Lots of political observers are saying that the one-cent sales tax proposition that voters will decide in May is doomed. Voters, they say, are in no mood to hike their own taxes.

But at the same time, voters aren't ready to give up all the government programs—from classes for gifted students to state parks—that are now on the chopping block.

We want everything, and we don't want to pay for any of it. And we don't understand the tax system, so we can't come up with a better system that reflects a 21st century economy.

Here's an interesting take from Jacob Weisberg over at Slate:

The usual way to describe such inconsistent demands from voters is to say that the public is an angry, populist, tea-partying mood. But a lot more people are watching American Idol than are watching Glenn Beck, and our collective illogic is mostly negligent rather than militant. The more compelling explanation is that the American public lives in Candyland, where government can tackle the big problems and get out of the way at the same time. In this respect, the whole country is becoming more and more like California, where ignorance is bliss and the state's bonds have dropped to an A- rating (the same level as Libya's), thanks to a referendum system that allows the people to be even more irresponsible than their elected representatives. Middle-class Americans really don't want to hear about sacrifices or trade-offs—except as flattering descriptions about how ready we, as a people, are, or used to be, to accept them. We like the idea of hard choices in theory. When was the last time we made one in reality?

The politicians thriving at the moment are the ones who embody this live-for-the-today mentality, those best able to call for the impossible with a straight face. Take Scott Brown, the newly elected Senator from Massachusetts. Brown wants government to take in less revenue: He has signed a no-new-taxes pledge and called for an across-the-board tax cut on families and businesses. But Brown doesn't want government to spend any less money: He opposes reductions in Medicare payments and all other spending cuts of any significance. He says we can lower deficits above 10 percent of GDP—the largest deficits since World War II, deficits so large that they threaten our future as the world's leading military and economic power—simply by cutting government waste. No sensible person who has spent five minutes looking at the budget thinks that's remotely possible. The charitable interpretation is that Brown embodies naive optimism, an approach to politics that Ronald Reagan left as one of his more dubious legacies to Republican Party. A better explanation is that Brown is consciously pandering to the public's ignorance and illusions the same way the rest of his Republican colleagues are.

That’s it. I’m chiming in on the "Don’t Ask Don’t Tell" debate, because I served on a nuclear submarine with a guy who got kicked out of the Navy for being gay.

His name was Chief Petty Officer Timothy McVeigh (he later became a Senior Chief) and he was a member of the crew of the USS Asheville, the Los Angeles class fast-attack submarine I first reported to in 1993. He was one of the more experienced members of our crew. He was especially respected for his knowledge of shipboard operations and ability to function in stressful situations, of which there were many.

Years after I transferred off the Asheville, I picked up a copy of USA Today and saw McVeigh on the cover. He had been outed at a base in Hawaii for being gay and was being kicked out. Read about it here and read about how he won the case here. I’m glad it worked out for him, but the whole thing still pisses me off.

McVeigh was an asset when it came to operating a submarine. He was smart, hard working, dedicated and reasonable in crazy-ass situations. Life on a submarine can be trying. There is very little sleep, and you live in a metal tube that dives thousands of feet beneath the ocean. Nuclear energy, flooding and the threat of fire are omnipresent. You sleep inches from your crew members and there is no natural light. It’s surreal and dangerous, and McVeigh had been doing it for a dozen or more years when I first met him.

But my point is this: Submarines only allow men onboard, and they spend months on end together underwater. Nobody had any problem with McVeigh while we did all this, and not only did we work together; we were proud to work with him. We looked to him for guidance, and the Navy lost that guidance when they kicked him out because he happened to love men instead of women.

I hear all of this shit about how gay people in the ranks will mess everything up. It’s bullshit. War and the military are not games. It’s about every person doing their job well and about staying alive. This “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” debate is about machismo and homophobia — basically, soldiers and sailors and airmen don’t want to sleep next to or work with men or women with a different sexual preference than theirs. Replace the word “gay” with “black” or “Native American,” and the debate becomes offensive.

Not only that, but the powers that be say it’s about time, so maybe we’ll finally get over this ridiculous bullshit, like so many other countries have.

Roundtable newbies John C. Scott and Sarah Garrecht Gassen join me to review the week with Arizona Illustrated anchor Bill Buckmaster. Watch it after the jump.

Regional Transportation Authority boss Gary Hayes was our guest tonight on Arizona Illustrated's Friday Roundtable. He talked about taking over the bus system, the downtown's light-rail system and whether we'll have freeways in our future. (Short answer: No.)

Watch it after the jump.

The morning daily catches up with the Rosemont Mine story broken by Dan Shearer of the Green Valley News yesterday:

Arizona's legislative chiefs frustrated a majority of Tucson-area legislators by writing the U.S. Forest Service a letter friendly to the proposed Rosemont Mine without consulting them - yet saying they were writing "on behalf of the Arizona Senate and the House of Representatives."

Tuesday's letter from Senate President Bob Burns and House Speaker Kirk Adams praised Rosemont as a "tremendous economic opportunity for the State of Arizona," cited Arizona's rich mining history, and encouraged the Forest Service to "allow Arizona to continue to move forward responsibly to utilize our rich and vital copper resources."

But late Thursday, Burns backed off, under criticism led by Jonathan Paton, a Tucson-area state senator and mine opponent of his party who is running for Congress against another mine opponent.