yes, I am back, but who knows how long. while some of my questions and comments may have been cynical, I have a set of sincere questions. 1)Does the Son of 695 hinge upon the success of 695 in court? 2)If you are going to roll back property and other taxes since July 1, Why not roll them back to 1950? 3)If the ultimate enemy is the politician, why not write legislation that effects them directly?, for example, (a little extreme, but you'll get the point) ban all contributions and private conversations with special interests or lobyists. put a cap on their salaries. 4)If 601 is abolished, what will keep legislators from spending $ on all of their pet projects?

And finally, has anyone seen the draft legislation proposed on a few threads back? Even though I am a public employee, this seems completely ludacrist to me. If this goes through, I am moving to Redmond. Considering that I will make the average of the community, and the average salarie at Microsoft excluding Gates and Allen is 400k. That ought to boost the average salarie of the community quite a bit which would translate into quite a pay raise for me. As far as depressed communities, good luck trying to find a city manager, public works director, school teacher, sherrif etc. to work for 18k a year with no benefits.

-- theman (theman@wuzzup.com), November 22, 1999

Answers

theman

You'll probably flame me, but I'll answer a couple of your questions.

First, when we elect our legislators believing in their promises, we think that some good will come from it. When they go off to Olympia or D.C. and take up with the lobbyist and forget about the people they represent, that's when we get mad.

My enemy is not the politician or the Governor or President. It is the crap they keep laying on the people of this country. Why do you think that when they pass their bills they make themselves exempt from them?

As for hiring a sheriff, teacher or engineer for 18k a year, you're right. But there is a difference in their pay and the legislators. The former, the people have a say (through the city council, county commission). The latter, the people have no say. Most of the politician's salaries are raised in the middle of the night, or hidden in a spending bill. Or in the case of Washington, voted on by a commission, of which the people definitely have no say.

As for welfare (I know you did not bring it up here but I will), I agree with Craig on this matter. As long as it is used to help someone or family in an emergency, I am all for it. But to continue on welfare for 5, 10 or 20 years is ridiculous.

As for your 3rd suggestion, some of it I like. But I think that the people should be able to give as much as they want to anyone running for office. I object to lobbyist, big businesses giving any, period.

Finally you also write, "questions and comments may have been cynical". That you are correct on. Anytime I've tried to debate you civilly you've slammed me.

P.S. I am a Engineering Assistant. If you want to continue to believe I'm a maintenance worker, go ahead, be an idiot.

Ed - guess adios, means hello

-- Ed (ed_bridges@yahoo.com), November 22, 1999.

theman,

It pains me to say that a socialist had a good idea, however, you had a good idea when you suggested that we rollback taxes (#2). Unfortunately, you had the date wrong. It should have been 1889.

For those of you like theman, dbvz, gene and the late and lamented Patrick who are concerned by my use of the word socialist, please give me some solutions to current problems that don't require a politician with his hand out and I won't call you one!

-- Tony (eagleross@pioneernet.net), November 23, 1999.

Tony, We might actually get to useful suggestions if you named "politician" and his or her actions which you think were wrong or inadequate. Until we start dealing with politicians like the real people they are, and confront them with specifics we want done or undone, not generalities, we can't expect them to correct their errors, or even know what those errors are.

-- Bob Dick (bdick@harbornet.com), November 23, 1999.

Bob,

Regarding your statement; "Until we start dealing with politicians like the real people they are, and confront them with specifics we want done or undone, not generalities, we can't expect them to correct their errors, or even know what those errors are." You missed the point completely! I don't want to deal with politicians who are so arrogant they believe all are problems can be solved by them and if you want specifics go to my post 1.1 billion reasons to vote yes on I-695. How much could we do as a community to help people solve their challenges if we weren't encumbered by the government. If we are allowed to keep what is rightfully ours (OUR HARD EARNED DOLLARS) and not have it wasted on administration costs, building costs, 7 million dollar elevators, etc. etc. etc., how much more could we do for our fellow citizens? As an example; do we really need to spend $350,000 to determine where we should spend the millions the state extorted from the tobacco companies?

-- Tony (eagleross@pioneernet.net), November 23, 1999.

"Until we start dealing with politicians like the real people they are, and confront them with specifics we want done or undone, not generalities, we can't expect them to correct their errors, or even know what those errors are."

Tried dealing with your very own Tom Huff, alleged Republican from Gig Harbor, and high mucky-muck of the finance committee. Indicated that I didn't care for the current Tacoma Narrows proposal. He fobbed me off on his executive assistant who basically told me to kiss off (marginally more diplomatically thant that, but not much more) and that the bridge proposal was the greatest thing since sliced bread. When his district went 80% against the proposal, he seemed totally puzzled and said that he was now against it too, sort of, except he didn't see what was wrong with it and why everyone was against it. When I-695 came up I again asked him for his position. Got a three hundred year supply of chaff and flares. Asked again to just give me a yes-no, thumbs up/down response. Got the following (copied from my e-mail log) >Hello >I do not respond to a question without the opportunity to respond with >substantive background. >Thank you. >Tom Huff

Now Pat Lantz isn't necessarily my FAVORITE legislator, or from my favorite party, but she was polite, responsive, and we agreed to differ. I may not ever vote for her, but I sure won't campaign against her like I intend to do against ol' arrogant Tom here. Bob Oke was merely unresponsive, not actively obnoxious. Doug Sutherland replied to my question as to why he was opposing I-695 by accusing me of wanting children to die of food poisoning. Real responsive that. He's not leaving the Pierce County Executive job a day too soon, IMHO.

So that's the track record Bob. The three people from what I had previously considered to be MY party either obnoxious/arrogant or unresponsive. The Democrat on the wrong side of the issue perhaps, but at least not a jackass about it.

So don't talk to me about "dealing with politicians like the real people they are" and "confront(ing) them with specifics." Before they stop with the politics as usual we are going to have to get their attention. I'd hoped that I-695 would do that, but they are showing remarkably little insight. I-695 was relatively trivial, a shot across the bow as far as tax revolts go. I'm beginning to think it'll take a shot into the bow (and maybe two or three below the waterline) before they start to get the message. Locke is at least reading the tea leaves and trying to make the best out of what he obviously sees as a bad situation. Our local politicians are responding with equal parts of arrogance and contempt. I think it's time to take them down a peg or two.

The Craigster

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), November 23, 1999.

property taxes I find to be the most repugnant, offical stealing, that keeps you from ever owning anything that is taxed by it.

-- no chance (kingoffools_99@yahoo.com), November 23, 1999.

RE:If the ultimate enemy is the politician, why not write legislation that effects them directly?, for example,

There ought to be one day - just one - when there is open season on senators. Will Rogers (1879-1935)

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), November 23, 1999.

Craig, Doing as you have been doing with named legislators is the only way to achieve your desired goals. I know how painful it is to work with them, but unless you give individuals the kinds of specifics they haven't figured out on their own, they can't get better.

I'm sure you realize that initiatives can't handle the details and specifics of what needs to be done on the huge number of issues to be fixed. Even if you throw out elected politicians and replace them with people whose positions on things are close to you, only they can spend the time and do enough research to decide which alternatives work, and to eliminate false starts on little pieces of big solutions.

I hope you will continue to share your excellent research and logic with the actual people you are stuck with. If not, work to elect someone else. The only function an initiative can serve is to veto something erroneous which now exists, not to do the weighing and refining of human error required to come up with a workable alternative. If you don't allow the legislative authorities the enormous time it takes to gather ideas, figure out which are flawed and find actual words to implement the ones which are smart, all that will happen is to pull down what works, along with what doesn't.

-- Bob Dick (bdick@harbornet.com), November 23, 1999.