Each morning this week, nervous Americans awakened to news
that yet another financial institution is in rough waters or has already hit
bottom and been wiped out. We waited to see if the federal government would
toss a life preserver to keep an insurance conglomerate or a massive lender or
a decades-old brokerage firm afloat. Imagine that! Private enterprise looking
to the feds to come to the rescue and bail them out - what a concept.
Of course, the presidential candidates weighed in on the
crisis. Senator Obama insists that the Federal Reserve must protect families that count on insurance (the AIG
disaster), but not salvage the shareholders or management who profited during
good times. Senator McCain acknowledges that regulation
needs to be streamlined and is calling for a commission to study the
problem. Meanwhile, he remains opposed to the federal bailout of AIG.
As the crisis deepens, the presidential rhetoric on the
economy will develop new criticisms of the opposition, new ways of laying
blame, and, we hope, new approaches to solutions. At this juncture, it appears
that McCain
is not defending deregulation even as Obama points to the flaws of economic
policies which give Wall Street free rein.
It is in this atmosphere of concern and uncertainty that San
Diegans will go to the polls in November to face a very long ballot. It launches
with the presidential race, flows through congressional and state legislative contests,
cascades over state propositions and drops into local ballot measures. In fact,
the very last item on the San Diego Unified School District ballot, which
reaches most voters in the City of San Diego, is Proposition S, a 2.1 billion
dollar school bond proposition. Since California voters are usually friendly to
school bonds and since it only takes 55 percent of those voting to pass a
school bond, its supporters might have felt pretty optimistic.
But Proposition S has two major problems. First, it's at the
end of that very long ballot and first-time voters who just come out for the
presidential race may not go through the whole document to discover and vote
for Prop. S. The proposition's handlers
are targeting that group with postcards, phone calls, and more postcards.
Problem #2, no surprise, is the disastrous financial news.
Are people suffering from economic anxiety going to vote for a proposition that
will cost them something? Actually, Prop. S will extend the property tax
assessment approved for Prop. MM years ago, rather than impose a new tax. But
school bonds will be a harder sell this year as voters worry about tomorrow's
economic news and whether a new president can turn things around.
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