When I-912 passes, those mentioned Snohomish County road projects may be “killed,” but it won’t be the initiative that “kills” them. The responsibility lies with the DOT and, more importantly, our elected “leaders” who refuse to set priorities.
A significant portion of our gas tax dollars are transferred from DOT to the general fund by way of sales taxes levied upon transportation construction contracts. The Legislature refuses to do anything about this because they want to spend these dollars on their pet projects, not transportation projects. Priorities!
They also refuse to repeal the so-called “prevailing wage” requirement on contractors, thus inflating the contracts and wasting our tax dollars. Why not let the marketplace set the contract prices; free enterprise, what a concept.
Then there is “the most in-depth performance audits of DOT ever done.” The superlative “most” isn’t a very tough standard in this case, as you’ll have a hard time finding any performance audits done in the past.
Last spring our legislators wanted you to believe that they were going to have to deal with a “budget deficit.” Hogwash! Projected revenues were 6 to 8 percent more that the previous budget (actual revenues turned out to be even higher). However, they wanted to spend 12 to 13 percent more; in “Olympia speak” that’s a deficit and they had to raise taxes to cover it. And, of course, the sales tax on all these new transportation projects gives them even more to spend.
Priorities!
When Olympia begins to treat our money with respect, then, and only then, should we consider giving them more.
Fred C. Howard
Snohomish
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