Politicians often use word games to fool voters. For instance, a bill in Congress to take away workers’ right to secret-ballot votes on whether to unionize is absurdly called the “Employee Free Choice Act.”
Sometimes the deception works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Right now in California, obfuscation isn’t working.
Under a measure approved years ago by California voters, lawmakers need a two-thirds vote to increase taxes. Given the state’s tendency to spend money wildly, it is understandable that residents want a check on lawmakers’ ability to raise taxes.
California did not get billions of dollars in debt by pinching pennies. It already has the sixth-heaviest state and local tax burden in the country, according to the Tax Foundation.
But some want to end the “two-thirds rule” so legislators can raise taxes more easily. They think that — rather than cutting spending — will solve their budget problem.
One of those seeking change is a linguistics professor at the extremely liberal University of California at Berkeley. The professor, George Lakoff, thought if he just reworded the debate, he could easily get the signatures needed to put the change on the ballot, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. So he embarked on a word game of his own, saying, for instance, that the change was not about “taxes” but about “revenue.”
But the public support he thought he would get has not emerged. Volunteers to circulate his petitions have not materialized in high numbers, and neither has the money it would take to pay signature collectors.
Even very liberal Democrat Attorney General Jerry Brown, who is running for governor of California, is unimpressed. For all the talk about “revenue” rather than “taxes,” Mr. Brown’s campaign pointed out, it is really about “taxes.”
Lots of other Californians apparently have figured that out, too — and are not interested in making it easier to tax them more.