Ed Felien wrote:
stadium. We have asserted that right. If those two men want to take an
oath to protect that right, then this is the moment for them to say they
will let us vote.
Referenda are usually a poor way to do things. They undermine our
representative Democracy because our leaders abdicate their
responsibility as stewards of the common good.
Referenda are usually bad for several reasons:
- They are actually a regressive form of policy decision-making.
They guarantee that those with the most money (for advertising,
influencing voters, etc.) will have the loudest voice.
- They take important public policy decisions that are usually
complex and involve intricate balances of cause & effect out
of the hands of people who are supposed to have time to research
and understand the issues into the hands of people who don't have
the luxury of knowing all the details.
This is not to say that the average person must be uninformed.
Hardly. But I certainly don't know everything there is to know
about urban planning or tax policy. That's why we have planning
and revenue departments (the subject of slashed funding for our
planning departments being a wholly separate issue within the
dismantling of our democratic system of government).
We hold elected leaders accountable at each election. When we try
to make many important decisions by referendum, we get into the
repeated messes Calfornia has put itself into.
That's not to say that all referendums are bad. Maybe this is
an appropriate time to have one. I, for one, generally support
the stadium proposal because I think it will help secure the
viability of downtown. The location is fantastic as it leverages
our significant investments in transportation, especially public
transportation.
Placing a basball stadium in the Warehouse District will be a
motivator for our leaders to develop the public transportation plan
that's been sitting on the shelf since the Met Council drafted it in
2000. In fact, I'd like to see our legislative leaders to cut a deal
so that if the stadium bill passes, we are guaranteed a stable budget
for public transportation. That budget, by the way, should be secured
by a half-cent metro-wide sales tax. Believe me, we've done the
research and this is the least regressive, politically feasible
way to fund our public transportation needs.
and they profit. And a new stadium means that $28 million a year has to
come from us in the most regressive form of taxation imaginable.
Actually, that's not quite true. Not all sales taxes are the most
regressive possible. In fact, adding clothing to our sales tax would
actually make it _less_ regressive because rich people spend much,
much more on clothing than poor people do. I don't have a comparison
in front of me, but I've heard from several sources that our property
taxes are more regressive than our sales taxes.
> I don't hate the rich. I admire them. They're a hell of lot better
> organized than we are.
So what are you going to do about it?
David Greene
The Wedge
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