Go line by line to find mandates

I couldn’t agree more with the Herald’s Friday editorial “Address hard realities now.” It’s high time our legislators got serious about their spending addictions and determined, line by line, what matters. Primarily, it’s what the state is constitutionally mandated to be involved in.

Yet we in Snohomish County have sadly returned to office those who either placed us in this crisis in the first place or who share their same philosophies. And we can be certain that they will first threaten to defund our public safety organizations and teachers unless they can raise taxes, while leaving in place publicly funded art, bloated bureaucracies, and other matters that have no business in a state budget.

At least in the end, there will be no question who to blame or who to commend when next year’s budget is written.

Kent Hendricks

Bothell