numbers at Next Ten’s budget challenge (http://www.next-ten.org/challenge.php) but it takes more than that to tame the beast.

So here come the bond measures and Prop. 84, proposing bonds to fund a whole bevy of things from highway repairs to rebuilding flood control structures. They’re all important to fund. But, can California afford it? Taken together, the bond measures total $42.7 billion in new authorization. That’s right, $42.7 billion. The effect this will have on California’s debt is significant. It seems to me that as much as we might want to simply throw money at every problem, reality has to come into play. One bond measure? Okay. Maybe. But five?

1A: Fueling Transportation

1A intends for gas taxes to be used exclusively for transportation funding, except in severe emergencies. At issue is whether such automatic budgeting would hamper the legislature’s ability to spend money where needed — i.e. for education. Here’s another way to look at it. Should the people who use the roads — drivers — have the responsibility for paying for their upkeep? Or are roads a shared resource between drivers and non-drivers? If the former, then 1A makes sense. It puts the burden on the people who use the roads the most. If the latter, then everyone should contribute to transportation funding. 1A’s restrictions don’t make sense, and all tax money should go to the same pot.

It may seem like a trivial distinction. But how we view taxes makes a difference. In my view, 1A does make sense in that it’s drivers who make roads in need of repair. Using the gas tax for transportation funding sets up a somewhat loosely self-sufficient funding system.

Taxes, Taxes, Everywhere

Prop. 86 would drastically increase the tax on cigarettes. Prop. 87 would tax oil producers to fund alternative energy research and production. Prop. 88 would provide funds for education by adding a $50 tax on property parcels. Of these three, only one isn’t silly. Which one?

Not 88, which is so monumentally silly it’s hard to believe it even made the ballot. House prices and taxes are high enough. Many people can’t afford to buy their own home. Sure, $50 may not seem like much. But as the saying goes, one can die from a thousand cuts.

And it’s not Prop. 86, which isn’t so much silly as it is misguided. As much as I agree with banning smoking in public spaces — I don’t want to breathe in someone else‚s pollution — I do think people are entitled to destroy their lungs if they want to. Thus, I am not convinced ridiculously high taxes are justified, even for bogeymen like cigarettes. Of course, smoking does create a burden on the health system that takes care of them when they do get sick. But isn’t that between them and their HMO? In any case, where will healthcare funding come from to replace the tax-driven funding when fewer people smoke or get their cigarettes through illicit means?

By process of elimination, then, it leaves Prop. 87 as the only serious proposition of the three. When you consider how much we pay for gas and the obscene “record profits” oil companies are making, taxing big oil doesn’t induce any queasiness. It’s a win-win, really. If 87 works as intended, we’ll fund new, cleaner, and sustainable modes of transportation and energy-generation. In addition, we’ll reduce dependence on foreign oil. If, as opponents suggest, 87 fails and actually increases our dependence on foreign oil by forcing oil produces to get cheaper oil from anywhere but California, then we still win. Why? Because dire consequences really increase the pressure for us to get our act together, find clean, sustainable fuels and get rid of our oil dependency.

For what it’s worth, though, I wouldn’t trust the oil companies with helping a senior citizen cross the street. I suspect all this bluster against 87 is merely the tantrum of companies jealously trying to protect their staggering, monumental profit margins.

Next: Part 2 will look at Props. 83, 85, 89 and 90.