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Friday, October 27, 2006
Minnesota transit amendment
I thought this would be an easier way to address the topic than putting together a well thought out post of my own. Didn't quite work the way I planned.
Me: What do you think of the proposed transit amendment? I am actually not quite sure how I will vote on that one.
Hammer: I'm going to vote against the transit amendment. I have 2 objections, neither of which address the actual merits of the plan.
1. Deciding whether to dedicate funds from a specific tax to a specific task shouldn't be in the state constitution because it's too inflexible. The legislature should have freedom of the purse strings to respond to rapidly changing events in the state.
2. As a practical matter, this amendment is a shift in government spending toward transit, but doesn't say what is going to be cut to pay for the shift. While transit is important, I don't view it as the state's top priority. Early childhood health and education would be my top priority. I would also not be willing to increase transit spending if it meant further reductions in local government aid or further increases in state college tuition. In my view, it's voting blind.
Me: Crap, I was hoping I could get a good email exchange on this going back and forth and turn it into a blog post, but you ruined that by saying exactly what I was thinking on the topic. I am still somewhat undecided because I really would like to see more money devoted to transit and figure this would do that and the money lost from the general fund would be made up somewhere. But reading about the mess California has made for itself with this style of lawmaking makes me think that when I get the ballot I will probably vote "no". If the majority of the public really does want this to be done then we should be able to get lawmakers to do it next session. And if the result sucks then we can reverse it with a simple majority vote in the legislature rather than trying to undo a constitutional amendment.
Hammer: And those are exactly the points I would make if I were going to get into further depth. Transit is important. I'm not educated enough to know if the highway/transit funding mixture is good policy or not. I'd like to think we'd be better off by replacing half of the 494/694 lanes with light rail lines and adding spokes from there into the downtowns. Of course, that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and would create a nightmare when people tried to get to their cabins on Friday afternoons.
4 Comments:
Just say no, guys.
http://thecuckingstool.blogspot.com/2006/10/spooky-old-alice.html
I'm undecided. I happen to think that transit/transportation is very important, ranking up there with education and health care. So, I favor anything that will insure that we pay for infrastructure. A strong economy cannot allow itself to be strangled by poor roads and mass transit (see, I favor both as any real Republican would).
My problem with the proposal is that it represents an abdication by the legislature of its responsiblity. Ever since lightweight Pawlenty vetoed the bipartisan transportation bill a couple of years ago, the legislature has been looking for something to get it off the hook. That's what this amendment does.
Hell's bells, if the legislature won't represent, then we can do away with it and do direct democracy - which I am not in favor of. Ben Franklin was once asked what kind of government did we set up. He said, "A repbulic, if you can keep it."
At the end of the day, I will probably hold my nose and vote for the Amendment.
By 
, at
9:37 AM
And as Hamilton said "The people area great beast. And not in a good way." (OK the second part was my addition.) As much as it is fashionable to run down the legislature I do expect them to be more thoughtful and better informed on any given issue than the public at large. I would lilke to think that holds true about transportation and that we can count on them to eventually do the right thing. That may be a pipe dream but in the absense of that I think we should avoid doing the wrong thing. I don't think I'll feel all that good no matter which way I vote but I think I will likely vote no.
I'll be voting no on the transit amendment. Transit is important. I'm willing to pay for it. But I'm not willing to make blind cuts in other areas.
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