by C. T. Weber, Peace and Freedom Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor    

California is in a crisis!  The last two Governors, one Democrat and one Republican have been unable to get us out of this mess.  Our budget deficit has now reached some $20 billion.  Polls show that over 2/3 of the Californians, are disgusted with both the Democratic and Republican Parties and want to form another party.  But election laws make it very difficult if not impossible to set up a new party that can compete on an equal footing with the two established parties, and people instinctively know this.  Most voters feel that they must vote for the lesser evil or they will get the greater evil.  Thus we vote over and over again for the same politicians and hope for different results.  I am reminded that Dr Benjamin Spock once said that as long as we vote for the lesser evil we will still have evil.   It doesn’t have to be that way. 

For example, the various parties and constituencies could be represented in the state legislature and the U. S. House of Representatives in direct proportion to the votes they received in the general election.  This could be accomplished by creating districts where we would elect several members or representatives from each district.  In a 10 member district parties would receive one seat for every 10% of the vote.  Thus, if a party were to get 50% of the vote it would get 5 seats and if a party or an independent candidate were to get 10% of the vote they would get one seat.  That would protect majorities and allow a voice to the minorities. Everyone’s vote would count towards a winning candidate.   That is a win/win situation.

There is no such thing as a free lunch in America.  Everything costs money.  Services costs money.  If we want services we must pay for them.  At the federal level two useless invasions and occupations have taken billions of dollars away from needed services here at home.  The failure of major financial institutions and auto industry lead to unprecedented bail outs which included huge bonuses for those who had created the failures.  The burst of the housing bubble lead to thousands of foreclosures as people lost their homes.  

California is a big state and we spend a lot of money.  Yet California spends less per capita than almost any other state.  Only 15% of our $100,000,000 budget is discretionary.  We could cut every discretionary program and still not have a balanced budget.  With a budget deficit looming at 20% of the budget, taxes must be raised just to break even. We spend more money when we contract out government jobs to the private sector than when government employees do the job and it’s a job they do better.  My position is to save millions of dollars by not contracting government jobs to the private sector where ever feasible.  We could also save billions of dollars

If we substituted treatment and education for imprisonment of non-violent drug offenders and close down prisons where feasible.   If the higher tax rates were restored to what they were under Reagan, another billion dollar would be added to the general fund.  If a split level property tax was enacted, so homeowners would have lower taxes and big corporations would have to pay their fair share we could reduce the budget gap even further.  If we taxed the oil that is extracted from our soil just like Alaska and Texas do, we could  see the light at the end of the tunnel.  And in November we should support and vote for the proposition that taxes a legalized marijuana.  That would produce another billion dollars and together these revenue enhancing programs could balance our budget and save our services.