I have begun to realize where people are coming up with the statements about scare tactics. I've noticed that on the west side, a lot of transit agencies are threatening to SLASH their services, beyond the measure that is appropriate. Here in eastern washington, cooler heads prevail, and the cutbacks that will be enacted by BFT in Richland, WA are fairly pedestrian in comparison. For instance, Community Transit is threatening to cut out all weekend services, and service to some areas that would then be inaccessible by people without cars. BFT simply plans to eliminate night service, non-federally mandated paratransit for the disabled (cut to 3/4ths of a mile from a bus route), and unproductive commuter service to the Hanford and Boise Cascade worksites. They have no plans to remove saturday service, and frequencies will still be reasonable at once per hour.

I don't object to 695 because of the tab cut, I object because of the fee increase provision. I believe it should have been more narrowly defined...

So, I'm urging everyone to vote NO on i-695 this next tuesday.

-- Brian Bradford (bbradfor@krl.org), October 29, 1999

Answers

Different transit agencies receive different percantages of their funding from MVET. CT is more dependent on MVET funds than BFT or Spokane. CT is looking at a cut of 35% or more, and those kind of cuts can't be made without some serious reduction in service. Evening and weekend and mid-day service is already marginal. The proposed service cuts will include the only bus (a commuter run to downtown Seattle) that serves my community. Without the option of raising fares (effectively banned by I-695)and without much hope that MVET revenues won't simply disappear on Jan 1, they have little choice but to make drastic cuts now and slowly increase them later until a new equilibrium has been found.

I don't like the MVET either, at least in it's current form. It is the closest thing we have to a progressive tax, but I prefer the income tax. My own position on motor vehicle taxes? Replace the current MVET with a lower ad valorem tax, recover lost revenue with a weight tax, increase gas taxes (as rejected by the Republicans in the legislature), and impose a heavy surcharge on sales of studded tires. I also like demand-pricing, thought by many to be the best way of dealing with congestion, but under I-695 these programs would be nearly impossible to implement.

Government should be run like a business, not like a household. And who ever heard of a business going to it's stockholders any time it needs to adjust prices? When profits are too low (the equivalent of taxes being too high), the stockholders bring in new management.

-- Keith Maw (mapworks@connectexpress.com), October 29, 1999.

To Keith Maw: Actually, the firt thing a corporation does when profits are too low is to reduce expenses! Guess what? I-695 will acomplish that. Then.. if that doesn't work, we bring in new management to run the company correctly. Imagine what will happen when we have fresh legislators being forced to make tough decisions and learn to prioritize AND have control over expenses!

-- just a guy (torijosh@yahoo.com), October 29, 1999.

Keith--"Government should be run like a business, not like a household. And who ever heard of a business going to it's stockholders any time it needs to adjust prices? When profits are too low (the equivalent of taxes being too high), the stockholders bring in new management."

A different (equally flawed) analogy would be similar to the following: "who ever heard of a business going to its customers any time it needs to adjust prices. When prices are too high (the equivalent of taxes being too high), the customers find a new vendor.

Oh, that's right, governments are effectively monopolies. We *can't* get a new vendor.

Actually, the *best* analogy I can think of would be something like USAA, PCC or REI (cooperatives). Unfortunately, this model is still flawed as these organizations face rather dramatic competitive pressures.

-- Brad (knotwell@my-deja.com), October 29, 1999.