Let's get some opinions on the following...

Assuming I-695 passes (which it will!), how many times in the next two years will the voters be asked to approve a tax or fee increase.

Here's my take: The answer will be "no more than any other similar time period!"

Of course, if you listen to the "chicken littles", we will be going to the polls every week or two to approve increases to school lunch costs, the cost aspirin at public hospitals, library fines and the photocopy charge at the county records office.

I heard one pol actually mention (in support of voting NO) that last year we would have had to vote on 1800 different fee and/or tax increases had I695 been in effect. That statement alone was enough to convince me to vote YES. This is an example of how our elected officials generate more money to spend... a dollar here, a dime there, five dollars here...

Any time I have to pay any type of "fee" to a government agency I always make a point of asking the person I'm dealing with why, if I pay all of my taxes (sales tax, property tax, MVET, etc...), should there be a "fee" for any government service. Isn't the tax revenue supposed to cover the government services? What I usually get back is a blank stare and a "I'm sorry, I'm just following orders" kind of reply. Go figure...

-- just a guy (torijosh@yahoo.com), November 02, 1999

Answers

I agree, they'll be much more careful about what they present to us and there is no reason to raise anything more than say, once a year. If we have any emergencies, we can have an emergency vote. Yes on 695.

-- Paula (eagleross@pioneernet.net), November 02, 1999.

"Any time I have to pay any type of "fee" to a government agency I always make a point of asking the person I'm dealing with why..."

That is a very good statement. The question that each of us has to ask ourselves is WHEN SHOULD WE ASK "WHY"?

Waiting until the issue comes up for a vote is TOO LATE! We need to become involved with the issue while it is being discussed - not after it has been discussed and decided to put up for a public vote. We should not expect questions that we might have, to be answered in the voting booth. We need to involve ourselves in the government process.

We must remember however, that with I-695, each government body (state, county and city) will be placing tax or fee increases up for a vote. How many people will be able to PROPERLY assess each of the "1800 different tax and fee increases" that could be brought up for a vote? How many will have the time to attend all of the potential discussions? Even it that "1800" is inflated, how many will be able to properly assess even a tenth of that number? I think that we can agree that very few, if any, would be able to do a proper job of assessing all of those tax/fee increases.

Our job has been to elect those people that will best represent our interests, because not one of us can do it all by ourselves. That does not mean that we allow these elected officials to make decisions blindly. We must still give them our opinions on the various issues that perk our own special interest. Whether that be transportation, salmon, pollution, arts, ferries, etc..

Saying Yes to I-695 basically says that our elected officials are unable to represent our best interest. What it also says is that WE have not done a good job in electing officials that would represent our best interests. We have not done a good job in voicing our opinions on special interest matters.

We blame them for not doing a good job, when WE haven't done ours. And with I-695, WE expect to do a better job?

-- Gene (eugene.ma@boeing.com), November 02, 1999.

Gene: As voters, we TRY OUR BEST to elect officials that will act with our best interest in mind. The problem is our elected officials have become two-faced. During the election process they say one thing,and once they get into office, they vote the other way. We try to change this by voting in new elected officials, but they turn around and do the same thing! So what do we do??? We vote in things like I-695 that strip them of the power they bestowed upon themselves and take back what is rightfully ours! The politicians have shown us they are irresponsible when dealing with our money, so we are doing them a favor by taking away that responsibility. Then, when things go wrong, we only have ourselves to blame instead of pointing the finger at the pols in Olympia. I'm willing to take on this challenge. Are you?

-- just a guy (torijosh@yahoo.com), November 02, 1999.

While I do support I-695...I would imagine gov't will try the divide and conquer type tactic for raising taxes and fees. They will take some smaller segments, say farmers for example and try to tax them on some particular use. The entire population votes on these increases, even though it may not affect them. They'll probably vote to increase the tax....wait and see.

-- Dee Jay (angus@eburg.com), November 02, 1999.

The Rocky Mountain News did a study on jurisdictions who submitted tax increase requests to the voters in Colorado after The Taxpayers Bill of Rights passed in 1992.

They found that of 698 requests submitted to the voters,78 percent were approved by the voters as things they felt were worth spending THEIR TAX MONEY on.

BUT, this means that the legislative bodies PASSED 22 percent of the tax increases that the public felt were waste or just useless narrow special interest gifts.

The point I am making of course,is that WITHOUT having the requirement to have the voters approve ALL tax increases,the 22 percent of tax increases REJECTED by the voters would have routinely gone into effect.

I am LOOKING FORWARD to voting on all requests to increase the amount I pay,and believe me,based of some of the crap that I have seen in our present state budget,there is a great deal of spending that would never get past the voters.

"Any time someone gets something for nothing,someone else gets nothing for something."

Ricardo

-- Ricardo (ricardoxxx@home.com), November 02, 1999.

Let's try a different approach...

We have TWO responsibilities as voters. The FIRST is to elect officials that best represent our interests. The SECOND is to tell these elected officials how our interests should be represented. If we don't fulfill this second responsibility, then our elected officials will use whatever resource available to them to do their job.

I-695 does nothing to ensure that proposed tax and fee increases are crafted such that they benefit all of society. Do these tax proposals have hidden 'pork'? Remember, these tax proposals will still be crafted by those 'two-faced' officials, as you put it. If you want to make sure that everything is on the up-and-up, then you will need to get involved.

Without voter involvement in the crafting of these proposals, you will never be sure what any specific tax proposal has hidden in it. If you trust those elected officials, then maybe the proposals are fine. But if you trusted them, then why the need for I-695. And if you don't trust them, then the proposals might be filled with 'pork', and nothing will ever get voter approval.

But what if you did have voter involvement. Then these tax proposals could be crafted in a way that everyone can accept it. The problem is that the need for voter involvement is nothing new. It was needed before I-695 and will be needed if I-695 passes. If we have more voter involvement then I-695 would be a moot discussion. But gaging from past initiatives, voters have tended not to get involved until election day and that is MUCH TOO LATE.

At the end of all of this...Voters will still not trust the government. Essential projects and services will be reduced. (Exactly which ones is still up in the air, but voters have no real say in what is lost. They will only have a say if those services and projects are placed on the ballot orif they decide to get involved.) And some jobs will probably be lost. But nothing will have changed.

-- Gene (eugene.ma@boeing.com), November 02, 1999.

Gene: So...do you have some ideas or suggestions as altenatives to I695?

-- just a guy (torijosh@yahoo.com), November 02, 1999.

"At the end of all of this...Voters will still not trust the government." This is a long held position for citizens of the USA. The whole system of checks and balances was put into place based upon the distrust of citizens for government. I don't see this as a negative. Apparently you do.

"Essential projects and services will be reduced. (Exactly which ones is still up in the air, but voters have no real say in what is lost. They will only have a say if those services and projects are placed on the ballot orif they decide to get involved.)" This may or may not happen. We do not have a whole lot more ESSENTIAL services of government than they did 50 or 100 years ago, but we have vastly more government per capita than we did then. I would contend that we need LESS government, not more government, and we should cut back in MANY areas that clearly are not ESSENTIAL. Government will not, on it's own initiative, ever do this. We need to help it, and the most effective mechanism for controlling the expansion of government is environmental. You create an environment that denies it the mechanism of growth, increased per capita taxes.

"And some jobs will probably be lost." Hopefully so. It is unlikely we can curtail the size of government and continue to expand the number of government workers. They are already much less productive per capita than workers in private enterprise. If we decrease total government output without loss of workers the workers will, by simple mathematics, be even less productive on a per capita basis than they are now.

"But nothing will have changed." Certainly something will have changed, a 2% reduction. That's not huge, some might not even believe that it's a good first step, but at least it's a step (however small) in the right direction.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), November 02, 1999.