Kill the messenger, ignore the message

It seems that Tim Eyman is in the news everyday being slammed for his personal conduct by most of our elected officials. Once again the messenger is being killed while the message is being ignored. Personally, I don’t care whether or not Tim made a few bucks off his initiatives. But our elected leaders are using that to attack him, instead of attacking the problem.Whether you like Tim Eyman or not, the one thing our elected officials are completely overlooking is the fact that the people agree with Tim Eyman – that is why he has had such success with his initiatives. These elected leaders need to take a good look at what the people are telling them by voting for Eyman’s initiatives.

That message is very simple – we do not like the way you are picking our pockets and wasting our money. Forget about light rail, HOV, buses and all that. We don’t buy cars so we can ride buses, or trains. We won’t take a two-hour bus ride when we can get there in 30 minutes by car. We won’t drive our car ten miles to catch a bus or a train, then ride for 30 minutes, then have to get on another bus to get to work, when we can drive there ourselves in 30 to 40 minutes.

Sure, buses and trains are nice – if you like them, and if you have lots of time to sit around the park-and-rides or train depots. Carpooling is nice, and saves some money, but what do you do if you need to go someplace after work, or have to take off early for some reason – walk? I don’t think so.

What the people are telling our officials by approving these initiatives is simple. Stop wasting our money. If you tax gas, cars, trucks etc., build the roads to run on. If you want to build hiking trails through the woods, tax hiking shoes to build them. If you want to build sports centers, tax the people that attend sporting events. But stop killing the messenger and ignoring the message.

Lynnwood

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