Time for Eyman to initiate some real tax reform

Hey, Tim!

So you’re feeling pretty good after voters agreed with I-960 and the lawmakers came to the rescue of I-747. Feeling good enough to call a meeting of state legislators in your boyhood home of Yakima to outline your agenda for the coming session in Olympia. And, even though you now call Mukilteo home, your spirits are apparently high enough to describe yourself as Yakima’s “highest ranking unelected representative.”

So far, your initiatives have been aimed at easing the tax burden on individuals. A laudable goal, if there’s acknowledgement of the broader consequences, and that’s where your work to date has fallen short. Your offerings also choke off services those same taxpayers want, need and expect. All governments are not created equal. Smaller cities without strong business components are gasping, forced to cut items like the parks, police or the one public pool.

Regardless of whether the motive is an altruistic gesture to your fellow citizen or a systematic strategy to reduce the size of government, you’ve got some political capital burning a hole in your pocket. Rather than continuing to pick at the system’s scabs, want to make a real difference? Treat the patient’s underlying illness rather than just wiping its nose?

You’ve often said you do the work the Legislature is unwilling to do, so how about grabbing that third rail of politics with both hands and proposing some meaningful tax reform: a state income tax.

Lawmakers say they can’t do it because voters don’t believe them that other taxes would actually be cut. Those folks in Olympia like their jobs, but you’re not elected, so the voters can’t throw you out.

Sure, it’s a tough and complicated job, but you wouldn’t have to do it in a 60-day session; you could take all year, take as long as you want, to craft a plan. Think of the dragons to be slain: perhaps a sales tax, a B&O tax or the state’s slice of the gas tax. Maybe you could actually get $30 car tabs.