The time to start discussing Tim Eyman’s latest tax cutting initiative is now, not in October.
Eyman is collecting signatures for Initiative 864, which would slash local property tax levies by another 25 percent. The estimated total impact is $550 million per year, which county and city officials have said would devastate their budgets.
In a recent TV debate, a mayor of a small Washington town suggested that many people voted for Eyman’s past tax-cutting measures without awareness of the full effect they would have on services in smaller towns without large sales-tax bases, and on transportation agencies. Under our state’s hodge-podge tax system, these are the jurisdictions most affected by cuts in local property tax.
Eyman dismissed the mayor’s comments as an arrogant assumption that voters are not smart enough to make such assessments on their own, without government officials telling them what to do. This statement, of course, is simply Eyman employing his tactic of artificially increasing anger toward government by making officials appear more condescending than really is the case.
What the mayor meant is that busy people simply may not have the time, in a short campaign season, to digest all the potential effects and chain-reactions of tax cuts in our make-no-sense system. While a greater awareness of the effects, as the mayor suggested, may not have made enough difference to keep the initiatives from passing, it might well have made the contests closer.
It also can be argued that the tax cuts have made local government leaner and more efficient. And it further can be argued that the state’s tax system is a flat-out mess that should be thrown out and rebuilt from the ground up.
Either way, the more discussion there is about these issues before the election, the more informed will be the voters’ ultimate decision.
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