Trajan
conscientia mille testes
prop 2 sounds out of the ballpark to me and of course here in cali. any tax increase now especially doesn't sound like a good idea, nor do I appreciate the fact that they always threaten you with less police and fireman and don't want to tell you that these funds are not legally earmarked for say classroom budgets etc.
-In Michigan, unions have put a measure on the November ballot that would make collective bargaining a constitutional right.
The amendment says that no "existing or future laws shall abridge, impair or limit" the collective-bargaining rights of Michigan workers. That may sound innocuous, but according to Patrick Wright of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the amendment would hand a broad mandate to unions to challenge virtually any law they don't like.
Mr. Wright says that passage would almost certainly mean the end of Michigan's Public Act 112, which made the privatization of schools' food, busing and custodial services off-limits in collective-bargaining negotiations. More than 60% of Michigan school districts have privatized these services over the past two decades, resulting in annual savings of about $300 million.
Also unlikely to withstand legal challenge would be last year's Public Act 4, which gave state-appointed emergency managers broad powers to turn around fiscally distressed local entities by, among other things, rewriting union contracts. The act has already been applied to four cities and three school districts that otherwise by now would have had to file for bankruptcy.
More at-
Shikha Dalmia: The Next Battleground in the State Labor Wars - WSJ.com
-Prop 30, California;
Mr. Brown has placed an initiative on the state ballot, Proposition 30, that targets "millionaires" who earn more than $250,000 annually. Persuading the 99% to raid the 1% normally shouldn't be hard, yet voter distrust of government in the Golden State is such that Mr. Brown is having to pull out all the stops to get the initiative passed.
The governor originally proposed raising the top rate to 12.3% from 10.3%. That wasn't good enough for the nurses and teachers unions, which pressed for a 13.3% "millionaire's tax." Mr. Brown succumbed. Due to the 11th-hour negotiations, he had to rely on help from high-placed friends to meet the secretary of state's June 28 deadline.
Within two days of the initiative's submission on March 14, state Attorney General Kamala Harris had given it an appealing ballot title"Temporary taxes to fund education. Guaranteed local public safety funding." (In theory, the rates are supposed to expire in seven years.) And the Legislative Analyst's Office cranked out a fiscal-impact statement estimating that the tax hike would raise $6 billion annually.
Public unions then picked up about 75% of the tab for gathering signatures and paid workers twice the going rate ($3 per signature) to speed things along. Once the initiative received the secretary of state's final stamp of approval on June 20, the legislature passed a budget trailer assigning it the top slot on the ballot, which they hoped would improve its odds.
More at
Allysia Finley: Jerry Brown vs. the 99% - WSJ.com
Any others out there you have taken notice of?
-In Michigan, unions have put a measure on the November ballot that would make collective bargaining a constitutional right.
The amendment says that no "existing or future laws shall abridge, impair or limit" the collective-bargaining rights of Michigan workers. That may sound innocuous, but according to Patrick Wright of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the amendment would hand a broad mandate to unions to challenge virtually any law they don't like.
Mr. Wright says that passage would almost certainly mean the end of Michigan's Public Act 112, which made the privatization of schools' food, busing and custodial services off-limits in collective-bargaining negotiations. More than 60% of Michigan school districts have privatized these services over the past two decades, resulting in annual savings of about $300 million.
Also unlikely to withstand legal challenge would be last year's Public Act 4, which gave state-appointed emergency managers broad powers to turn around fiscally distressed local entities by, among other things, rewriting union contracts. The act has already been applied to four cities and three school districts that otherwise by now would have had to file for bankruptcy.
More at-
Shikha Dalmia: The Next Battleground in the State Labor Wars - WSJ.com
-Prop 30, California;
Mr. Brown has placed an initiative on the state ballot, Proposition 30, that targets "millionaires" who earn more than $250,000 annually. Persuading the 99% to raid the 1% normally shouldn't be hard, yet voter distrust of government in the Golden State is such that Mr. Brown is having to pull out all the stops to get the initiative passed.
The governor originally proposed raising the top rate to 12.3% from 10.3%. That wasn't good enough for the nurses and teachers unions, which pressed for a 13.3% "millionaire's tax." Mr. Brown succumbed. Due to the 11th-hour negotiations, he had to rely on help from high-placed friends to meet the secretary of state's June 28 deadline.
Within two days of the initiative's submission on March 14, state Attorney General Kamala Harris had given it an appealing ballot title"Temporary taxes to fund education. Guaranteed local public safety funding." (In theory, the rates are supposed to expire in seven years.) And the Legislative Analyst's Office cranked out a fiscal-impact statement estimating that the tax hike would raise $6 billion annually.
Public unions then picked up about 75% of the tab for gathering signatures and paid workers twice the going rate ($3 per signature) to speed things along. Once the initiative received the secretary of state's final stamp of approval on June 20, the legislature passed a budget trailer assigning it the top slot on the ballot, which they hoped would improve its odds.
More at
Allysia Finley: Jerry Brown vs. the 99% - WSJ.com
Any others out there you have taken notice of?