Vote NO on Washington Initiative 1033
Many states are having serious problems making their budgets work. There is a well known situation in California where services have been cut drastically and the government has ground to a halt in the last year. It is easy to blame the governor and legislators for this, but the biggest problem is the existence of legislation that restricts what the government can do.
Many of these measures make sense to the uninitiated. Some people who want to see taxes cut at any cost take advantage of this perception and our citizens, by passing these measures. It seems reasonable on the face to limit taxation to certain levels, and even index the amount to gains in population, increases in inflation, or other matters. However, once these measures take effect, most of them have restricted our government from making proper choices and making the economy much worse than necessary.
Initiative 1033 is one of these measures. It is a creation of Tim Eyman, a professional initiative sponsor who is well known for his measures that have good-sounding titles but are potentially destructive in practice. It is another product of the ultra-conservative “no tax” groups, who after 17 years of saying that taxes are too high and need to be cut, are not willing to open their eyes and see that our taxes are now as low as they ever ought to be without sacrificing necessary public services.
If they object to spending on a particular public service, they need to organize an effort to change funding for that service. Cutting general funding to government in hopes that they will cut a particular program is proven NOT to work. This measure will not work for that.
There are many things wrong with I-1033:
- It limits property tax collections to those of the current year, adjusted for population and inflation. That might make sense, except that the current year budget is artificially cut low to account for the recession. This means that our government would always be required to operate as if it were in a recession. I, for one, would like our government to escape this recession at some point in the future.
- The indicator used for determining the rate of increase in costs is an improper one. If we use a measure that increases taxes by the costs of services in general, it sounds good. But the services a state provides are among the higher paid ones (i.e. teachers, nurses, firemen, and so on). Using a percentage of increase in general labor costs just doesn’t accurately reflect the state’s costs of doing business. This leaves less money available for services, thus cutting spending to less than recession levels.
- Funding for schools will be cut again. At a time when education is becoming more and more important, this measure will further cut local education funding. Even if a local area wants to raise taxes to provide adequate education for their district’s children, they will be prohibited from doing so. This measure takes away the right for people to decide for themselves whether particular programs should receive funding.
If the citizens of Washington feel the need to cut funding to any state or local government services, it is easy enough to request that our elected representatives do so. If we feel the need to tax ourselves less in any way, we already have the means to work with our elected representatives to do that in any way we see fit. The means of adjusting our taxes in a responsible way is already available. It is unwise to restrict our own ability to make these decisions for ourselves.
Click HERE to find out more about how we can only hurt ourselves for voting for this nonsense.
There is very little right about this measure. Preserve your right to control Washington State government. Preserve your right to pay for schools that have the ability to properly teach our schools. I encourage you to vote NO on Washington Initiative 1033.
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