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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: A Whole Lot of Hot Air Well, the 2010 election results are all in, and now the talking heads will have something to natter on about for the next two years. And one of the things they’re already proclaiming is that Americans on Tuesday voted loud and clear against bigger, more intrusive government. Actually, they didn’t. What they did was take out their frustrations on the ruling party, which is utterly predictable – not to mention meaningless – when folks are hurting and pissed off. But they also had ample opportunity to vote against big government itself rather than specific people, and there, sadly, they ran the other way. The biggest example came, of course, from California, where Prop 19 went down 54-46%. Prop 19 would have repealed state laws against the personal possession of marijuana, thereby derailing (at least at the state level) the massive, intrusive, wasteful, and horribly destructive bureaucracy that has grown up to prosecute otherwise innocent persons whose “crime” is holding a forbidden flower. Voters said no despite proponents of the measure outspending opponents, by a lot, apparently responding to a major fear-mongering campaign by California’s political class, which worships bureaucracies. Consider also what happened in my home state of Virginia. Here, as elsewhere, Democratic incumbents were tossed out en masse, and more “conservative” Republicans were voted in, almost without regard to who they were or what their track record was. But also on our ballot were three amendments to the Commonwealth’s constitution. Now I don’t know about you, but I believe that amending constitutions should be reserved for matters of the highest importance only. Things that help further the rights of citizens, for example. On general principles, if they don’t meet that test, I would always vote no, no, no. Specifically, in this case, constitutions are not the place to grant tax breaks to special interest groups. Yet that’s exactly what two of the three amendments on our ballot were about. Question 1 offered property tax relief to the elderly and disabled. Question 2 offered the same to veterans. Okay, we’d all like to do what we can for vets and the infirm. But enshrining a tax break in the constitution that benefits one segment of the population means that the burden on other segments unfairly increases. Bad idea. Question 3 empowered the state government to increase the size of the Commonwealth’s rainy day fund from 10 to 15% of revenues. What this means is that in good times, instead of returning surpluses to taxpayers, the government can sock more of it away in an account they can raid at their leisure. And in leaner times, it means they have less incentive to cut spending. Monumentally bad idea. All of these proposals, as you can see, increase governmental control over our money. And that, supposedly, is one of the things voters were screaming that they didn’t want. So how did these proposals fare at the ballot box? Wanna guess? Right. The tax changes were approved by 75% and 82% of voters, respectively. Question 3 had tougher sledding, but it too passed, 51-49%. Americans currently love to express their disdain for big government. But if it comes to taking real action against the overweening state, their brave words are revealed as nothing but a lot of hot air.
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