Danny ChaiFollowing up a boring holy entry with a boring political entry.
First of all, I pretty much hate W and the current Republican controlled Congress. I mentioned Zakaria’s scathing indictment of both a while ago. I was more shocked when George Freaking Will wrote a similarly harsh criticism of both in Newsweek, from a conservative perspective. And I completely agree. The President and Congress are Republicans, but they’re not acting like conservatives. Massive spending increases, massive deficits, bills loaded with pork, a refusal to responsibly use the veto. It’s ridiculous, and I can’t wait until 2008, when I personally hope McCain wins, since he at least appears to have political principles.
I kind of dislike living in the California and the Bay Area in particular because everyone here is an idiot. I’m talking politically here. I actually try to be a good citizen and vote in every single election, even the obscure local ones (which are actually more exciting for me, because my vote might actually mean something). But the things I vote for nearly never win so it’s a hopeless Sisyphusian thing. Sucks.
I’m particularly sad that all the Propositions I voted for lost in the most recent election. I’m actually enraged. I have no idea who would be against putting redistricting in the hands of independent retired judges rather than the legislators themselves. It’s really quite simple: would it be better, would it be right? The answer to both of those is yes. It’s mind boggling to me that anyone, much less most people, would vote against that. The power of political ads.
I feel much less strongly about this, but I voted for the teacher tenure thing also, extended the pretenure period from 2 to 5 years. Partly because I’ve heard all these horror stories from teachers of terrible teachers who can’t be fired because of the tenure thing. The other thing is, everyone talks about how terrible things will get if we change the tenure system. The thing is, Jieun isn’t under that system. And her school works fine. They recruit and keep good teachers. They pay even less than public school. And there’s no tenure system. What’s so terrible about it? But yeah, this one I’m a lot more ambivalent about.
Like I said, many people in California are political idiots. The quality of everything in California is going down and has been for a long time, and no one takes a step back to think why that is. Everyone, particularly the unions, just grabs the most they can for themselves, to the detriment of the state as a whole. Sucks.
Anyway, I’m fascinated to see what happens in CA with this whole tax reform thing, especially the proposals on mortgage tax deductions. If you haven’t heard, they propose limiting the amount eligible for a deduction from the current amount (which I think is up to $1 million and absurdly includes 2 homes) to a geographically adjusted lower value, and changing it from a deduction to a tax credit. The reason being, it currently favors the rich too much. It helps them buy massive homes and they get a greater deduction for it, since they’re in higher tax brackets. I think it’s totally unfair, and, if you read about it, it’s not what the writers of the laws intended.
The reason I’m interested in seeing what happens is because you know, CA is a liberal state, and liberals do a lot of talking about caring about the poor. I’m not saying it’s not genuine. But let’s see how people feel about it when it really hits their bank accounts. These proposals would most hurt rich homeowners in pricy real estate areas like CA. But it is an unfair system. So will liberal CA support what’s right? Or just do the greedy thing? We’ll see.
I of course am rooting for the tax changes because it will almost certainly hasten the coming deflation in CA housing prices. But whatever.
Wow, I alienated as many of my readers as Dave using 2 fewer topics! I win!