San Carlos residents said "enough is enough" by overwhelmingly voting against the Prop U sales tax increase by a margin of 55% to 44%.

Why is the answer to every governmental budget issue: "We need more money."?

Perhaps the answer to budget issues is NOT more money but perhaps - "We need to be more efficient with the use of the money we already receive".

Recent events speak to the waste and ineffeciency of many government entities:

Bay Bridge repair - can't get it right the first time so let's spend more money putitng a temporary fix on it.

San Carlos School District - accounting error of $940,000 is lion share of $1.4M shortfall.

Part of the explanaition for the shortfall was "declining school enrollment". If my memory serves me correctly, a few years when the School District asked for a new tax to raise money, the explanation was "increasing enrollment demands higher revenues".

So let me see if I got this right?

School district needs more money when enrollment INCREASES and when it DECREASES. Does that strike anyone else as a little strange?

Bottom line - no matter what happens government wants more money.

Anyone want to bet the School District in 2010 or 2011 will have another tax issue on ballott?

I have a great idea, someone should do a study that tracks government spending over the past 20 years. I would be willing to bet that revenues for just about every government agency has increased above poplulation growth and inflation over this time period.

Why?