beer drinker abstains

I was too conflicted on Measure 30. I support all of the great things that our tax money goes to, and was quite against (still am!) prezzo’s ludicrous tax cuts. More irresponsible than ludicrous. But, I’ve voted for this tax and that and bonds and said yes, and all the while, rural Oregon is voting them down and causing havock in Salem and generally making things worse than they need to be. Don’t get me wrong…the metro area does its fair share of screwing up and waste, but in this case, my theory was to just let them reap what they sow. If they want to sow nothing, then hell, we passed that county tax last year, so we should be in the clear. And to take my apathy one step further, I don’t have any frickin kids, and while I support education and educators, I’m goddamn tired of the hassle I get to take my dog to the park…get off it. If 30 fails, maybe we’ll all get nothing. But there won’t be anyone around to ticket me for taking my dog to the park. I expect that a lot of people are in my position. Honestly, if it passes (and it didn’t look good from what I saw earlier), I think that’s better than if it fails. But I decided to wash my hands of this one, except this little rant. Oh, and I’m hoping that ‘beer drinker’ in the header there improves my google rating. woohoo.

It does make me sad though, that we can’t get it together to keep these programs alive. Our roads are falling apart. The Oregon Health Plan is failing, falling victim to righty lack of vision and bitterness (though I’ve been of a mind it’s been too sweet and too narrowly focused). Major battles are taking place, school years shortened. We have to figure it out. Every year this has been an issue…this has been going on for years, and there’s been no solutions proferred. Maybe this will be the year. Or maybe we’ll be too busy covering our asses and building the Pearl District to notice or care. Anyway, I’ve just come onto the bitter pessimistic mindset the the people who need it most turn it away, while the people who need it least support it (well, I think a lot gave up this time). So I stayed out of it. Rock off.