So many questions: Will our health insurance lapse, since premiums will not be paid? Will we just not get paid–ever–for days we were not allowed to work because of the lawmakers’ incompetence? What about those of us who are exempt, paid to do a job rather than be present a certain number of hours per day? Will it matter whether those people are sitting in an office, or will ALL employees, exempt and nonexempt, be docked for the unbudgeted days?

Prop 13 had all sorts of unintended consequences. It wasn’t surprising that taxpayers, given a chance, would vote in caps and freezes on property taxes. An elderly cousin of mine had to sell her paid-off home–a modest place, not some early-day McMansion–because taxes rose so high she couldn’t afford to keep it. She was in her 80s at the time, so you can imagine the grief and disruption that caused. The problem was that the implications were so complex they apparently couldn’t be explained clearly to voters, or possibly they couldn’t be fully anticipated. It also must be remembered that things like education, libraries, parks, and social services just don’t matter much to a large segment of the populace. The people who are in elected office here, who must represent some constituency in Arizona, obviously don’t care whether universities, schools, libraries, parks, and museums continue in existence or not.

My own legislature just restored funds (not all) to higher ed and hospitals.

Scary scary stuff.