No, not in Pennsylvania (though they’re having an election there as well today, so I hear). In New Mexico. Will Spaceport America get funded?
[8 PM EDT update]
We should know in a couple hours whether or not it passed, unless it’s very close, because polls close in less than an hour.
[9 PM EDT update]
The polls are closed now. This is probably the best place to track results. Folks in Las Cruces have a lot at stake in the vote. There are also a of related stories there.
[11 PM EDT update]
Looks like a big vote of confidence. Two to one for the tax (and the spaceport) is what I’m hearing. This is good news for Steve Landeen, who might have been out of a job had it gone the other way.
We’re trying down here!
I did some canvassing of the area for the last two weeks and *most* people seem supportive. I’m cautiously optimistic, but when my wife went to vote all we could see were retirees at the polls. As a group, they’ve been among the least supportive.
Some of our most vocal opponents have been retirees. Not all of them are against the tax, but some are. They’ll descend on workers’ paychecks like ravenous wolves with Social Security, but heaven forbid they pay $.25 for every $100 spent on things other than food and prescription drugs so that others can be more productive!
Still, I think the momentum is with Spaceport America. We’ll see tonight.
I’m all for building the spaceport, and want to see it completed, but I’m still not comfortable with putting a gun to the heads of my fellow New Mexicans and taking money from them to build a spaceport that they otherwise wouldn’t give their money to (or perhaps not quite as much money to) had they been given the choice.
There are plenty of ways to bankroll a project like this that don’t require confiscating 1/4 of 1% of peoples’ lives. And they have the benefit of keeping the horribly corrupt NM government out of it.
I would think that VG and anyone else that plans to fly out of here would want to keep the dirty fingers of the NM state government off, as much as possible, from this project. Unless of course, they don’t plan on making any money legitimately with the enterprise, and intend to rely on the taxpayer teat for cash-flow.