Don's Tuesday column

        THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson    Red Bluff Daily News   10/16/2012

You might want to consider when voting …

If watching tonight’s debate isn’t your cup of tea, or you plan to record it, replay your favorite guy’s answers and skip those from the guy you loathe, the Tea Party Patriots will host State Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, of the 59^th district (San Bernardino area). Debate watching may complement interaction with a Republican who may, rumor has it, set his sights on a run for Governor. Certainly, considering the budgetary, business, energy and fuel shambles the ruling party has produced in California, it’s hard to see even the mind-numbed, low information denizens of our state’s urban cesspools not throwing out the Democratic authors of said shambles.

Speaking of which, another election with another slew of so-called citizen legislation greets us in the mailbox, on the radio and TV. Absentee ballots and a voluminous, nearly-150 page, quarter-inch thick “Official Voter Information Guide” have arrived. Who needs baseball playoffs, NFL and college football and new, improved broadcast and cable fare when you can sequester yourself with the “Guide” and make the rest of the world go away?

Can I help sort out the issues (vote YES on 32)?  The short version of safe voting on the propositions is to just vote “NO” on all of them, but “YES” on 32, the “Political Contributions by Payroll Deduction,” or “Stop Special Interest Money” measure. The Conservative Republicans of California (CRP), an organization much closer to the voting majorities of Tehama County than Democrat Party hacks, summarize Proposition 32 thusly: “Prohibits corporate and union contributions to candidates, directly or indirectly (through committees). Does not affect independent expenditures or member communications. It eliminates payroll deductions from employee paychecks for political spending for corporations, unions and government contractors.”

Now, the CRP does recommend a YES vote on 33 (Auto Insurance Discounts) and 35 (Human Trafficking) so there may be some merit to those initiatives, if you read over the material and so conclude. However, I find the whole initiative process so fraught with unintended consequences that I can’t help but think even those proposals may contain flaws not apparent on first glance.

This issue of forced payroll deductions for unions, particularly public employee unions, should just grate on the nerves of everyone as a forced “shakedown” of people’s money for political purposes that many simply don’t agree with or support. The talking points I’ve heard, all products of union political coffers, disingenuously try to persuade you that these well-compensated public servants will be worse off, yes, worse off if their unions, which they are forced to join to keep their job, leave dues destined for political ads in the workers’ paychecks.

Think of the chutzpah involved in these union bosses and mouthpieces, who exist solely because of the taxpayers’ revenue that goes to public employees’ paychecks to be confiscated for dues – the arrogance and gall of these people to tell us that their middle-class lifestyles and benefits are jeopardized if they get to keep more of their own money. Just think of it like a vicious (to taxpayers), self-perpetuating scam: You pay taxes, which support the pay and benefits of public employees, whose union dues are deducted automatically, including a hefty portion for political campaigns, that get contributed to candidates that promise to vote however the unions demand and, in the case of propositions, that money is spent against your interests and desires.

Hence, union money is poured out to fight Prop 32 because it would greatly restrict their reaching into union members’ paychecks. Not only that, but your own money is skimmed off to finance tax-hiking measures on … well, on you. It has to be stopped and the only way to do that is to cut union bosses off from automatic political withdrawals from workers wallets. Yes, they are using your own tax money to try to persuade you to vote YES on Propositions 30 and 38, which will hike your sales tax rate and taxes on so-called wealthy (Prop 30). Prop 38 is “more extensive than Prop 30, (and) would increase personal income taxes on everyone making more than $7,316 annually in California taxable income.” (CRP)

Don’t be fooled – until Sacramento Democrats and union bosses are slapped down in their efforts to persuade us to raise our taxes and send more to Sacramento, they will never get serious about reducing what they spend and take. And that “tax the rich” element? Yeah, that won’t hurt you unless you work for someone that will cut your job to pay more in taxes, or if your company or owner leaves the state, or if your marginal business depends on the discretionary spending of “the rich.”

Another “don’t be fooled” one is Proposition 37 (vote NO), which would create a virtually unenforceable hodge-podge of rules (well, except for enforcement by lawyers suing the heck out of businesses) regarding the phony, made-up issue of labeling for so-called genetically modified (GM) ingredients. Folks, there simply is no risk or threat to you or your food from GM ingredients, any more than there is from so-called “non-organic” foods you find in grocery stores. That was the conclusion of Stanford University doctors: No evidence that going organic is healthier. There is no compelling reason why California should impose such labeling requirements, which, by the way, will not stand up to lawsuits because federal regulations trump such misguided state rules, even if done by proposition, because interstate commerce is involved.