4 thoughts on “Increasing Poverty In America”

  1. Note the difference in results between the political class and the rest of us. Makes me want to ban the political class from voting.

  2. Not worth the effort, peterh. It’s not a significant curb of their power unless the “political class” includes all government employees. Googling around, I found that the “political class” was based on responses to three questions:

    — Generally speaking, when it comes to important national issues, whose judgment do you trust more – the American people or America’s political leaders?

    — Some people believe that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Has the federal government become a special interest group?

    — Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors?

    Since the questions distinguish between rather distant viewpoints, it shouldn’t be a surprise that those viewpoints don’t agree on a number of related questions. The truly iffy part of this research though is the choice of the label, “political class”. Is there some indication that the group of people are more political in some way (such as being employed by government or lobbying government), than the people who aren’t?

  3. OT (sort of): I see California public employee unions are pushing two initiatives.

    24: “Repeal Corporate Tax Loopholes Act”
    25: “Majority Vote Act” Change “yes” votes needed to pass budget in legislature to 50%+1 from 2/3+1. I wonder if that includes raising taxes, which also currently needs 2/3+1.

  4. Looking at the entry for CA Prop. 25 at BallotPedia

    http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_25,_Majority_Vote_for_Legislature_to_Pass_the_Budget_%282010%29

    I see it has support from the usual suspects.

    There’s also this:

    “The clause in Proposition 25 that opponents say would allow this says, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law … bills providing for appropriations related to the budget may be passed [by] a majority.””
    – http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_25,_Majority_Vote_for_Legislature_to_Pass_the_Budget_(2010)#Arguments_against

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