Why California's EV-Rebate Proposition Lost (kron4.com) 122
California's EV-funding proposition 30 "has suffered an unambiguous defeat," reports Bay City News.
The measure would've increased taxes by 1.75% on income above $2 million a year (for roughly 43,000 California multimillionaires) to fund electric car rebates and combat wildfires. "In the statewide vote count as of late Wednesday, 59% rejected the proposal."
So what happened? Before the election the New York Times described the fight: On one side, environmentalists have teamed up with firefighters, Democrats and Lyft, the ride-share company, which has poured more than $45 million into its campaign to pass a climate initiative. On the other, [Democrat] Governor Gavin Newsom has aligned himself with California billionaires, teachers and Republicans in opposition....
Proponents say the measure would raise money from those who can afford it to fund critical state mandates on electric vehicle sales and ride-share miles that have been highly promoted but not fully funded. Opponents argue it would require taxpayers to foot the bill for electric vehicle subsidies that Uber and Lyft would eventually have to pay for on their own. In August, California regulators voted to ban the sale of all gasoline-powered cars in the state by 2035, which was hailed by environmentalists — and by Newsom — as a significant step in combating climate change. Last year, the state implemented an even earlier standard for ride-share companies like Lyft and Uber: 90 percent of ride-share drivers' miles will have to be in electric vehicles by 2030.
Left out of those mandates was an explanation of who would be expected to pay for the switch to greener cars.... The opposition to the measure, which includes some of the wealthy individuals who would have to pay more in taxes and business groups opposed to tax increases, argues that the proposal benefits corporations, because Uber and Lyft would eventually have to comply with the new state electric vehicle mandates and would have to cough up the money to do so on their own, most likely by offering subsidies for their drivers to buy battery-powered cars.
The "no" campaign got a huge boost over the summer from Newsom, who, despite his focus on fighting climate change, has emerged as its highest-profile opponent and appeared in an television advertisement attacking Lyft in September. "Prop. 30 is being advertised as a climate initiative," Newsom says in the ad as he strolls across the screen. "But in reality, it was devised by a single corporation, to funnel state income taxes to benefit their company."
Currently Lyft's gig workers use their own cars — but was the opposition looking ahead to a future where Lyft owns its own fleet of self-driving (and electric) robo-taxis?
In any case, Proposition 30 "was among the country's top five ballot measures this Election Day in terms of total contributions," reports Axios, "with nearly $73 million spent by parties on either side, per Ballotpedia. The results "are an unfortunate setback for the climate movement," Lyft — which spent about $45 million supporting Prop 30 — said in a statement Wednesday.
On the other side of the country, Massachusetts voters approved a new 4% tax on those making more than $1 million for transportation and education funding, broadly speaking. And New Yorkers OK'd $4.2 billion in bond sales to fund climate change mitigation and resiliency programs.
The measure would've increased taxes by 1.75% on income above $2 million a year (for roughly 43,000 California multimillionaires) to fund electric car rebates and combat wildfires. "In the statewide vote count as of late Wednesday, 59% rejected the proposal."
So what happened? Before the election the New York Times described the fight: On one side, environmentalists have teamed up with firefighters, Democrats and Lyft, the ride-share company, which has poured more than $45 million into its campaign to pass a climate initiative. On the other, [Democrat] Governor Gavin Newsom has aligned himself with California billionaires, teachers and Republicans in opposition....
Proponents say the measure would raise money from those who can afford it to fund critical state mandates on electric vehicle sales and ride-share miles that have been highly promoted but not fully funded. Opponents argue it would require taxpayers to foot the bill for electric vehicle subsidies that Uber and Lyft would eventually have to pay for on their own. In August, California regulators voted to ban the sale of all gasoline-powered cars in the state by 2035, which was hailed by environmentalists — and by Newsom — as a significant step in combating climate change. Last year, the state implemented an even earlier standard for ride-share companies like Lyft and Uber: 90 percent of ride-share drivers' miles will have to be in electric vehicles by 2030.
Left out of those mandates was an explanation of who would be expected to pay for the switch to greener cars.... The opposition to the measure, which includes some of the wealthy individuals who would have to pay more in taxes and business groups opposed to tax increases, argues that the proposal benefits corporations, because Uber and Lyft would eventually have to comply with the new state electric vehicle mandates and would have to cough up the money to do so on their own, most likely by offering subsidies for their drivers to buy battery-powered cars.
The "no" campaign got a huge boost over the summer from Newsom, who, despite his focus on fighting climate change, has emerged as its highest-profile opponent and appeared in an television advertisement attacking Lyft in September. "Prop. 30 is being advertised as a climate initiative," Newsom says in the ad as he strolls across the screen. "But in reality, it was devised by a single corporation, to funnel state income taxes to benefit their company."
Currently Lyft's gig workers use their own cars — but was the opposition looking ahead to a future where Lyft owns its own fleet of self-driving (and electric) robo-taxis?
In any case, Proposition 30 "was among the country's top five ballot measures this Election Day in terms of total contributions," reports Axios, "with nearly $73 million spent by parties on either side, per Ballotpedia. The results "are an unfortunate setback for the climate movement," Lyft — which spent about $45 million supporting Prop 30 — said in a statement Wednesday.
On the other side of the country, Massachusetts voters approved a new 4% tax on those making more than $1 million for transportation and education funding, broadly speaking. And New Yorkers OK'd $4.2 billion in bond sales to fund climate change mitigation and resiliency programs.
Uber and Lyft don't own any cars (Score:1)
Give me the amount of money involved the reason this didn't pass is because a lot of money was spent making sure it didn't. That said I'd rather see the money going to public transportation and building walkable cities then subsidizing car sales. Still as someone who has to breathe air I would have settled even for this.
Seriously about half the people reading this p
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Seriously about half the people reading this post are going to have 10 years knocked off their lives from smog inhalation.
In California we already have the strictest emissions standards, and the highest per capita electric cars. I would have rather seen a proposition that simply ended the subsidies for all cars and all fuels.
Re:Uber and Lyft don't own any cars (Score:4, Informative)
EV subsidies end after a certain number are sold. It's no coincidence that shortly after Tesla's subsidies stopped, Elon suddenly became a conservative republican.
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The previous round of subsidies had a cap based on sales. The new subsidy program, which comes into force in 2023, does not have a cap on number of vehicles sold but instead based on things like price and where the materials used come from.
=Smidge=
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EV subsidies end after a certain number are sold. It's no coincidence that shortly after Tesla's subsidies stopped, Elon suddenly became a conservative republican.
While Republican-led states are pursuing EV manufacturing plants, many (most?) Republican politicians are against EV/hybrid subsidies / tax credits for vehicles sold. With regard to tax credits and/or subsidies for either EV manufacturing or especially vehicle purchases I imagine it would be in Elon's better / best interest to back Democrats.
From: House Republicans slam EV tax credit plan as 'perverse' and 'unfair' [detroitnews.com]:
House Republicans are fiercely opposing a proposal that would expand electric vehicle tax credits, arguing it favors the wealthy and asks taxpayers to subsidize products they don't want.
[... paragraphs about limiting / reducing tax credit availability ...]
From: Despite rhetoric, GOP-led states start to embrace EVs" [eenews.net]
Some Republicans have said the money going toward EV technology and infrastructure would be better used for shoring up the country’s energy independence — including by investing in fossil fuels — or for improving traditional infrastructure such as roads and bridges.
Some Republican-led states have been aggressively pursuing electric vehicle and battery manufacturing plants, “putting out really big dollars in order to attract those large facilities,” said Robbie Diamond, CEO of Securing America’s Future Energy, a nonprofit that advocates for improving energy security by reducing oil consumption.
And from 2017: Republicans [natso.com]
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Elon had practically no benefit from the first round of subsidies. Do you think they would not have sold their cars if the buyers had to pay an additional $7,500? Don't be ridiculous. Reservations for Teslas were
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Quite a load of ignorant propaganda there.
The subsidies lowered the overall cost to the buyer. Of course Tesla benefited, they benefited more fully than any other manufacturer.
If the argument is that the cost to the customer doesn't matter and customers would pay anything, then Elon is a fool leaving money on the table. If it does matter, which it does and the cars were therefore priced to market, then every dollar of subsidy is one less dollar that Tesla doesn't have to tighten its belt to save.
Also, I g
Re: Uber and Lyft don't own any cars (Score:1)
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Elon and the policies he supports are irrelevant. If you care about the issue, you want more EVs on the road. End of story.
Why sit around furrowing your brow and wringing your hands about whether some angel is approving you as you thread a tortuos mountainside path between evil and holy.
Go jump off that ledge.
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Seriously about half the people reading this post are going to have 10 years knocked off their lives from smog inhalation.
In California we already have the strictest emissions standards, and the highest per capita electric cars. I would have rather seen a proposition that simply ended the subsidies for all cars and all fuels.
Compared to Norway, it's all baby steps anyway... EVs per capita is much, much higher in Norway than in California. In October, 77.5% of new cars were EVs, 17% hybrids (most of them chargeable), and the rest - less than 6% - pure gas / diesel.
You can really smell and feel the difference in the air from 5 years ago.
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On the flip side (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no end to noble causes that cost money. The sheer fact that someone has more money than you does not make it ok to help yourself to their bank account to fund your favorite noble cause.
The "because they can afford it" argument is an attempt at making theft sound moral. Noble causes DO need funding of course, but there is more than one way to do that, and so simply forcing wealthy people to pay is not automatically the best solution (nor is it automatically morally justified).
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The justification is that your wealth wasn't created in a vacuum. You became successful because there is a functioning society which found the products/services/labor/expertise you offered to be worth exchanging their money for, and has laws in place to enforce property rights.
That being said, even the wealthy are entitled to democratic representation regarding how their tax money is used. BEV subsidies are unpopular even among many folks that lean left, because there's other social causes in more dire ne
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The justification is that your wealth wasn't created in a vacuum.
So? Those who are wealthy usually have an outsized impact on the development of that society. Should they be gifted excess money because of that outsized impact? That is what your argument is actually advocating for.
To illustrate, should homeless drug users be excessively taxed because they, rather than have an increasing impact on the functioning of the society, diminish it to an extent? Obviously not. But that is the point. Taxes should be uniform in the form of a national Sales Tax, and every measure w
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Skip rich profits. The thing provided, that everyone wants to buy, is the benefit to society. This gets lost in class warfare rhetoric. If new superphones keep appearing, faster computers and internet, well, hooray hundreds, thousands of billionaires.
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Lol a "taxes are theft, actually" take in 2022!
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The sheer fact that someone has more money than you does not make it ok to help yourself to their bank account to fund your favorite noble cause.
The government is doing that all the time.
One can use a tax salary calculator with few different salary values.
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The government is doing that all the time.
That doesn't make it right. In fact, I think more often than not, it demonstrates it is wrong.
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I hear Somalia is lovely this time of year.
I know nothing of the climate patterns in Somalia, but rest assured its tax code includes corporate, personal income, sales and other taxes. https://sominvest.gov.so/procedures/tax-regime/ [sominvest.gov.so]
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Corrupt countries are no attraction because those in business cannot make a move without kickbacks at a thousand levels.
This is why their economies are dogs.
Hint: Western countries' are not dogs, but not because burdens are for good reasons instead of bad.
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"Because they can afford it (or not, fuck them)" is what corporations do to people when corps underpay workers and overcharge consumers, then blame the "economy" for shit behavior.
I would argue that a comfortable middle class income is one that can support owning a vehicle, a home, raising a family, saving for retirement, having health insurance, and going on a vacation or two a year.
I would argue that the higher someone's multiplier of "comfortable middle class" annual comp goes, the more they owe back to
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Still as someone who has to breathe air I would have settled even for this.
That's the usual justification. Thing is, we're talking about subsidies that are going to people who have the financial means to buy brand new vehicles. Even if those cars sold were instead ICE-powered, they still have to meet today's emissions standards. Yes, they emit CO2, but that's a climate change issue, not an air quality issue.
If you wanted to improve air quality, you'd need to remove older vehicles from the road. Older vehicles were manufactured under looser emissions standards, and also likely
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1. No non-current compliant vehicle should be operated commercially (this means you, old semi trucks).
2. No non-current complaint vehicle should have its's registration renewed. So, effectively you have 1 year from change in standards to address the issues with your car's emissions.
I see your point wholeheartedly on the CO2 vs soot. A difference few acknowledge.
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Improving air quality would require two very simple laws that would have no associated taxes or spending by the state government.
Having the entire fleet of vehicles replaced every three years or so would cost the state huge amounts of money, and if you think cars cost a lot now, just wait until you're on a ten year waiting list to buy a new one.
Re: Uber and Lyft don't own any cars (Score:1)
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What you're asking for is not possible. All cars sold are required to meet the standards for their year of manufacture for the lifetime of the vehicle. If that's what you're asking for it's already the law.
My personal car is from 1993 and met all emissions standards when tested until they stop
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Because the tax wouldnt have been for everyone. The measure likely would have passed if not for Lyft backing it. Many voters just look at who's for/against a proposition to figure out how to vote, because often they're too complex to figure out quickly from the text and the official voting guide explanations.
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PROVIDES FUNDING FOR PROGRAMS TO REDUCE AIR POLLUTION AND PREVENT WILDFIRES BY INCREASING TAX ON PERSONAL INCOME OVER $2 MILLION. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
You think that is too complex to understand? It did not pass because it was yet another tax, in a state that is already the most expensive. If the state REALLY wanted to boost EV demand, they would stop threatening roof-top solar panel projects which makes operating an EV considerably expensive, and they could have done something like make EVs Sales Tax exempt (8%, or $13,000 for a Tesla Model X) or discounted the registration fees. This was not about boosting EV demand. This was about taxing rich people.
Re: Californians make too much money for this to p (Score:2)
Nah, I get away with 200k in California. But it's still too expensive. I'm hoping to transfer out of here before my first vesting period ends so I don't have to pay any more taxes to this dumb state. All they do is piss the money away and then claim that they're doing a good job just because they have a budget surplus. What the fuck good is a surplus when everything the taxes are supposed to fund is dysfunctional and underfunded? The politicians piss and moan about the rich being too rich, but don't ever as
I am a Californian (Score:5, Interesting)
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>This would also raise taxes even higher on those already paying the most.
By total amount, or by percent of income? Because I guarantee it's not the latter. Another way to look at it, is it would have raised taxes even higher on those who could actually afford it.
> The government needs to stop trying to transfer wealth. They suck at it.
Right; Everyone knows the best way to transfer wealth is from the poor to the rich. Capitalism ho!
=Smidge=
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Tax only on income amount over $2 million. That's a smaller fraction of people than the 1 percenters. But that's America, tax the poor and everyone's fine, tax the rich and suddenly there's a well funded opposition campaign.
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The poor don't pay income taxes. The rich pay almost all of them.
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Turns out you actually need an income before you can pay income taxes.
So what percent of their income does someone making over $2mil per year pay in food, transportation, and housing? Because for someone making near minimum wage it's probably well over half, with a good chunk of the rest going to debt servicing. They absolutely pay more taxes as a percent of their income than someone making >$2mil per year, even if the taxes aren't on the income itself.
=Smidge=
Re: I am a Californian (Score:1)
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This is either true or false depending on the definitions of poor and rich, which you don't provide. It's a meaningless statement consistently offered up by "the rich".
While the poorest do not pay income taxes, plenty of people of modest means do, and they far outnumber the wealthy.
A more direct measure is who in the country is getting wealthier and who is not? It is in society's best interest for that to be kept in balance and taxing the rich is a prime way to do that. All economic gains for a long time
Re: I am a Californian (Score:2)
Nobody is taking about 16 shirts. They're taking about 1600 shirts, and the removal of even 320 not substantially impacting the number of shirts you own. Add to that the fact that most of the people supporting your ability to own 1600 shirts can't afford 16 themselves, and you can see why those 1600 shirt motherfuckers should be hung by their own entrails from the nearest tree.
Taxes are how we pay for society. The people who benefit most from that society can afford to pay more to support the society whi
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Yeah, what Musk needs is another 56 billion in stock grants, that and don't take his shirts away.
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Until only the top 1% even have shirts, then they come into your house, shit on your shirts and cut your head off.
"You worked for and bought your shirts. Others are free to do so."
You are why people speak of privilege. How much PPP money did you personally get?
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The correct measurement is how many shirts the average person own? Feel free to leave out the rich people count, if you fear it is distorting.
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Why do you guarantee that California has a regressive income tax? Where's your evidence for that idea?
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There's more to taxes than just income tax. People like you always seem to have extremely convenient tunnel vision when it comes to this... income tax isn't regressive, but cost of living always is.
Let's say you have two people; Alice, who makes $75,000/yr, and Bob, who makes $5,000,000. Both Alice and Bob buy the same new car, which costs $50,000, from the same dealership, which is in a county where state + local sales tax is 10%. So they both paid $5,000 in tax on that new car. Alice paid 6.67% of her ann
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" Both Alice and Bob buy the same new car, which costs $50,000, from the same dealership, which is in a county where state + local sales tax is 10%."
But Bob didn't really buy a car, his LLC did. And his LLC has a dealership license so he didn't pay any taxes on the purchase, nor any income taxes on his 5M since that wasn't paid to him either.
Also, Bob's living expenses, including his electrical bill, are paid by his company.
Don't forget that rents went up as much as 40% this past year. How much did Bob's?
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You probably should read carefully, since the post you are replying to also mentioned the cost of living.
Although if you want to limit it to taxes on electric bills, I pay a flat rate for various fees, regardless of how much energy I use. Which obviously is a greater share of income for the poor than the rich. (And I get to pay for Texas's mess, even though I'm far aw
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Yep, that's how it works. The rich get all their money from people who by definition don't have any.
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The government is magnificent at wealth transfer, it just doesn't benefit the OP.
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There are a number of countries examples that show us that we could be doing much better though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . Being the "best" in a country that isnt doing a very good job of something isnt a great metric to base decisions on.
and with a middle class that's been steadily shrinking for the last half century to the benefit of our affluent https://www.pewresearch.org/fa... [pewresearch.org] I'll take any wealth redistribution I can get. A great way for the US to decline is to let such things like this go un
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America is definitely the best at telling ourselves we're the best.
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I'll take any wealth redistribution I can get.
I see. Why not just work to earn the fruits of your desires?
A great way for the US to decline is to let such things like this go unchecked as it has for far too long.
No. The great way to decline is for the US to reinforce to people like you that instead of being productive for the fruits of your desires, you can just rob someone else of the fruits of their labor, rather than produce your own.
I find it staggering that you can put those two statements by each other. Where do you even find the nerve?
Re: I am a Californian (Score:2)
Because a lot of the things that 'made America great' were financed by progressive taxes on the super wealthy. It wasn't until the advent of St Reagan and the flawed concept of 'trickle down economics' that we were put on this path. The rampant greed of the 80's has been obvious in public policy ever since. Just another reason the FYGM generation needs to die.
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The correct measurment is average health and wealth of the population, not class warfare rhetoric.
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Well our middle class is smaller then a lot of our 1st world cousins and is shrinking and we are most certainly less healthy then most of them as well. Go ahead and claim classism all you want though
Re: I am a Californian (Score:2)
We weren't there before the 80's, and it's a false equivalency to suggest that's where we'll be if we change anything. But you're just a troll, and you know that.
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Hahaha, you're an idiot. As if our choices are between two extremes.
Second post in the same thread with you lying so you can make a point that fits your ideology. An ideology so strong you have to lie to support it. How wonderful.
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And yet during what many Americans consider a golden age in the 1950s, marginal income tax on the wealthiest Americans was way higher than it is now. I believe the highest rate was 91%, although I don't know what the average income tax rate that works out to is. And somehow America not only did just fine, it did really well as an entire country, at least for white males. And this was as the cold war was really getting started, and the red threat was starting to loom larger and larger.
Reagonomics (which Bu
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I see. Why not just work to earn the fruits of your desires?
When did I ever say I didnt or that I wanted other's money? I didnt, you're putting words in my mouth so you can pretend you're making a point over me. How wonderfully dishonest of you.
No. The great way to decline is for the US to reinforce to people like you that instead of being productive for the fruits of your desires, you can just rob someone else of the fruits of their labor, rather than produce your own.
I find it staggering that you can put those two statements by each other. Where do you even find the nerve?
Where do you find the nerve? You're content to watch our middle class dwindle until we're no better off then a banana republic.
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The government needs to stop trying to transfer wealth.
Although I agree with your general assessment (except also for the "paying the most" part), this particular statement at face value is very ignorent.
THIS is the the very reason WHY we even have governments at all. Throughout history, throughout the world over. There really is NO other real purpose for "government". I put that in quotes because it includes kingdoms, villages, states, countries, etc etc.
And they do a FAR better job than any other concept. Gangs, Mafias, Yakuza, Armies, Pirates, Robbers, S
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In fact, we have the highest per capita electric vehicles among the 50 states.
*golfclap*. Being the smartest kid in the class for mentally challenge doesn't mean you shouldn't try and elevate yourself further.
This would also raise taxes even higher on those already paying the most.
Yes. That's the point.
I have two electric vehicles (both Tesla Model X)
Ahh right, a wealthy person voting against taxes on the wealthy. Not surprised.
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Being the smartest kid in the class for mentally challenge doesn't mean you shouldn't try and elevate yourself further.
That was a bad way of trying to achieve it. Which is why I am glad it failed. I will put this here from a comment I made earler. If the state REALLY wanted to boost EV demand, they would stop threatening roof-top solar panel projects which makes operating an EV considerably less expensive, and they could have done something like make EVs Sales Tax exempt (8%, or $13,000 for a Tesla Model X) or discounted the registration fees. This was not about boosting EV demand. This was about taxing rich people. The peo
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"Ah, so you just hate rich people and want to see them pay more. Got it."
You don't have to hate rich people, only hate the fact that rich people are the only ones getting richer.
"Would you be surprised to see the middle class vote for less taxes on the middle class? Or the poor for that matter?"
That's an admission, not that it isn't obvious. I mean, he's bragging about his luxury vehicles, despite his incredibly poor taste owning the ugliest cars on the road.
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"I have two electric vehicles (both Tesla Model X), and I would not want my next one subsidized at tax payer's expense."
Yeah you would, did you decline the subsidies on your other cars?
I think the problem here is you're just not conspicuous enough in your bragging.
When the goal is 100% adoption, other states are irrelevant. You don't care about that though.
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I pointed out how, in the Netherlands 30 years ago, for about $2000 you could convert your car to have a switch and switch between gas and LPG, where LPG had none of the massive tax gas did. And was better for the environment, though that was much less of a concern then.
In practice, government lost too much money, so slapped an annual surtax on those kinds of cars, such that you'd have to drive 20k km a year before the savings broke even.
I pointed this out in the nascent EV industry 15 years ago, that tax
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Point being nobody concerned about the issue thinks we are anywhere near a sufficient level yet. Yet here are the tax changes!
It's almost like hot air matters not, just a revenue flow so politicians can throw our own money back at us, and make us think ourselves lucky for it.
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The police should be volunteers, deputized to extract tips from citizens and meter out justice to the highest bidder. Trumpist utopia.
"Just enforce a code."
Who does the enforcing?
"The smog check stations are private."
Like the prisons. Couldn't possibly have any corruption there! Just look at how fair stop light cameras are!
Is anyone ever fooled by the privatization argument? How stupid do you have to be?
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As pushed by this or that "benighted, disinterested, kind-hearted parties", of course.
This pretty much sums it up (Score:1)
On one side, environmentalists have teamed up with firefighters, Democrats and Lyft, the ride-share company, which has poured more than $45 million into its campaign to pass a climate initiative. On the other, [Democrat] Governor Gavin Newsom has aligned himself with California billionaires, teachers and Republicans in opposition....
The Democratic party is in sad shape. A truly tragic number of our most influential politicians are DINOs, and everyone knows it, but there's no appetite to kick them out of the party because their centrism makes it easy for them to hold onto their seat. This is one place the Republicans have really done their homework, they do not tolerate RINOs. You either fall into line, or you GTFO.
Too bad about the ed funding thing though, it seems like they could have thrown the requisite percentage at education. Our
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This is one place the Republicans have really done their homework, they do not tolerate RINOs.
Except Trump and his acolytes think anyone who does not worship and kiss Trump's ass is a RINO, when actually the opposite is true.
Liz Cheney for example was as traditionally Republican as they come. The current GOP indeed does not tolerate Reagan Republicans, but don't know shit about actual RINOs (they should look in the mirror).
Hopefully this election will allow them to finally throw Trump under the bus where he belongs. Maybe real Republicans can finally retake their party.
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Hopefully this election will allow them to finally throw Trump under the bus where he belongs. Maybe real Republicans can finally retake their party.
Oh good. I was hoping that the people who destroyed public education to create low-information voters would make a comeback.
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For Democrats, the center-left position is traditional membership, so they're not DINOs, and for Republicans, center-right is the traditional membership, so they're not RINOs. MAGA is not really Republican and Trump himself is by most sane definitions the RINO in the party.
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The GOP has done an excellent job kicking The Overton Window so far to the right that "liberals" are unelectable outside of a few deep blue cities. Yes, centrist Democrats aren't ideal, but the alternative is the seat going to a Republican.
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The GOP has done an excellent job kicking The Overton Window so far to the right that "liberals" are unelectable outside of a few deep blue cities.
That's really total BS. Most of the most progressive democrat candidates won their seats during this last election, including the ones that the democrats opposed. The fact is that real liberals are way more electable than the centrists.
Re:This pretty much sums it up (Score:5, Informative)
I can't recall ever hearing a Democrat refer to another Democrat as a "DINO". It's just not a thing. As far as I can tell, Republicans invented the concept of a "RINO", and then assumed the same thing must exist for Democrats as well. But it doesn't. Democrats don't demand ideological purity. That's a Republican thing. A lot of prominent Republicans are trying hard to purge the party of anyone whose positions are considered unacceptable (for example, supporting abortion) or who is disloyal to those in power (for example, by denouncing Trump for his attempted coup). There's no corresponding movement among Democrats. They accept that people can disagree and that's ok.
History may decide which approach ends up being more successful. But from a moral standpoint, I know which I prefer. The Republican purges and witch hunts are vile and disgusting. Every moral person should denounce them for their intolerance, regardless of whether you agree with the positions they're demanding people conform to.
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I can't recall ever hearing a Democrat refer to another Democrat as a "DINO". It's just not a thing.
I can't recall ever hearing a Democrat refer to themselves as a "liberal" Democrat.
Must not be a thing.
Or it's just that embarrassing.
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Neither have I. A few people under the Democratic party banner will call themselves socialists though. (As well as a few independents.) Bowman, Bush, Cortez, and Tlaib are all DSA members in the House of Representatives.
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A truly tragic number of our most influential politicians are DINOs, and everyone knows it, but there's no appetite to kick them out of the party because their centrism makes it easy for them to hold onto their seat.
I'm not sure why you're assuming that the Democratic Party is left wing.
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I would argue that it is actually the far left that are the DINOs and that the centrists actually represent the traditional Democrats.
The same holds for the Republicans. It is the the far right that are RINOs more than the centrist Republicans (historically speaking anyway).
Yes, some Democrats are corrupt, too (Score:3, Insightful)
I am confused at teachers being against this. Are so many of them multi-millionaires? Time to vote against the next bill to raise funding for education.
Re:Yes, some Democrats are corrupt, too (Score:4, Informative)
Here's their rationale:
"Prop 30: Stop the Lyft Tax Grab
Increases income taxes to pay for zero emission vehicle subsidies and infrastructure improvements. It is funded by the Lyft Corporation to get taxpayers to pay for improvements. The tax increase side-steps current law that requires half of any new revenues to go to public education. It also doesn’t raise any additional money for health care and other essential services."
In general they're against taxes that are too specific because you can't reallocate where the funds go after the fact.
Newsom and Lyft (Score:5, Insightful)
Newsom's opposition was key. Environmentalists have a lot of respect for him. When he says it's a bad measure, people take that seriously.
Lyft's support was also key. When a single company spends that much money to pass a measure, people get really suspicious. They obviously think it would be incredibly profitable to them. By spending such crazy amounts of money on it, they probably ended up hurting its chances instead of helping.
I'm sure people will try to spin this as reflecting on California's attitudes toward the environment and taxes, or something like that, but it really wasn't. It came down to an unpopular company spending tons of money to pass it, while a popular and widely respect governor opposed it. A lot of people who support more money for the environment and higher taxes on the wealthy concluded, "This isn't the right measure to do it."
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The measure failed and Uber left the city. Hookers and blow were not needed to return, only owning the libs was, Austin politics doesn't get along with Texas state politics.
Also, not just Uber but Lyft as well. And the fight was over whether safety standards that apply to taxi drivers should also apply to Uber. Can't have that, it might interfere with Uber's obscene profits. After all, companies like Uber exist to skirt these types of laws in the first place.
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Thus spoketh a coporation... (Score:3)
Laws Should Not Mandate Specific Solutions (Score:3)
The laws should state what they want in general. In this case no ICE cars. That should be the extent. The market should dictate what the solution is, and laws should not tilt towards any particular technology to solve it. It's like the time when there was a general consensus to move away for incandescent light bulbs because they wasted too much electricity. Instead of saying light bulbs should use only 25% of the energy they currently used, many, many places mandated a switch to fluorescent bulbs, which are environmentally shit themselves. Eventually LEDs and even some advances in some types of incandescent bulbs happened, and fluorescent bulbs are a thing of the past; after wasting so much money on them.
Bottom line is that there should be no taxes or funding for specific technologies. Like proper software requirements, the law should say what they want done (alternative energy vehicles) and not what technology is used to solve that.
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"The market" is fundamentally aligned with the destruction of the commons. When preservation of the environment is the requirement, the market is the enemy not the solution.
The transition to EV is a specific and crucial goal, it absolutely should be mandated by the government. That's what government is for.
Imagine if the goal is to win World War II. The government should state what they want in general and the market should dictate what the solution is, right? As long as you got your bag of cash, who ca
fair share (Score:2)
I'm actually one of the more successful ones, but I'm not going to volunteer to give more than everyone els
Might be good to wait... (Score:2)
I realize people are eager to push forward clean energy plans, but it might be good to wait until the current funding has been implemented, at least partially, and then reassess the situation. I know someone working at the California Energy Commission. Currently, the Energy Commission already has a huge amount of money that will be encumbered for a variety of clean energy programs. The money is coming from many state and federal sources (for example: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act). G
those morons had an EV mandate in the 1990s too (Score:2)
I voted against it. (Score:2, Interesting)
I oppose Gavin politically, so it was NOT his influence.
I have never used Lyft and probably never will, so it was not that either.
My annual income is below $2M, so it was not that either.
In fact, I had no dog in this hunt [directly anyway], so it was not about "corruption" either.
What was it? I'm not a moron, and I have paid attention to politics and economics for many years. TANSTAAFL.
There is no such thing as a "tax on the rich" or a "tax on corporations". Both are complete fallacies, and the people pushi
The real reason (Score:2)
The real reason prop 30 failed is because Newsom told the sheep to vote against it. It's just that simple. At least 98% of the electorate does not have the capacity to understand the ramifications.