I found it strange to vote today: the list of candidates and propositions was very long, the process cumbersome. One had to link the two severed parts of an arrow in the hope of signifying one’s choice. No signature, no filling of a rectangle, no punching holes, no cross in a box…. I haven’t totalled the sum in billions that the propositions put before Californian voters would entail if all passed, but it looked pretty frightening: 40 billions or so? We already have been issuing bonds to pay the interest on previous bonds or shortfalls. To present this raising of money as “no taxes” is a strange act of magic. “No taxes now” would be more accurate. The voter’s pamphlet has an analysis of cost and relation of debt to budget that is enlightening: it shows that the share of the California budget taken by interest payment has been going up steeply since the early nineties, dipping somewhat in the mid-nineties (bubble — better revenues), and going up again since (towards 6%). It also seems to suppose that no new bonds are going to be issued in the future, meaning that the curve comes to rest gently again towards a no debt payment point. Who is naïve enough to believe this?