It's Over

2006-11-08 - 11:25 a.m.

Well, it's the day after.

The Democrats picked up a LOT of seats in the House, and at this writing the Senate is still too close to call.

The Dems will no doubt be calling it a mandate from the people. There are two problems with that claim. Firstly, only about 50% of eligible voters turned out. Second, a lot of races were close ones.

I believe we are still deeply divided on many things. There is no real "consensus" on how to solve our problems.

What we may have is a lot of gridlock...which may not be so bad, if it keeps taxes from going up.

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Locally, Prop. 87 (which I discussed here) failed by a good margin.

What got me was Prop. 90, which would have made it harder for government to use eminent domain laws in land-snatching. It failed here in California, while similar measures passed in nine other states.

Well, there IS one other good thing that we can rejoice about. Those fucking ads are finally gone.

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So we move on. There will of course be more political bullshit, but that's par for the course.

The basic voting mantra here in California was no new taxes.

Fine by me.

Be seeing you.

Brin - 2006-11-08 14:31:18 -
I'm glad it's over with, too, except for maybe the dregs of the mailings that went out by third class bulk snailmail and will arrive today and tomorrow! Happens every year because the stamplicking minions have no idea how slow that kind of mail is delivered.

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Bob - 2006-11-08 15:36:49 - http://shadowgm.diaryland.com
Um ... taxes can't go up unless President Bush signs the legislation. Democrats, by themselves, cannot raise taxes, and lack the 2/3 majority to override a Presidential veto. Now it's time to see if 'bipartisan' plays any differently with a Democratic majority than a Republican one. Either way, there's a country that needs governance, folks.

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Charlie - 2006-11-13 02:47:22 -
Um ... he meant local taxes for California, such as sales taxes (which are on a county-by-county basis, above the state's own sales tax rate. Examples: LA county is 8.25%; Orange County is 7.75%); local increases on taxes on fuel [diesel, gasoline] and tobacco, et cetera. Those are state-level issues, and nothing to do with The White House. Either way, Californians issued the middle finger as their response to the thought of any prices raising this time around. That was the point. Sleep tight.

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