New taxes, but no new roads

During the gubernatorial debates, Gov. Gary Locke constantly deferred to the Blue Ribbon Commission whenever challenged for his lack of leadership concerning roads in our state. The leadership is coming, we were told. Now it’s here and we’re told the problem was a lack of taxes! We don’t have adequate roads because we haven’t paid enough yet. They recommend eleven new taxes, an additional $50 billion, yet not one new road or bridge is promised. Rather a new bureaucracy – regional – to be adequately funded by a now compliant taxpayer.

The state government, Locke in particular, has evaded its responsibilities to plan for our infrastructure needs having chosen to pursue what they do best – raise taxes and tell local communities to solve their own state wide problems. This panel knows how much it will cost yet it doesn’t know what we need to fix the problem: typical liberal problem solving.

Our government is increasingly more involved in our private lives and less involved in the things it is required to do. What once was considered a servant of the people has now become our legal adversary. Locke has decided that solving the lawsuit problem at DSHS requires more and better lawyers, protecting government from the legal actions of the ones it serves rather than protecting the people from the government that serves them. When the people pass a law through the initiative process our government sues. In the case of Initiative 722, the government sues because it is too difficult to perform the will of the people as required by law!

We like to think we are a free people because we have elections and a free press. When the press is one sided and the people in power ignore the outcome of those elections, I question how free we really are. In our country, differences were settled in the ballot booth. Now, they’re settled in court – government versus the people. We do have a small measure of freedom though, we did vote for these potentates.

Snohomish