Published: Friday, September 10, 2010
Herald Endorsement / Initiative 1053
Force focus to be on reform
Initiative 1053 -- which could more descriptively be dubbed the Tim Eyman Personal Employment Act of 2010 -- is an effort to push back at a Legislature that this year suspended voters' repeated desire to make it harder to raise taxes.
With a multi-billion-dollar budget gap facing lawmakers last session, Eyman started pushing early. Predicting that lawmakers would suspend the existing requirement for a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate to raise any tax, he filed the initiative on Jan. 4, before the session began.
Sure enough, the Legislature voted by a simple majority to temporarily -- until July 2011 -- bypass that provision of Eyman's Initiative 960, approved by voters in 2007. (The state Constitution allows lawmakers to change initiatives two years after they take effect.) Majority Democrats then approved tax hikes on things like cigarettes, candy, soda, beer and bottled water to help balance the budget.
Such is the nature of the career Eyman has carved out for himself. He proposes an initiative to tie lawmakers' hands, they undo the knots two years later, and he earns another year's keep tying their hands again.
When will lawmakers learn that it's a losing game? Perhaps never.
But for the 2011 session, which they'll begin facing a budget shortfall of at least $2 billion, higher taxes will essentially be off the table if voters pass I-1053, which we recommend they do. It will force lawmakers to tackle spending reform more seriously than if tax hikes were a realistic option.
Failing to approve I-1053 would take away much of the pressure to enact true reforms, telling lawmakers that higher taxes are not only OK, but a desirable part of the budget solution.
We think lawmakers must finally face up to some very hard decisions they've put off in recent years. They need to reprioritize state government, deciding what's most important (education at all levels and public safety would be at the top of our list) and finding ways either to privatize or do less of the rest. Not having taxes as an option is an important element of that, a point voters have made three times in the past.
If the cuts necessary to balance the budget are truly heinous, lawmakers would still have an option other than the two-thirds vote. By a simple majority, they can send a tax-hike proposal to voters.
In the current economy, of course, that would be a tough sell. Which is why Olympia's focus needs to be on reprioritizing spending.
With a multi-billion-dollar budget gap facing lawmakers last session, Eyman started pushing early. Predicting that lawmakers would suspend the existing requirement for a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate to raise any tax, he filed the initiative on Jan. 4, before the session began.
Sure enough, the Legislature voted by a simple majority to temporarily -- until July 2011 -- bypass that provision of Eyman's Initiative 960, approved by voters in 2007. (The state Constitution allows lawmakers to change initiatives two years after they take effect.) Majority Democrats then approved tax hikes on things like cigarettes, candy, soda, beer and bottled water to help balance the budget.
Such is the nature of the career Eyman has carved out for himself. He proposes an initiative to tie lawmakers' hands, they undo the knots two years later, and he earns another year's keep tying their hands again.
When will lawmakers learn that it's a losing game? Perhaps never.
But for the 2011 session, which they'll begin facing a budget shortfall of at least $2 billion, higher taxes will essentially be off the table if voters pass I-1053, which we recommend they do. It will force lawmakers to tackle spending reform more seriously than if tax hikes were a realistic option.
Failing to approve I-1053 would take away much of the pressure to enact true reforms, telling lawmakers that higher taxes are not only OK, but a desirable part of the budget solution.
We think lawmakers must finally face up to some very hard decisions they've put off in recent years. They need to reprioritize state government, deciding what's most important (education at all levels and public safety would be at the top of our list) and finding ways either to privatize or do less of the rest. Not having taxes as an option is an important element of that, a point voters have made three times in the past.
If the cuts necessary to balance the budget are truly heinous, lawmakers would still have an option other than the two-thirds vote. By a simple majority, they can send a tax-hike proposal to voters.
In the current economy, of course, that would be a tough sell. Which is why Olympia's focus needs to be on reprioritizing spending.
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