Michael Hiltzik: A Ballot of Facile Solutions

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden7nov07,0,1338319.story?track=tottext

Michael Hiltzik: Golden State
A Ballot of Facile Solutions

At a gilded moment that seems eons ago but was only mid-June, I wrote with great enthusiasm about the special election campaign then in the offing.

The campaign, I observed, was bound to be a rich source of manna for famished newspaper columnists. In contented reverie, I anticipated spending the next few months snoozing in the yard "while ripe nuggets of electoral hypocrisy fall upon me from the skies, like pellets of guano."

I wasn't disappointed. Who could be? In the intervening months I learned that the difficulty of ousting incompetent teachers in their 50s can be relieved by stretching out the probationary period for those in their 20s.

That the solution to the abuse of unionized government workers by the union leaders they've elected is to place the workers' fates in the hands of corporate CEOs.

That while government can't rescue us from high prescription drug costs, the drug industry will cut prices because it cares about us. That is, as long as we remove any incentive for it to do so.

That the state budget crisis can be eliminated by giving the governor more authority, although he doesn't know how to use the authority he has now.

Most of the initiatives on Tuesday's ballot have something in common: They're facile solutions to complex problems. By "facile," by the way, I don't mean "simple": Proposition 77, which would alter the redistricting process, has 36 provisions and runs to nearly 3,000 words. I mean they're easily reduced to sound bites and slogans to conceal the agendas of their promoters and distract attention from their potential to unleash unintended consequences down the line.

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