Ohio: NO on Issue 2
Issue 2 is a referendum on the infamous Senate Bill 5. Passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature and signed by Gov. John Kasich over widespread public protest earlier this year, SB 5 took away a variety of collective bargaining rights and union organizing rights from all public employees, including firefighters, police officers, and teachers. A NO vote on Issue 2 is a vote to repeal SB 5.
It is very easy for a discussion of Issue 2 / SB 5 to turn into a generic "Democrat vs. Republican" argument; and I'll do my best to avoid that here. Business and labor unions, and governments Republican and Democratic alike have contributed to the general economic decline that has pervaded the rust belt for the last 30-40 years (and the rest of the country for the last 4). However, SB 5 is not about striking the necessary balance between business and labor interests. SB 5 was an act of political retribution by a Republican governor and legislature against a Democratic constituency. Public employee unions voluntarily made painful cuts to their salaries and benefits to help balance the state budget in recent years. In 2011, they were again willing to give up enough to balance the budget, but that wasn't enough for Kasich and company.
A Republican I sort of knew in high school argued with me recently that you have to permanently eliminate unions' rights, because they are greedy and will cause (single-handedly of course) another deficit in the future if you let them keep their collective bargaining rights. What this guy and other Republicans fail to realize is that their slippery slope argument runs just as easily the other direction. Sure, collective bargaining rights CAN be abused by greedy or unscrupulous unions to take more than their "fair share," but the absence of collective bargaining rights can be used just as effectively (if not more effectively) by governments and businesses to deny their employees a decent wage and benefits, even in good economic times.
Plain and simple, Kasich went too far. SB 5 was not needed to balance the state budget this year, nor will it be needed to keep it balanced in the future. It was a piece of crass political legislation that should be repealed with a NO vote on Issue 2.
Washington: NO on I-1125
I vote against anything sponsored by Tim Eyman, and I-1125 is no exception. This initiative is another piece of anti-transportation zealotry by Eyman and Kemper Freeman (who is essentially Bellevue's version of Montgomery Burns). If it passes, 1125 will prevent the badly needed light rail line from Seattle to the Eastside. It will also force the legislature to set toll rates on the 520 bridge instead of the Department of Transportation (DOT), ban congestion-based toll pricing, and prevent tolls on the new 520 bridge after it is "paid for."
Greater Seattle's highways are desperately overcrowded. The region needed more public transportation 25 years ago. It needed a new 520 bridge 15 years ago. I-1125 will make this problem worse. No state in the country requires its legislature to decide toll prices. If 1125 passes, every toll increase or decrease will become part of political shenanigans and horse trading. This process would be tremendously inefficient and nonsensical. The other provisions of 1125 that ban congestion pricing and ban using tolls after the bridge is "paid off" would create needless fiscal difficulty. Many states use tolls to maintain roads after their initial construction, and even the use of tolls to subsidize other parts of state budgets is common and not overly burdensome to commuters.
I-1125 is nothing but a political monkey wrench sponsored by self-centered right-wing ideologues, designed to make life difficult and inefficient for the DOT and the state as a whole. It's bad for business, for commuters, and for the environment. That's why the vast majority of the business community, labor unions, and environmentalists are united in opposition to it. Vote NO on 1125.
Washington: YES on I-1183
OK, let's talk about something more fun now, ALCOHOL! (According to Homer Simpson, the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.) Currently, Washington has a state government monopoly on selling hard liquor. Only the state can sell liquor, and only in stand-alone, state-owned and operated liquor stores. If I-1183 passes, the state stores will go away, and Washingtonians will be able to purchase liquor from supermarkets and from big box retailers like Costco and Target.
Last year, there were two different liquor privatization initiatives on the Washington ballot-- each with its own set of flaws-- and both failed. The 2010 initiatives would have cost the state millions of dollars at a time when it faces record budget shortfalls. In 2011, however, I-1183 has addressed these problems. By increasing the tax rate on liquor to 17% and allowing the state to keep the proceeds of selling its distribution warehouse and stores, the state doesn't lose money. In fact, the State Office of Financial Management projects that the state general fund will receive anywhere from $216 million to $253 million more in revenue if 1183 passes. Local governments will receive a total increase of somewhere from $186 million to $227 million. (Source: http://www.ofm.wa.gov/initiatives/2011/1183.pdf).
"But Jacob," you might be thinking, "I want cheap booze! Won't these increased tax rates mean I'm paying more for my bottle of Jack (or whatever spirit suits your tastes)?" No. Here's why. The government liquor monopoly is inefficient. The state bears all of the overhead costs of running the liquor business. Warehousing the product, hiring liquor store employees, transporting the bottles from the warehouse to the stores-- the state has to pay for all of that. It also has to pay to maintain all those stand-alone liquor stores. Furthermore, the state-- for contractual or some other reasons-- can't buy liquor directly from the distillers. It buys from national distribution companies, AKA "middlemen." Guess who the largest financiers of the No on 1183 campaign are? DING DING DING! If you guessed "liquor distribution companies," you are absolutely right!
If 1183 passes, then Costco, Target, Safeway, QFC, and other retailers will use their own overhead-- shelf space, storage space, employees, distribution networks, etc.-- to sell liquor alongside their existing inventories. They'll be able to buy their liquor directly from the distillers and cut out the proverbial middlemen. Not only that, the stores will get volume discounts from the distillers, because they buy for multiple states. Competition among those various retailers will also keep prices under control. So, while it seems counterintuitive that the state can make more money while consumers pay less for booze, eliminating the aforementioned market inefficiencies and fostering competition to drive down prices makes that win-win outcome feasible.
In 2010, there were compelling economic arguments on the "no" side. However, since I-1183 doesn't stiff the state the way the 2010 initiatives would have, 1183's opponents (mainly the distributors who stand to lose business) have had to resort to moralistic arguments instead of economic ones. I have seen no statistical evidence to backup the No campaign's claims that drunk driving will increase if 1183 passes. If someone has evidence that there is more drunk driving in states with privatized liquor sales, please show it, or don't expect me to take that claim seriously. People who want alcohol are going to get it, and beer and wine are currently available in all places at all times that liquor will be post 1183. Most drunk driving occurs when people drive home from bars anyway. How does making liquor more readily available for home consumption increase that risk? The same goes for arguments that underage drinking and/or alcohol-related fatalities will increase. Again, any underaged person who wants hard liquor now can already get it via older friends and siblings. 1183 will neither increase nor decrease that back channel access.
Trying to assuage some of these moralistic concerns, the Yes campaign has made a big deal of the fact that 1183 will not allow liquor sales at mini marts. I'll admit that part of me worries about the effect stand-alone liquor stores can have on the quality of neighborhoods, but that is a catch 22. (I.e. in states where stand-alone liquor stores exist, do liquor stores cause a neighborhood to become shady, or are liquor stores more likely to set up shop in neighborhoods that are already shady?). So, constraining liquor sales to larger retailers can't hurt; but I'm not sure its effect will be significant either way.
American history has demonstrated time and again that prudishness is not a good rationale for policy making. If you don't believe me, watch Ken Burns' documentary on Prohibition. The concept of a state liquor monopoly is a small vestige of the Prohibition era, which showed the failures of using legislation to enforce one group of people's moral code on another. Liquor is a product that the private marketplace is perfectly capable of buying and selling; the 32 US states without government liquor stores function perfectly well. Government's job is to do what the private market can't efficiently or equitably do, like building roads, or operating police and fire departments. The government's job should be taxing and regulating the sale of liquor, not selling liquor itself. Having to run and manage a liquor business is a distraction and a diversion of resources from issues the state should really be working on-- education, transportation, health care, etc. Vote YES on 1183 to allow the government to focus on what it does best and leave selling booze to the private marketplace.
