I-695 Only The First Step In Getting Our Money’S Worth

We are extremely pleased the voters of Washington state overwhelmingly approved Initiative 695 in November. We are excited that it provides meaningful tax relief to everyone, offers effective protections from future tax increases and creates a fantastic opportunity for government to become more effective. We offered voters a choice: the current trajectory of taxation or Initiative 695. It wasn’t tough for voters to figure out which option was better.

Voters like to be given options. Our new organization, Permanent Offense, will work very hard in the 2000 election cycle to give voters the chance to solve two big problems: a response to politicians’ rampage raising taxes prior to I-695 taking effect and a solution to our traffic problem.

For the past several months, politicians have acted like alcoholics going for one last “bender,” jamming through every tax and fee increase humanly possible. We can’t let them get away with it. The “Son of 695” initiative invalidates all unfair tax increases adopted without voter approval from July 2 to Dec. 31, 1999. If the tax increases are truly necessary, reintroduce them and let the voters decide.

In addition, our initiative makes sure county assessors don’t go hog wild and stick your vehicle on the property tax rolls or suddenly decide that the value of your property just increased dramatically in order to bring in more tax revenue than they should. Son of 695 exempts vehicles from property taxes and limits the growth of property taxes to 2 percent or inflation, whichever is less.

If politicians want trust in government to be re-established, we need government to do a few things and do them well. Trying to be all things to all people doesn’t work in life, it doesn’t work in business and it certainly doesn’t work in government. Education, transportation, public safety - these are governments top priorities. But that doesn’t mean each of these areas gets a blank check. Taxpayers demand fiscal accountability for every tax dollar spent, regardless of how important the need. For example, during the Initiative 695 campaign, politicians said transportation was a huge problem that needed to be addressed. Now that I-695 has passed, the politicians are intent on punishing the voters by doing nothing to solve the traffic problem. In fact, they’ve decided to let traffic get worse so they can position the voters for a gas tax increase after this fall’s election. This is not acceptable. Everyone knows they’ve got more than enough of our tax dollars for transportation. The problem is that politicians aren’t spending it effectively.

We don’t need blue ribbon commissions or empty campaign promises. Let’s just solve the traffic problem.

The Traffic Improvement Initiative solves the problem. First, our initiative requires 90 percent of our transportation funds be spent on road construction, maintenance and lane expansions. This includes the taxes being flushed down the toilet on that multibillion dollar boondoggle, the Regional Transit Authority, in the Puget Sound area (It is truly a black hole of tax dollars - they are demanding “state help” to finish the project. This means Spokane residents paying for Seattle rail riders.)

Ninety percent of the people are just trying to drive their vehicle to work or trying to take their kids to school, so 90 percent of the taxes we pay for transportation should go to roads. Politicians can spend the other 10 percent of our transportation taxes for the 3 to 5 percent of people who need or choose other alternatives like public transit. (In addition to the 10 percent taxpayer subsidy, our initiative allows all tax revenues generated from true user fees, like public ferry and public transit fares, to go to that entity’s budget).

In addition, our initiative requires the state auditor to conduct complete performance audits on all transportation agencies, including the Department of Transportation, the state ferry system and public transit agencies. We can’t trust their “internal audits.” We need to learn how we can get the biggest bang for our transportation buck.

Finally, our initiative allows equal access to all publicly funded lanes. Think of it, having a new lane added immediately to our most congested roads and highways. This change will increase the flow of traffic substantially. Don’t believe us? What happens when a car breaks down in the middle of I-5, tying up a lane. Does traffic slow? Of course it does. So, of course, the reverse is also true: adding a lane will dramatically speed up traffic flow.

Imagine cutting your commute time in half next year!

The fact is, politicians could solve our traffic problem now but they choose not to so that we will become so angry and frustrated by the traffic mess that they’ll force us out of our vehicles and position us for a gas tax increase. This social engineering mentality is unacceptable.

We will work very hard for the next five months to offer voters these two options by qualifying our initiatives for the November 2000 ballot. We know both ideas will be wildly popular. Taxpayers want solutions, not whining. Voters demand fiscal accountability and they’re going to get it, with or without the help of politicians and the press.

For more information, call us at (425) 493-8707 (locally, (509) 467-5467) or check out our web site: www.i-695.org