23 October 2025
Election November 04: Analysis on ballot items and why I vote NO on almost all of them. - E31
Cedar Park Local E31
CedarParkLocal@icloud.com
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Welcome to Cedar Park local election edition for the upcoming election on November 4. I reviewed I reviewed the upcoming ballot and, kind of put a guide together for myself and I'm sharing it as a part of my 5% give back to the community since, this may be of interest to other people. If you want just a shortcut, I'm gonna give those right now. Basically, I'm a no on all of these, amendments, initiatives, initiatives, and such. There are some elections we have to, elect people, but they are not in our local area. I think, Pflugerville has got some stuff and let's see here. City of Austin, Taylor. Yep. So not affecting, Cedar Park local in particular, but there are, several statewide, issues of concern, specifically the 17 constitutional, proposed constitutional amendments.
And otherwise, it's just a bunch of tax increases. So Let me give you the quick guide and then you can listen to the rest of this if you want, the supplemental information and my analysis and why I think the way I think. I'm a no on all of these issues except for proposed amendment number two, fifteen, and 16. I'm a yes on those three. Number two is, constitutional amendment, proposed amendment to ban capital gains and just wealth creation in general, which is how I view it. I'm generally in favor of that. It appears to be fairly broad and and fair. So yes on number two.
And then, number sixteenth is a constitutional amendment affirming the parents are the primary decision makers for the children. This one seems like a no brainer. That's a yes. It is, been upheld in, Texas case law pretty, regularly. And however, the constitution apparently is not very clear on it, and it would benefit from a constitutional amendment that will bolster that. So that's a yes. And number 16, the constitution amendment clarifying that the voters must be US citizens. Again, this is apparently not clearly, spelled out in the Texas constitution, and it makes sense to do so. So I'm yes on 16. I'm yes on 15.
And, yes on number two. Those are the three constitutional proposed amendments that I am in favor of. Everything else on this ballot I am against. And I will now kind of get into the analysis as to, why. The items on this ballot basically fall into sort of three general buckets. One is tax increases, which are clearly labeled. The other is kind of hiding money or moving money from money that's already being collected and putting it in a special fund or whatever vehicle that they choose. But it's basically trying to, take it out of the, the scrutiny away from the scrutiny of the regular budgeting process.
And third is basically sort of poor solutions or partial fake sort of bait and switch solutions where the proposal, appears to be addressing something that is legitimately, in need of being addressed, but rather than taking care of it, it, it proposes a partial solution and then usually has more poison with the medicine than it's, than it's worth it. And that's very common. And those are really what almost all of these fall under, except for the three that I support. And, not coincidentally, they are, the shortest number two, fifteen and sixteen. I think they're like three lines and have the most sort of straightforward language.
Everything else is a big fat no, as far as I'm concerned. And here is my sort of basic thought process on this. I'll go over them briefly since you've, nerded this far into the podcast. So number one, state of Texas, proposition one, the constitutional amendment provides for the creation of the permanent technical Institute infrastructure fund, blah, blah, blah. This is a dark budget, lack of, oversight kind of proposal. So that's what bucket that is. What it proposes to do is to take money away from the big pool of money that's got oversight and go hide it somewhere else. So you can't tell what's being done with it. And then the rest of everything is camouflage technical college system, helping blah, blah, whatever throw in your throw in your good cause for that, for that approach. It's just distract you with the worthy or apparently worthy cause. And then basically the real agenda is to dark budget, no over sight the money.
Number two, I'm in favor of. That's a yes. That's an amendment to prohibit the wealth creation tax. So, you know, if your house, goes up in value and you sell it and the state doesn't tax it, I'm for that. And it's broadly applied. It's not, usually the tax proposals are sort of tailored and they look like they're tax reduction, but they're actually just special taxation. And the people who get the special treatment or whoever's got the connection, whatever it is, it just becomes bad, corrupt lawmaking. But number two appears to be broad and, and fair. So I'm yes for that. Number three, the constitutional amendment requiring the denial of bail under certain circumstances.
So it's under certain circumstances punishable as a felony. So I already have problem with things that vaguely say certain and, you know, that you don't need to change the constitution for, the constitution does broad principles of law. Yes tax, no tax. Who has the authority to do what? You know, that kind of stuff. This is looking to hamstring the judges, take away their judgment. If you don't like the judge, you gotta work on removing the judge. I think there's a proposal coming later on for, dealing with judges that are performing poorly, I suppose. But I'm a no on that one too, because it's written bad and it's a big fat bait and switch also. So, no on number three, let the judges do their job.
You can't micromanage a bail. Number four, propose the constitutional amendment to dedicate a portion of revenue derived from the state. Okay. So dedicate a portion. That means it's a dark, dark budget, lacks oversight. No one number four, whatever the, quote unquote, good cause is it's it's irrelevant than that. It's a it's a clear hide the money proposal. Number five, the constitutional amendment authorizing the legislator to exempt from boulder arm tax action blah blah. Okay. So that's a no. It's got, sort of a classic alarming language.
This amendment doesn't do anything. It authorizes the legislator to exempt. So it's giving the legislator authority that it doesn't have currently, apparently. And, you know, legislative bodies love to have authority for special treatment. So it's a special legislation, special regulation amendment. And I'm a no on that. Do wanna apply it to everybody, apply it to everybody. But, all this does is authorize. It doesn't actually even do anything except give permission to the legislator to dole out special favors. No. On number five. Number six, the constitutional amendment prohibits the legislation from enacting a law imposing an occupation tax on certain entities. So here we go.
So it's, it's not giving the legislation permission, but it is prohibiting it from doing certain things to certain people. Again, selective and special regulation, special laws. It's, leads to corruption. More harm than good. Number seven, authorizing legislation to again authorizing legislation to doesn't mean it's going to happen. That means you giving that permission to then probably do something special right? Right? Let's see. Provide an exemption from the Valerian tax. Okay. So it's authorizing the legislation to do special taxation. Big fat no number seven. Number eight, the constitutional amendment prohibits legislation from imposing debt taxes applicable to descendants blah blah blah. Alright. So this one sounded okay in the beginning, but then I kinda looked into it a little bit. Wealth creation, I'm very strong proponent of the government staying away from wealth creation and wealth transfer depends how it's transferred. But this one starts to get into states and and people inheriting money and stuff. And, that one's less of a strong case in my opinion.
And this one is, looks like one of those poor solutions where you're trying to think of what, you know, it's, somebody creating wealth by innovating and making successful company, creating jobs. And, you know, that's like the classic American way. That's very positive. I support that 100%. But then what do you do when it's three generations down and you got basically just sloppy grandkids who are all billionaires and they're just rolling around in money. Their brains are rotted because they grew up in such a crazy, wealthy environment and they have created nothing. They've just literally been consumers and have zero wealth creating capacity.
And how dedicated am I in preserving their unearned inherited wealth from three generations ago? Not nearly as sympathetic. Also, it is, it is, selective and inheritance legacy, successions or gift. It it's, I don't know. Maybe maybe I need to have an actual attorney look at that and tell me what it is all really mean, but it, it smacks a poor solution to me. I think, if you've generated a bunch of wealth and you want to give it to somebody, go ahead. But, but after you're gone, I don't know. Give it away before you go away, which is, you know, which is why it's a little bit weird that it's a gift and inheritance is kind of lumped together. And I think it's one of those bait and switch special regulations.
I get that vibe off of that. So I'm a I'm a no on number eight. Number nine, constitutional amendment, authorizing the legislator. Here we go. Buzzwords to exempt from ad valorem taxation, a portion of, okay. Special regulation, special taxation. So you just authorizing the legislator to, potentially act corruptly. So that is number nine. No. Number 10, state of Texas authorized the legislation to here we go to provide for a temporary exemption from taxation. So special regulation big fat known number 10. Number 11, the constitutional authorized legislator to increase the amount of exemption from ad valorem taxation by school district. Again, authorizing them to do special taxation. No one number 11.
Number 12, constitutional amendment regarding the membership of the state commission on judicial. So number 12 is the one that is, a solution for the poor judges thing. And I kinda, this is when I spent a lot of time on because it sounded good because nobody wants crappy judges, I guess. You know, it's a, I don't know if they're, if they're appointed here in Texas or, or elected or some combination. But, but I presume if they're elected, no, no one's voting for him thinking, you know, let me vote this crappy judge in, but there has to be a removal process. I'm a no on number 12 because I read into it and basically it just gives the governor more power. The governor currently. So there's a board that oversees this process, and he appoints five members of that board currently. And then the proposal is to increase that to seven so he can appoint more.
So it takes, some power away from the Texas Supreme Court and gives it to the governor instead. I don't see that as an actual solution. I mean, it may, if the governor is better, if not, then it won't. And how long is the appointment? And so it doesn't I don't see anything that this doesn't sound like it belongs on a constitution or you want to change the constitution. It seems seems to me other portions of this process needs scrutiny and, and and fixing rather than this. So this is a poor solution. Classic bait and switch. So, oh, don't you want to get rid of bad judges? Yeah. Yeah. Vote for yes. It just gives political power to whoever the governor is and whatever corruption comes, downstream of that. So no for number 12.
Number 13, the constitution, amendment to increase the amount of exemption. Alright, number 13 is a poor solution bait and switch fake a rooney. So it's basically, increasing the exemption from homes from a 100,000, a 140,000 give you a little more exemption, which is, which is not the solution to the problem, which is the property hacks. So a good solution for this is to abolish the property tax. So no one number 13 bait and switch for solution. Let's see. Number 14, the constitution provides the establishment of dementia prevention, blah, blah. Okay. So this is a, dark budget, lack oversight, scam.
The good cause in this case is dementia and some disease prevention. Of course, everyone would like, people not to suffer from that. But, but that's, that's just a camouflage. The real proposal, the purpose of it is to take money and go hide it. So you can see what's going on with it. A lot of it to apparently 3,000,000,000. Oh, that'd be a good slush fund. So, no on number 14, dark money. No bueno. Number 15, nice and short. Three lines. The constitutional amendment affirming that parents are the primary decision makers for their children. Yes. Number 16, constitutional amendment clarifying that a voter must be a United States citizen. Yes.
Number 17. The constitutional amendment to authorize a legislator. Ding, ding, ding to provide an exemption from Ad Valeram taxation. Okay. So it's given the legislation permission to do special taxation. Let's see what the good cause maybe. The border security, something like that. Alright. So that's the camouflage good cause, but really it's just authorizing them to do special taxation. And let me just, say a couple of words on the special taxation and these sort of partial tax relief stuff. Any exemption has to be paid for by your neighbor or by you. If your neighbor gets an exemption, you got to pay the difference. If I get an exemption, my neighbors have to pay the difference. If the town down the street gets an exemption, our town has to pay the difference.
Exemptions are not the solution. Being good stewards of the people's money, spending less and cutting taxes is the solution. Anytime you see any solution that is sort of issue specific or or works on these margins and has sort of a feel good thing attached to it. That's that's a bait and switch. It's a poor solution, a partial partial solution at best If it's, if you want to give it the most charitable interpretation. But generally speaking, it's just, designed to distract us and make us not notice that the money is not being spent well. And that is my basic bottom line for a tax increase. So that's why I'm a no and all the other issues on here are tax increases. No, no, no. Big fat no. The one that affects us as far as hyper local is Anderson Mill Limited District. They're looking to increase the taxes, whatever number is it. They try to put a lot of, zeros and one and then one. So it looks like it's very, very little. The answer is no.
Absolutely not. You're not even get 1 tenth of a penny more taxes to ask for more of the people's money. You must first demonstrate an exceptional stewardship of the money you've been given so far. And I haven't seen any examples of that, in any level of government. You have to show how well you've done with it, then only then you're in a position to then propose to justify more money. You don't just automatically get more money because you did a great job with the money you already had. It's not even that simple. First, you have to do an excellent job with the money you've been given. Then you can propose why you should be given more money. But unfortunately, the mentality is we've done such a crappy job governing and taking care of stuff because we need more money.
So it's a lack of money that's the problem. And that is not. It is, it is a lack of community involvement and lack of community paid attention and the lack of communities holding, the officials accountable is what the problem is. So to that end, this is, my contribution to my, my civics in my community. The elections on, Tuesday, November 4. Early voting is now available at the Mudd Building on Old Mill. And to recap, I am a no on everything I've seen on the sample ballot. All the tax increases, I'm a no. All the proposed constitutional amendments, I'm a know, except for number two, number 15, and number 16. And if you read them, you find that they are absolutely shortest and, most straightforward, broad and fair.
Till next time. Bye bye.
Welcome to Cedar Park local election edition for the upcoming election on November 4. I reviewed I reviewed the upcoming ballot and, kind of put a guide together for myself and I'm sharing it as a part of my 5% give back to the community since, this may be of interest to other people. If you want just a shortcut, I'm gonna give those right now. Basically, I'm a no on all of these, amendments, initiatives, initiatives, and such. There are some elections we have to, elect people, but they are not in our local area. I think, Pflugerville has got some stuff and let's see here. City of Austin, Taylor. Yep. So not affecting, Cedar Park local in particular, but there are, several statewide, issues of concern, specifically the 17 constitutional, proposed constitutional amendments.
And otherwise, it's just a bunch of tax increases. So Let me give you the quick guide and then you can listen to the rest of this if you want, the supplemental information and my analysis and why I think the way I think. I'm a no on all of these issues except for proposed amendment number two, fifteen, and 16. I'm a yes on those three. Number two is, constitutional amendment, proposed amendment to ban capital gains and just wealth creation in general, which is how I view it. I'm generally in favor of that. It appears to be fairly broad and and fair. So yes on number two.
And then, number sixteenth is a constitutional amendment affirming the parents are the primary decision makers for the children. This one seems like a no brainer. That's a yes. It is, been upheld in, Texas case law pretty, regularly. And however, the constitution apparently is not very clear on it, and it would benefit from a constitutional amendment that will bolster that. So that's a yes. And number 16, the constitution amendment clarifying that the voters must be US citizens. Again, this is apparently not clearly, spelled out in the Texas constitution, and it makes sense to do so. So I'm yes on 16. I'm yes on 15.
And, yes on number two. Those are the three constitutional proposed amendments that I am in favor of. Everything else on this ballot I am against. And I will now kind of get into the analysis as to, why. The items on this ballot basically fall into sort of three general buckets. One is tax increases, which are clearly labeled. The other is kind of hiding money or moving money from money that's already being collected and putting it in a special fund or whatever vehicle that they choose. But it's basically trying to, take it out of the, the scrutiny away from the scrutiny of the regular budgeting process.
And third is basically sort of poor solutions or partial fake sort of bait and switch solutions where the proposal, appears to be addressing something that is legitimately, in need of being addressed, but rather than taking care of it, it, it proposes a partial solution and then usually has more poison with the medicine than it's, than it's worth it. And that's very common. And those are really what almost all of these fall under, except for the three that I support. And, not coincidentally, they are, the shortest number two, fifteen and sixteen. I think they're like three lines and have the most sort of straightforward language.
Everything else is a big fat no, as far as I'm concerned. And here is my sort of basic thought process on this. I'll go over them briefly since you've, nerded this far into the podcast. So number one, state of Texas, proposition one, the constitutional amendment provides for the creation of the permanent technical Institute infrastructure fund, blah, blah, blah. This is a dark budget, lack of, oversight kind of proposal. So that's what bucket that is. What it proposes to do is to take money away from the big pool of money that's got oversight and go hide it somewhere else. So you can't tell what's being done with it. And then the rest of everything is camouflage technical college system, helping blah, blah, whatever throw in your throw in your good cause for that, for that approach. It's just distract you with the worthy or apparently worthy cause. And then basically the real agenda is to dark budget, no over sight the money.
Number two, I'm in favor of. That's a yes. That's an amendment to prohibit the wealth creation tax. So, you know, if your house, goes up in value and you sell it and the state doesn't tax it, I'm for that. And it's broadly applied. It's not, usually the tax proposals are sort of tailored and they look like they're tax reduction, but they're actually just special taxation. And the people who get the special treatment or whoever's got the connection, whatever it is, it just becomes bad, corrupt lawmaking. But number two appears to be broad and, and fair. So I'm yes for that. Number three, the constitutional amendment requiring the denial of bail under certain circumstances.
So it's under certain circumstances punishable as a felony. So I already have problem with things that vaguely say certain and, you know, that you don't need to change the constitution for, the constitution does broad principles of law. Yes tax, no tax. Who has the authority to do what? You know, that kind of stuff. This is looking to hamstring the judges, take away their judgment. If you don't like the judge, you gotta work on removing the judge. I think there's a proposal coming later on for, dealing with judges that are performing poorly, I suppose. But I'm a no on that one too, because it's written bad and it's a big fat bait and switch also. So, no on number three, let the judges do their job.
You can't micromanage a bail. Number four, propose the constitutional amendment to dedicate a portion of revenue derived from the state. Okay. So dedicate a portion. That means it's a dark, dark budget, lacks oversight. No one number four, whatever the, quote unquote, good cause is it's it's irrelevant than that. It's a it's a clear hide the money proposal. Number five, the constitutional amendment authorizing the legislator to exempt from boulder arm tax action blah blah. Okay. So that's a no. It's got, sort of a classic alarming language.
This amendment doesn't do anything. It authorizes the legislator to exempt. So it's giving the legislator authority that it doesn't have currently, apparently. And, you know, legislative bodies love to have authority for special treatment. So it's a special legislation, special regulation amendment. And I'm a no on that. Do wanna apply it to everybody, apply it to everybody. But, all this does is authorize. It doesn't actually even do anything except give permission to the legislator to dole out special favors. No. On number five. Number six, the constitutional amendment prohibits the legislation from enacting a law imposing an occupation tax on certain entities. So here we go.
So it's, it's not giving the legislation permission, but it is prohibiting it from doing certain things to certain people. Again, selective and special regulation, special laws. It's, leads to corruption. More harm than good. Number seven, authorizing legislation to again authorizing legislation to doesn't mean it's going to happen. That means you giving that permission to then probably do something special right? Right? Let's see. Provide an exemption from the Valerian tax. Okay. So it's authorizing the legislation to do special taxation. Big fat no number seven. Number eight, the constitutional amendment prohibits legislation from imposing debt taxes applicable to descendants blah blah blah. Alright. So this one sounded okay in the beginning, but then I kinda looked into it a little bit. Wealth creation, I'm very strong proponent of the government staying away from wealth creation and wealth transfer depends how it's transferred. But this one starts to get into states and and people inheriting money and stuff. And, that one's less of a strong case in my opinion.
And this one is, looks like one of those poor solutions where you're trying to think of what, you know, it's, somebody creating wealth by innovating and making successful company, creating jobs. And, you know, that's like the classic American way. That's very positive. I support that 100%. But then what do you do when it's three generations down and you got basically just sloppy grandkids who are all billionaires and they're just rolling around in money. Their brains are rotted because they grew up in such a crazy, wealthy environment and they have created nothing. They've just literally been consumers and have zero wealth creating capacity.
And how dedicated am I in preserving their unearned inherited wealth from three generations ago? Not nearly as sympathetic. Also, it is, it is, selective and inheritance legacy, successions or gift. It it's, I don't know. Maybe maybe I need to have an actual attorney look at that and tell me what it is all really mean, but it, it smacks a poor solution to me. I think, if you've generated a bunch of wealth and you want to give it to somebody, go ahead. But, but after you're gone, I don't know. Give it away before you go away, which is, you know, which is why it's a little bit weird that it's a gift and inheritance is kind of lumped together. And I think it's one of those bait and switch special regulations.
I get that vibe off of that. So I'm a I'm a no on number eight. Number nine, constitutional amendment, authorizing the legislator. Here we go. Buzzwords to exempt from ad valorem taxation, a portion of, okay. Special regulation, special taxation. So you just authorizing the legislator to, potentially act corruptly. So that is number nine. No. Number 10, state of Texas authorized the legislation to here we go to provide for a temporary exemption from taxation. So special regulation big fat known number 10. Number 11, the constitutional authorized legislator to increase the amount of exemption from ad valorem taxation by school district. Again, authorizing them to do special taxation. No one number 11.
Number 12, constitutional amendment regarding the membership of the state commission on judicial. So number 12 is the one that is, a solution for the poor judges thing. And I kinda, this is when I spent a lot of time on because it sounded good because nobody wants crappy judges, I guess. You know, it's a, I don't know if they're, if they're appointed here in Texas or, or elected or some combination. But, but I presume if they're elected, no, no one's voting for him thinking, you know, let me vote this crappy judge in, but there has to be a removal process. I'm a no on number 12 because I read into it and basically it just gives the governor more power. The governor currently. So there's a board that oversees this process, and he appoints five members of that board currently. And then the proposal is to increase that to seven so he can appoint more.
So it takes, some power away from the Texas Supreme Court and gives it to the governor instead. I don't see that as an actual solution. I mean, it may, if the governor is better, if not, then it won't. And how long is the appointment? And so it doesn't I don't see anything that this doesn't sound like it belongs on a constitution or you want to change the constitution. It seems seems to me other portions of this process needs scrutiny and, and and fixing rather than this. So this is a poor solution. Classic bait and switch. So, oh, don't you want to get rid of bad judges? Yeah. Yeah. Vote for yes. It just gives political power to whoever the governor is and whatever corruption comes, downstream of that. So no for number 12.
Number 13, the constitution, amendment to increase the amount of exemption. Alright, number 13 is a poor solution bait and switch fake a rooney. So it's basically, increasing the exemption from homes from a 100,000, a 140,000 give you a little more exemption, which is, which is not the solution to the problem, which is the property hacks. So a good solution for this is to abolish the property tax. So no one number 13 bait and switch for solution. Let's see. Number 14, the constitution provides the establishment of dementia prevention, blah, blah. Okay. So this is a, dark budget, lack oversight, scam.
The good cause in this case is dementia and some disease prevention. Of course, everyone would like, people not to suffer from that. But, but that's, that's just a camouflage. The real proposal, the purpose of it is to take money and go hide it. So you can see what's going on with it. A lot of it to apparently 3,000,000,000. Oh, that'd be a good slush fund. So, no on number 14, dark money. No bueno. Number 15, nice and short. Three lines. The constitutional amendment affirming that parents are the primary decision makers for their children. Yes. Number 16, constitutional amendment clarifying that a voter must be a United States citizen. Yes.
Number 17. The constitutional amendment to authorize a legislator. Ding, ding, ding to provide an exemption from Ad Valeram taxation. Okay. So it's given the legislation permission to do special taxation. Let's see what the good cause maybe. The border security, something like that. Alright. So that's the camouflage good cause, but really it's just authorizing them to do special taxation. And let me just, say a couple of words on the special taxation and these sort of partial tax relief stuff. Any exemption has to be paid for by your neighbor or by you. If your neighbor gets an exemption, you got to pay the difference. If I get an exemption, my neighbors have to pay the difference. If the town down the street gets an exemption, our town has to pay the difference.
Exemptions are not the solution. Being good stewards of the people's money, spending less and cutting taxes is the solution. Anytime you see any solution that is sort of issue specific or or works on these margins and has sort of a feel good thing attached to it. That's that's a bait and switch. It's a poor solution, a partial partial solution at best If it's, if you want to give it the most charitable interpretation. But generally speaking, it's just, designed to distract us and make us not notice that the money is not being spent well. And that is my basic bottom line for a tax increase. So that's why I'm a no and all the other issues on here are tax increases. No, no, no. Big fat no. The one that affects us as far as hyper local is Anderson Mill Limited District. They're looking to increase the taxes, whatever number is it. They try to put a lot of, zeros and one and then one. So it looks like it's very, very little. The answer is no.
Absolutely not. You're not even get 1 tenth of a penny more taxes to ask for more of the people's money. You must first demonstrate an exceptional stewardship of the money you've been given so far. And I haven't seen any examples of that, in any level of government. You have to show how well you've done with it, then only then you're in a position to then propose to justify more money. You don't just automatically get more money because you did a great job with the money you already had. It's not even that simple. First, you have to do an excellent job with the money you've been given. Then you can propose why you should be given more money. But unfortunately, the mentality is we've done such a crappy job governing and taking care of stuff because we need more money.
So it's a lack of money that's the problem. And that is not. It is, it is a lack of community involvement and lack of community paid attention and the lack of communities holding, the officials accountable is what the problem is. So to that end, this is, my contribution to my, my civics in my community. The elections on, Tuesday, November 4. Early voting is now available at the Mudd Building on Old Mill. And to recap, I am a no on everything I've seen on the sample ballot. All the tax increases, I'm a no. All the proposed constitutional amendments, I'm a know, except for number two, number 15, and number 16. And if you read them, you find that they are absolutely shortest and, most straightforward, broad and fair.
Till next time. Bye bye.
