You would think that after some 68 years of life, I could, with a high degree of accuracy, say that I had seen or heard of all of the underhanded and devious ploys that politicians could come up with. I would be wrong.
State Rep. Eric Pettigrew and Sen. Adam Kline have not done anything truly new, but they have gone far beyond any previous boundary for political behavior with their outrageous “tax or die” campaign. This state spends huge sums of money on art for a sewer plant and a runway, yet won’t fund basic services first. It is OK to cut public safety and health items, yet build freeway sound barriers.
They know there is no way that the public would OK a tax hike for those items but when it comes to allowing people to die, they think we will be forced to add to our already heavy burden. These two men have become the new gold standard for ethical bankruptcy.
If there is anyone out there who really believes that this proposed tax hike would actually be “temporary,” you are far too naive to be out in public without adult supervision.
This is what happens when voters do not actually look at the people running for office. This is what happens when party label is more important than the record of the person running. The current membership in the Legislature is the same crowd that has spent this state into the hole in which we now reside. This is the same group that has supported massive growth in state employment and an expenditure rate that has exceeded business growth for the last four years, yet we send them back to do what, think differently? It would seem that there is not enough adult supervision available in the state for the number of naive voters who actually vote.
Phil Bate
Lynnwood
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