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Supermajority a bad plan

The Spokesman-Review, in an editorial on Sept. 30, advised us to vote for Initiative 1053. Initiative 1053 would prevent the Legislature from raising taxes with less than a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate. Their justification is that raising taxes should be difficult. They believe that legislators too often needlessly increase taxes.

Yes, paying higher taxes is not pleasant and maybe unnecessary tax hikes have happened. But I believe that there is as great a danger, or greater, in legislators reducing taxes too much. They are under a lot of electoral pressure to bestow tax breaks and reductions that ultimately lead to unbalanced budgets and degraded state services.

Applying the logic of The Spokesman-Review, if legislators too often improvidently lower taxes, we should call for an initiative requiring a two-thirds standard before taxes could be lowered. Actually, I think we are better off leaving things as they are and voting against 1053.

Scott Melville

Spokane

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