Government can’t run without money

I didn’t need to read any more of Tim Eyman’s gloating. We’ll see how well government runs without sufficient revenues to fund necessary programs. It certainly is easy for Mr. Eyman to say prioritizing is sufficient to deal with our society’s complex problems. What may be of no use to Mr. Eyman is critical to someone else.

Let’s cut welfare and food stamps; who cares if someone happens to be between jobs or caught up in hard times not necessarily of their own making? Maybe skip building a new jail. The old one, built for 300, remodeled for 477, now holding over 600, will do. So what if guards are endangered, lawsuits on the way will cost much, much more. Everyone with special needs feel theirs are critical, and hopefully our legislators are aware of this. Gutting the budget is no solution.

Last I checked, gambling is extremely popular in our state. Scam artists are still having a heyday fooling the unwary. So is it any wonder the taxpayer/voter is drawn to simplistic initiatives that tell us we can get something for nothing, that waste is overwhelming in any government and can be cured only by crippling the resources it has available?.

People specialize in certain areas and are usually good at what they do. That’s why we elect legislators to deal with making our laws and running our government. If they don’t perform, we elect others. Now Mr. Eyman chooses to run government from his home. I can see by his past record, with his last two initiatives being held unconstitutional, how sophisticated he is when it comes to law. Maybe he should look a little deeper into where the money goes before he returns with another crippling initiative, handcuffing our system. I certainly don’t believe government is the end all, be all for our social problems. But the unmitigated growth our area and state has experienced recently, combined with the current lack of investment in infrastructure, is ruining our quality of life. It takes money to solve these problems and I truly feel our state will be the worse a few years down the line from Initiative-747.

Snohomish

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