Something tells me I'd get along swimmingly with the East Valley Tribune editorial board.

Now that is an uncanny amount of overlap. Unlike Indie Rock Pete I'm happy to see that someone sees it my way, although it is a strange feeling.

Ballot Initiative Recommendation Summary

I have now remarked on every ballot question, initiated or legislatively referred, that will be on this year's statewide ballot, and one that will be seen by Tucsonans only. As news comes up in the next few days, I'll post further comments and updates.

In summary:

• Vote "Yes" on Proposition 100 to prevent real estate transfer taxes from being levied.
  
• Vote "Yes" on Proposition 101 to preserve your right to purchase health care and health insurance and to take the bad ideas out of the healthcare reform discussion.
  
• Vote "No" on Proposition 102 to keep homophobic bigotry out of our State Constitution and preserve the legislature's ability to give equal rights to homosexuals.
  
• Vote "No" on Proposition 105 to preserve ballot initiatives as a means to reform.
  
• Vote "Yes" one Proposition 200 to reform the deferred presentment or "Payday Loan" business and preserve this important option for those who are between jobs or otherwise fall on hard times.
  
• Vote "No" on Proposition 201 to preserve the option of settling home builder/home purchaser disputes by arbitration.
  
• Vote "No" on Proposition 202 so that the legislature may still repeal the harmful employer-sanctions law.
  
• Vote "No" on Proposition 300 every election cycle until a need for a legislative pay raise is demonstrated.
  
• Tucsonans: After years of fiscal irresponsibilty and the defeat of merit pay, only a "No" vote on Proposition 403, the TUSD budget override, makes sense.

Thanks go out to Ballotpedia,a project of the Sam Adams Alliance, for tabulating my endorsements and linking this 'blog. Their site has grown to be a valuable resource for voters and amateur wonks alike; consider making a small donation to help them cover their operating costs, as I will after the election.

Nickled and dimed?--No thanks! Vote "Yes" on Prop. 100.

I don't have much more to say about Proposition 100, the "Protect Our Homes Act", that I didn't already say in my Associated Content article, so I'll instead approach the topic from a different angle.

Local governments and taxpayers are often at odds. Government officials want money to do what they think is good; taxpayers want to keep it to pay for their own interests or save for the future. Reasonable people can agree that we need taxes--at least until someone figures out a better way around the free-rider problem--but that they shouldn't be as high as the officials want. Supporters of government and taxpayer interests push in opposite directions and the result is reasonable even if nobody sees it as ideal.

Governments, however, often try to make a run around this balancing process by passing many small taxes, usually ones that most taxpayers don't pay in a given year. It is much more difficult for taxpayer advocates to fight many small taxes than a few large ones. For example, the City of Chicago has its infamous "driveway tax" that businesses must pay for each cut in the curb, in addition to ordinary street maintenance levies. Since ordinary residents don't have to pay, there's never a push for repeal. Similarly, many states and municipalities levy a real estate transfer tax, over and above a paperwork processing fee, whenever property is transferred from one party to another.

Aside from having to process paperwork, the act of transferring property imposes no cost on the State, so we can't view this tax as a gas tax-like "user fee". Moreover, the costs associated with developed property: police and fire protection, roads and sidewalks, etc. are paid for by property taxes.

We can frame real estate transfer taxes as eroding home equity (as Prop. 100's backers, the Arizona Association of Realtors, do) or we can frame it as driving up the cost of housing. Both are probably true depending on market conditions. It doesn't matter which is correct. What does matter is that a real estate transfer tax is a small tax, designed to nickel-and-dime taxpayers a few at a time, thus avoiding the processes which keep more general taxes like property, sales, and income taxes in check.

Several counties and municipalities inflated their budgets during the housing boom and are now facing shortfalls. Bills (note the sponsor, Phil Lopes) that would authorize real estate transfer taxes, previously unheard of in this state, are making their way to the legislature. If they're going to increase our taxes, make them increase them the right way: transparently, and equitably. Vote "Yes" on Proposition 100.

Stand up for your health: Vote "Yes" on Proposition 101

That I wholeheartedly support Proposition 101, the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, should come as no surprise. I was the first to post the text of the initiative on the Web, I wrote an early article endorsing the measure for Associated Content, I circulated petitions in support of this measure, and I recruited others to do the same. Proposition 101 is Arizona's and perhaps the entire Republic's most important ballot question in the 2008 election cycle.

We can all agree that the health care market in the USA needs serious reform. Economists studying the problem in earnest usually conclude that the root of our trouble is a tax code which ties, for most people, health care to employment, and encourages the purchase of "insurance" plans which aren't insurance at all but instead provide "comprehensive" coverage. As a result, we don't shop for either health care or health insurance the way we shop for housing, automobiles, food, eyeglasses, or dental care (I could go on, but I think you get the picture.) When B tells A what A needs and C pays B for it, B is totally insulated from competative forces and A is insulated from costs. Moreover, insurance companies which appeal to employers don't always provide good service to insurance consumers; who would purchase insurance on his own from a company known for denying to pay for treatment or dropping coverage?

There are other problems, too. In many states, mandates drive up the cost of both insurance and care. Think of a coverage mandate as equivalent to a law saying that if one purchases an automobile, one must purchase a Lexus or better. The Ford Focus is cheaper, even gets better mileage, but the state says you must have heated leather seats. These mandates also make it nearly impossible for those with pre-existing conditions to get policies with "riders".

Many of our best minds are at work on the problem, proposing ways to decouple insurance and employment and wean ourselves off of comprehensive care. (For those interested in the topic, Arnold Kling's Crisis of Abundance is as good a place to start as any.) The experiments we have seen with health savings accounts and other forms of consumer-driven healthcare are the beginnings of the effort to work out partial solutions independent of legislative reform, but it will ultimately take a few acts of Congress and state legislatures to straighten out the mess.

Getting those legislatures to straighten out the mess is more difficult than it needs to be, due to the presence of a strong contingent who'd rather smooth over the problem than fix its root causes. Some are driven by a radical ideology, a belief that all should be equal. Others simply want to do something good for the unwillingly uninsured in the short-term and don't have an eye to long-term fixes. Still others obsess too much over how much "we" spend on health care and health insurance--as though it matters--and seek to rein it in. All are violating what should be a ground-rule for the discussion, an Hippocratic Oath for legislatures: don't make those who are already well-served worse off. All support a form of rationing-by-queueing euphemistically called "Single Payer Health Care."

In Arizona, Phil Lopes is the main "Single Payer" culprit, introducing bills to establish such a program session after session. Most recently he was joined by some of the legislature's other ideologues, including, predictably, Steve Farley and Kyrsten Sinema, in proposing such a scheme that would outlaw the private purchase of health insurance (see section 36-3132) and let the State make health care decisions for patients to control its costs. The bills have, so far, gained little traction in our Republican-dominated legislature, but they may do so in the future, as public frustration with Congressional inaction begins to outweigh reports of waiting lists and denial of treatment from Canada and cost overruns from Massachusetts.

Proposition 101 does not fix health care in the State of Arizona; it would take an act of Congress to truly straighten things out. It does not inhibit Congress or the State Legislature's ability to enact health care reform. Instead, by guaranteeing that consumers can always pay directly for medical services or purchase private health insurance, it takes the most harmful "solution"--rationing--and the second-most harmful solution--"play or pay", a system of compulsory insurance purchase and fines designed to crowd out market mechanisms--off the table. It protects one of our most basic rights and sets the terms of the debate in a way that will make us all better off. AZ Republic columnist Robert Robb suggests that it may also do away with those pesky mandates that make insurance prohibitively expensive or even inaccessible to some. I can't speak to that, but if a court were to rule that that is so, I'd welcome the decision.

You can often tell a great initiative by the opponents' tactics; when they must simply tell fairy tales, the initiative's backers are on the high ground. It happened in 2006, when opponents of Prop. 207 claimed that counties and municipalities would have to bribe property owners to comply with existing regulations, and it's now happening with Prop. 101. The principal opponents claim that unnamed "experts" predict that passage of Prop 101 will cost $2 billion, a number they don't explain and seemingly made up out of thin air. They deliberately omit the text of the measure from a webpage and then claim that because the "descriptive title" lacks detail the measure itself is vague and that its meaning will be wholly made up by judges. Anthony Rodgers, director of AHCCCS, sent around memos making the bizarre claim that passage Prop 101 would require the state's subsidized indigent-care program to pay for any treatment enrollees desire. (The claim is bizarre because enrollment in AHCCCS is voluntary, not compulsory, and thus rather obviously not covered by the measure.) He possibly violated state electioneering law in the process, and Medical Choice AZ had to sue to stop him.

Eyes are on Arizona. George Will has remarked that passage of Proposition 101 may also impede federal Single Payer or Play-or-Pay.

This is the most important ballot question of the election cycle, and perhaps of our generation. Vote for Proposition 101. Vote to protect your own and your family's health care from those who would make it worse in the name of equality. Vote to take Phil Lopes's rationing scheme off the table permanently. Vote to establish Arizona as a bulwark against bad ideas at the Federal level. Vote to force the legislature and Congress to consider real reforms, not fumbling quick fixes. Vote to inspire other states to pass similar measures in 2010.

Preserve initiatives as a means to reform: vote No on Prop 105!

Proposition 105 is this year's shortest ballot question and far and away its most poorly worded. Judge for yourself:

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Arizona:

The Constitution of Arizona is proposed to be amended by adding Section 1.1 to Article IV, Part 1 as follows, if approved by a majority of the votes cast thereon and on proclamation of the Governor:

Section 1. Article IV, Part 1, Constitution of Arizona, is amended by adding Section 1.1, as follows:

§1.1. FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY THROUGH TRUE MAJORITY RULE

SECTION 1.1. TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY THROUGH TRUE MAJORITY RULE, AN INITIATIVE MEASURE THAT ESTABLISHES, IMPOSES OR RAISES A TAX, FEE, OR OTHER REVENUE, OR MANDATES A SPENDING OBLIGATION, WHETHER ON A PRIVATE PERSON, LABOR ORGANIZATION, OTHER PRIVATE LEGAL ENTITY OR THIS STATE, SHALL NOT BECOME LAW UNLESS THE MEASURE IS APPROVED BY A MAJORITY OF QUALIFIED ELECTORS THEN REGISTERED TO VOTE IN THIS STATE.

Section 2. Short Title: This Constitutional Amendment shall be known as the "Majority Rule--Let the People Decide Act."

Reading that as written, it would appear that it only restricts initiatives which either raise taxes or force private persons, labor organizations, or other private legal entities to spend. Its proponents, however, claim that the effect is to restrict initiatives which mandate government spending obligations. I'll take their word for it and consequently recommend a "No" vote.

If you vote "Yes", you won't be in bad company: among individuals and organizations supporting this measure are the Arizona Federation of Taxpayers, Clint Bolick, and Tom Jenney. Similarly, many of those opposed are opposed for stupid reasons. Representative of these is the Arizona Republic and the organized opposition, No on 105, both of which frets about assigning a vote to non-voters. Nonsense!--they and others taking this view have been dazzled by the number 0.5.

Proposition 105, albeit sloppily, imposes (according to its supporters) a supermajority requirement to pass any ballot initiative that either mandates spending or imposes a tax. The new supermajority criterion, if it passes, would be fifty percent of registered voters, plus one. This is somewhat arbitrary: an initiative mandating forty percent of registered voters plus one vote "yes" to pass future initiatives is almost equivalent, yet cannot be shoehorned into a "you're letting nonvoters vote!" framework.

Under ordinary circumstances, majoritarian voting on individual questions is (perhaps paradoxically) the best way to prevent "tyranny of the majority". In legislatures, however, matters are different, and (among others) James Buchanan has made a convincing case for requiring a supermajority to approve tax increases. The same Public Choice arguments do not transfer neatly to ballot questions, but I would support requiring a supermajority to raise taxes to make it more difficult to pass initiatives which to many people appear only to tax others and not themselves.

The supermajority imposed by Proposition 105, however, would be far too strict. Consider that in an election with 51% turnout, an affected measure would need to pass almost unanimously. When there is 50% turnout or less, no affected measure could possibly pass. It would be better to simply mandate traditional two-thirds supermajority.

Moreover, even from a small-government, market-liberal perspective, many if not most initiatives carry with them some spending obligation, even if only for administration or enforcement. Supporters of this initiative have attempted to convince me that such spending obligations aren't really spending obligations, but only new programs are spending obligations. That's an insult to my intelligence, to expect me to believe that the courts would find that some spending is not spending. It's bad enough that the spending restriction itself isn't clearly worded; if supporters wanted to impose a supermajority requirement on only some spending measures but not others, they should have had someone with an IQ greater than 80 write the text of their initiative.

Consider that if we wanted to put aquifier-by-aquifier cap-and-trade, or school vouchers, or, were it not already law, concealed carry into place, all of these would, were Prop 105 enacted, have to pass with steep supermajorities. Preserve the initiative process as a means to reform: vote No on proposition 105. If, like me, you'd entertain requiring a supermajority to pass tax increases, let 105's supporters come back in two years with something more intelligent and better written.

Yes, my ballot initiative review has started.

About a month later than I intended, I have begun my de rigueur review of each ballot question that I will see this general election. Yesterday's local Tucson question kicks things off; I will treat each in turn, in reverse numerical order.

If you can't wait, I have quietly made a few remarks about the initiatives on Associated Content. (Note that the article titles are not my own).

(Propositon 101) Arizonans to vote on Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act
(Proposition 200) In Arizona, "greedy" payday loans at issue
(Proposition 100) Arizonans may vote to pre-empt real estate transfer taxes.

Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act update

Unlike 2006's successful Prop. 207, the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act has no East Coast "angel" donor. It nevertheless seems to be progressing well. A recently e-mailed update from Medical Choice for Arizona puts the effort at 90,000 signatures short of its 300,000 signature goal, and states that the group expects to submit its petitions well in advance of the July deadline.

I don't know whether or not they are trying to "fly under the radar"; although they still need to raise $25,000, the group has succeeded in hiding its contact-list sign-up form.

I stand corrected: AZ Prop. 13 is serious.

The insufferably wacky ("Nor can you prove otherwise...") Jeff Greenspan handed off Prop. 13 Arizona to more competent hands in order to work full time on Ron Paul's campaign. Unlike past efforts, this one is organized and serious. The name is still stupid. "Proposition 211 on this year's ballot is Prop. 13..."

The Prop. 13 Arizona committee is getting ready to file a single initiative, striking Article 9 Section 19--currently full of more holes than Swiss cheese--from the State Constitution entirely, and replacing Section 18 with a rollback and limited increase. More to follow when the language is finalized.

Arizona Tax Revolt, a separate group, is also putting forth promising, albeit perhaps redundant, initiatives. More on that later.

Thanks to Tom Jenney of the Arizona Federation of Taxpayers for the heads-up on my obsolete details.

A tax revolt ballot initiative for Arizona

There have been rumors, including a cryptic note from Tom Jenney of Americans for Prosperity, about a serious tax revolt, possibly consisting of a TABOR initiative, in Arizona. Prop. 13 Arizona certainly isn't it--if anything, the decidedly stupid name makes that clear--but on the off chance that it makes the ballot, its two amendments would be a welcome addition to the state constitution.

Prop 13 Arizona was filed by Jeff Greenspan, a paleo-con and perennial foe of taxation. Jeff is a curious character, who considers random capitalization of words, sprinkling his writing with "logic" and "rational" and general spinning about to be argument. At least on the Internet, he's reminiscent of Zippy the Pinhead. However, he seems to have his act together more than in years past. Although only one of the two initiatives have been filed with the Secretary of State's office, at least this time there's a website and other people on board.

The two proposed amendments would eliminate exceptions to the Consititution's tax rate caps, roll back valuations to 2003 for properties purchased before then, and set two percent per year cap on valuation increases. Curiously, this is lower than inflation. Perhaps it'll be the measure's undoing.

That is, if it makes the ballot. I'm not expecting Greenspan to deliver, although I'll be pleased if he does.

Full text of the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act

Lately it's felt like preventing the institution of socialized medicine would be as difficult as stopping an oncoming train. We might just have to suffer through a generation of waiting lists, declined care, and overseas travel for treatment in order to prove what credible healthcare economists are already telling us.

If one wants to avoid being hit by a train, the other option is to derail it before it arrives. The "Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act", a ballot initiative being advanced by Medical Choice for Arizona, would do exactly that, preventing many of the abuses associated with socialized medicine and restricting its form to either residual welfare or a voucher system.

Medical Choice for Arizona is not yet on the Web, and the Secretary of State's office has not posted the full text either. I was sent a xerox by that office, and have copied the initiative word-for-word below. Remember: you saw it here first.

Commentary to follow soon.

AN INITIATIVE MEASURE

PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF ARIZONA; AMENDING ARTICLE II OF THE ARIZONA CONSTITUTION BY ADDING SECTION 36 OF ARTICLE II; RELATING TO FREEDOM OF CHOICE IN HEALTH CARE.

Be it enacted by the People of Arizona:

1. Article II, Section 36: Constitution of Arizona is proposed to be added as follows if approved by the voters and on proclamation of the Governor:

ARTICLE II, SECTION 36. BECAUSE ALL PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT THEIR HEALTH CARE, NO LAW SHALL BE PASSED THAT RESTRICTS A PERSON'S FREEDOM OF CHOICE OF PRIVATE HEALTH CARE SYSTEMS OR PRIVATE PLANS OF ANY TYPE. NO LAW SHALL INTERFERE WITH A PERSON'S OR ENTITY'S RIGHT TO PAY DIRECTLY FOR LAWFUL MEDICAL SERVICES, NOR SHALL ANY LAW IMPOSE A PENALTY OR FINE, OF ANY TYPE, FOR CHOOSING TO OBTAIN OR DECLINE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE OR FOR PARTICIPATION IN ANY PARTICULAR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM OR PLAN.

2. The Secretary of State shall submit this proposition to the voters at the next general election as provided by Article XXI, of the Constitution of Arizona.