If you talk about the history of tax initiatives in Washington State you can't avoid the name Tim Eyman. I've certainly not voted for every initiative Mr. Eyman has produced and his politics are definitely to the right of mine, yet still I take offense, major offense, at the way some, most of his opponents battle his proposals.
Frankly most of the opposition to 1033 is downright rabid. Demonization of your opponent as a strategy of negative politics can certainly work. However allowing this sort of politics in discussions about money, in the civic sphere or the corporate office, is definitely NOT something this country needs right now.
Consider the coverage of Joni Balter from the Seattle Times following the lead of former print columnist Joel Connelly.
Balter, opening:
Professional initiative operative Tim Eyman is seriously past his pull date.
From here she goes on with a littany of at risk public services, laying all at the feet of Eyman. Now, sure, opinion columnists do have the right to express their opinion, but, frankly, this diatribe is nothing but providing character witness to a con game.
Connelly, concluding:
In an era of short attention spans, our TV news dominated by celebrities and car crashes and puppy mills, it is imperative that voters think about hard questions.If swayed by sound bites and ballot title language, they could just turn Washington into another Mississippi.
Talk about doublespeak, from a campaign funded by those same public employees who are supposed to be working for us!
Both Connelly and Balter make the point about education. Certainly both are literate, but it takes more than a skill in words to be a responsible adult, in takes 'numeracy' every bit as much as literacy - in fact the absence of the former in the presence of the latter is a red flag for fraud.
It is not Tim Eyman who puts the future of this State at risk, it is the felons who have conspired to bully there way with high sounding talk to control of the the public purse. 1033 sets a realistic base for government expenditures and a responsible framework for growth as well as critieria for triggering public votes should more monies be needed on a case by case basis.
It is true that government is at risk these days, the solution though is discipline to avoid the problem in the future, including the creation of realistic rainy day funds, not the repetition of the problem till your personal retirement.
If Balter and Connelly are so dedicated to 'saving' this state perhaps they should volunteer their own personal wealth to bail out State employees - and the destruction of their reputations as 'education' as to what happens to public thieves?
