Similarly the employee in industry does not set his own salary. But the company management does. No outsider is asked about the matter.

The board of directors at corporations can control salaries. But if directors aren’t management then who is? Perhaps you refer to the set of employees known as company officers? Well they approve salaries for lower down. Senior officers are usually directors too. Often they virtually are the board.

Some locales vote directly on the salaries of elected officials. It happens here and there. If possible the measure will be the only one in a carefully unpublicized special election. Eighty percent of the public will be unaware that the election ever occurred.

But legislators usually can just vote themselves raises. A common dodge is to appoint an independent board to recommend salaries. The board members are chosen by the people desiring raises. They recommend the raises. Sometimes the independent board can also grant the raises.

A legislator corresponds roughly to a company director. They set the salary of the executive officers. They in turn set the lower salaries. Or negotiate with unions about them.

In the end, almost no salaries in government or industry are set by anything except other employees. The difference is that industry can very seldom force me to pay.

And as I said. The salaries in government are not often a problem. Benefits, far less visible and even more costly, are the real cost. At least the ones incurred on the job are paid then and the matter ends. The pension and other retirement commitments are open ended, Hence the cost can only be estimated. And the cost need not be paid today. So it isn’t paid today.

Both of those assertions are substantially incorrect. Everything else you said: +2

same-sex marriage: it’s about the long-term view. Just like with abortion, the core idea is that do we see sex and partner relationships as the means of reproduction or just as a way to achieve and share pleasure?

What happens when well-off, intelligent, successful folks start to have less children? Just think it over. Concepts like concentration of inheritance, less well-educated professionals, social security collapse, and so on? The results are easy to deduce. I’m not for Social Darwinism but this would clearly mean the opposite extreme, an Anti-Darwinist society where the most fit reproduce the least – can that be a good thing?

Yes – same-sex marriage in itself won’t make successful folks have less children in the short run.

But if you take the long-term view and see it as one of the many steps in the 60-70 years old “sexual revolution” process that aims to separate sexuality and partner relationships from reproduction, kids and family life…

The law allowing these operations to exist expires in 2010 and the legislature has so far refused to extend it.

The proposition was written by the Payday Loan people in an effort to get this law written into the constitution, therefore unable to be changed.

The impulse to hobble elected officials is tempting but consider why we have elected officials. They are to balance needs and resources and priorities. If they cannot shift money or change legislation to solve problems then we are left with the problems.

States and localities have some fundamental problems. I’ll discuss two.

Prop. 105:

Public employees have a vested interest in boosting taxes as high as possible. And government is the single largest employer in most places, even more so when education employees are added. So bond issues begin with perhaps a 25% lead and will almost always pass.

The solution? I don’t know. But I don’t think the situation is healthy.

Prop. 300: Another structural problem. Government usually sets its own salaries and benefits. Of course so does management at corporations. The difference is the corporation can’t take money from people by force.

The solution? The salaries of elected officials are not often a problem. Salaries and raises are visible and you may lose the next election.

In contrast, benefits draw little public attention. So it is not unusual across America to find lifetime pensions voted for six years in office – perhaps not in Arizona, I am hardly an all-seeing state watchdog. And lifetime medical insurance and cost-of-living increases are usually added on.

Something must be done about the pension and benefits situation. The money hasn’t been funded and isn’t being funded now. A trip on LSD has more reality than public accounting. The problem is nearly a crisis over in California. Those interested might search on San Diego, Vallejo, and Kern County for starters.

The solution: Who knows? But clearly adequate funding must be provided as a pension or benefit is earned and not expected to appear later.

They present method is to put on a happy face mask, pay as little as possible into a fund, and tell the fund managers to earn impossible rates of return to make up the shortfall. Have you heard about any
investment problems recently?

Prop 101 A rare yes. The state has no business mandating health coverage. This would be another agency that failed to achieve much. To pass the time it would hassle those already having health insurance.

Exactly what would be done to a poor person caught without insurance coverage? Is Sheriff Joe going to run sweeps through hospitals?

Forget it. The agency mandate would prove inane and expensive. And tens of thousands would remain oblivious to medical insurance laws until they have a serious condition.

Prop 102: Gay Marriage? Come on people, on this issue the judges will rule however they wish.

If they favor GM the judges will find the needed wording in the State and US Constitution. Any contrary words in propositions and statutes might as well not exist. In fact, one wonders if the words of the constitutions need exist either.

Gay marriage is the Roe v. Wade of the decade. The next few appointments to the US Supreme Court will decide the matter for a generation.

Oh, and how did that attack on polygamy laws fare? Wait, they weren’t repealed? Holy crap! Ohhh, but if same sex marriages were legalized, well bam, then there’s no stopping those mormons right?

I really couldn’t give a good god damn either way, I just think the argument ‘against’ is built on lies and fairy dust.

Seriously? Ok… Gay marriage will be allowed between consenting adults. In your hypo, plural marriages (polygamy) will be allowed between consenting adults. How would we draw the line after this?

Theoretically, you could make the argument for incest, as they would be consenting adults. You could never make this argument for bestiality (lack of a consenting adult) and you could never make the argument for sex with children (lack of a consenting adult)

I don’t understand where your slippery slope comes in. Do you really think that if we allow gays to marry, we MUST allow polygamy? Of course not. And obviously your bestiality/pedophilia arguments are just hyperbolic fear mongering.

Sure, and the instant the Texas law about sodomy was struck down, someone tried suing to get rid of polygamy laws.

As a previous commenter said, it’s not about your marriage. It’s about damaging the institution. This is one of those places where, shockingly, the slippery slope is real. Remember that there are groups like NAMBLA that’d just LOVE to get rid of things like age of consent laws, and people in the ACLU have occasionally taken cases on the side of removing those laws.

Assume for a moment that polygamy laws are overturned. What meaningful resistance can there be to overturning incest/bestiality/age of consent laws?

Nothing is stopping homosexuals from having ceremonies, working out wills etc, to do as they please. Currently they have all the liberty in the world to do as they want.

Instead they are now demanding government regulation of their relationships, when no case has been made for why the government should give a crap what they do one way or the other.

It is not about a question of “liberty” or “freedom”, homosexuals already have that.