Voters can probably have more immediate impact on local issues, and this is what got me out to the polls today. Utah is a strong Bush-leaning state, so my Presidential vote is much less likely to have results hinge on it than are my votes on a number of local issues.
(If I lived in Wisconsin or Florida I’d not be writing this)
Most significant: “Initiative 1” for a 1/20th cent additional Sales Tax to be spent on environmental preservation, education, and several other “feel good” things.
I voted against it. Taxation where the expenditures are NOT required to go through the same budgetary review as all the other expenditures is a Bad Idea. Sure, they put lots of touchy-feely stuff in the wording (“How can you vote against education?”) but I’d much rather have that touchy-feely stuff taken care of out of the REST of my local taxes — at the expense of less important things.
In the same spirit I voted against the Republican State House-of-Reps candidate in favor of the Libertarian. I’m all for small government. See, while neither Bush nor Kerry (nor Nader, nor anybody else on the Presidential ballot) has the power to significantly reduce the size of the Federal Government, local governments CAN be changed significantly. The cadre of hundreds of thousands of Federal bureaucrats nationwide are lifers. None of us voted THEM into office, and only a MAJOR shift in opinion in Congress, the White House, and the Judiciary can truly pare back on the rampant-and-arguably-completely-uncontrolled government spending we’ve seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to stop the Great Depression with federal projects.
The point is, while I can’t see to it that the Fed gets pared back, I CAN vote in favor of like-minded folks at the local level.
In other news, I heard that the Redskins lost, and that the incumbent President wins or loses his election on the most recent Redskins game. Fascinating. The Red Sox also WON, though, so I’m not placing any advance bets.
–Howard