A Pol In Every Way But Responsibility

Tim Eyman’s right. About two things:

1. People don’t like paying taxes and they hated paying Washington state’s motor vehicle excise tax on their cars.

2. If people aren’t careful, some wily “politician” will trick them.

The excise tax is gone now and so is the revenue it generated. That revenue paid for a long list of services in city, county and state government, including one third of the state transportation budget.

Now, those entrusted with the management of city, county and state government have been making one announcement after another about services they will have to cut.

This poses a potentially embarrassing problem for Eyman, the author of Initiative 695, which repealed the excise tax. Last fall, he told voters that “politicians” were lying when they warned that services would have to be cut if excise tax revenue disappeared. Trust me, said the souvenir watch salesman who has never had to manage a public agency budget.

Oops. Now, with major highway projects canceled and layoff notices going to police officers, firefighters, bus drivers and other public servants all around the state, Eyman needs an explanation. He’s got one and it’s so slick, so tricky, that master manipulators from Clinton to Nixon would be proud - if not slightly nauseated.

The government, Eyman argued in a column we ran Monday, is trying to “punish” the voters for approving Eyman’s initiative.

As demagoguery goes, this is brilliant. It fuels the conspiracy theorists. It fans the flames of anti-government cynicism. It appeals to the public’s lowest, smallest instincts - suspicion, selfishness, resentment. It paints all of government as a villain and Eyman as the white knight, standing alone against the forces of evil.

We stand in awe. Eyman is not elected, to be sure, but oh, he is a politician indeed. Not for him, the boring responsibilities of making government work, of managing the nitty gritty details of police departments, transit systems or construction budgets. That’s grunt work, for mere “bureaucrats.”

However, the truth is that Eyman chose the wrong word. What’s happening now is not “punishment.” It’s fulfillment. Government managers, from police chiefs to highway engineers, weren’t kidding. With less revenue, they must trim services, turning back the clock for a state that ought to be moving forward.

Today, people who practice politics in the better sense of the word are struggling to reorganize, downscale and preserve police departments, ferries, highways and other valuable services. This, while a man who practices politics in the worst sense of the word slanders them and tries to cover up the fact that he sold the voters a watch whose hands turn in an unusual direction: backward.