If you need further evidence that ballot initiatives are generally a bad way to make public policy, consider Proposition 91.
This proposition, put on the ballot by a mix of labor and business groups, would prevent state lawmakers from using state sales taxes on gasoline for purposes other than transportation. The trouble is, hardly anyone supports this measure, including the groups that put it on the ballot.
If you examine your state voter information guide, you'll see the official argument for the measure begins with these unexpected sentences: "VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 91. IT'S NO LONGER NEEDED."
What? Why would groups that spent so much money collecting signatures for an initiative turn around and urge you to vote against it? Because Proposition 91 is duplicative.
After Proposition 91 qualified for the ballot, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders agreed on a ballot measure Proposition 1A, which locks in state sales tax money for transportation (allowing "borrowing" in emergency situations). Voters approved Proposition 1A in 2006. That satisfied the groups that supported Proposition 91, but it came too late for them to pull it off the ballot.
Both Propositions 1A and 91 are bad public policy. While state gas tax revenues rightly should be earmarked for transportation, the subject at hand is the sales tax on gasoline, a completely separate levy. With the state budget burdened with too many carve-outs, lawmakers shouldn't be further shackled in how they spend sales taxes, a major part of the general fund.
We don't earmark the sales tax on building materials to be used for housing. Why do we earmark the sales tax on gasoline to be used for roads?
No matter. Proposition 1A is law – a bad law – so there is no need for Proposition 91, another bad law.
Vote No on Proposition 91. And think twice before putting your signature on any more ballot petitions.
