The error of budgeting by ballot box
Re “A better direct democracy,”
editorial, Nov. 17
One of the problems with our initiative process is “budgeting by the ballot box.” We like to say nasty things about our Legislature and our governor not being able to produce good budgets, but the citizens themselves are responsible for much of this mess.
We vote for propositions that often direct funds to certain projects without any thought as to how they affect the budget, leaving it to the Legislature and the governor to find the funding somewhere. The way to cure this problem is a constitutional amendment requiring any initiative that needs funding to either impose (or raise) a tax to pay for itself or to take the funds from another program. This would be a giant step toward fiscal sanity.
MARTY CANTOR
North Hollywood
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