It's condescending! It's illogical! It's an insult to your intelligence! You guessed it, it's Joni Balter's latest column! Today Joni bemoans the expected passage of I-912, blaming those talk show radios for causing Washington voters to be so selfish and mistrustful of government that we are no longer willing to accept every tax that our betters tell us is for our own good. Balter quotes her favorite better citizen, former Gov. Dan Evans:
Evans believes talk radio, by fanning distrust and making people cynical about government and community, is responsible for some of the attitude change.Ironically, and Balter fails to mention this, Dan Evans is one of those elites who reflexively promotes every idiotic, trust-destroying boondoggle that comes along, from WPPSS to the Monorail.But it's not just blowhards with a microphone. To me, the likely no vote is much more complicated. It also includes elites who come in and lead ill-fated projects like the monorail that collect big taxes, promising one thing and never delivering. Every time that happens, voters lose trust.
Meanwhile, The Times gave John Carlson the op-ed opposite Balter today: "The reason folks flocked to the gas-tax-repeal initiative". Read both Balter and Carlson and ask yourself which one is the blowhard and which one really understands why the No New Gas Tax initiative struck such a powerful chord that it managed to collect 420,000 signatures in a month without any paid gatherers.
UPDATE: A few commenters alluded to this incident. Heh.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 04, 2005 09:30 AM | Email Thishttp://www.revotewa.com/endorsement.htm
Posted by: Richard Pope on August 4, 2005 10:39 AMI said that Evans promotes every idiotic, trust-destroying boondoggle. I did not say that everything that Evans promotes is an idiotic trust-destorying boondoggle!
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on August 4, 2005 10:42 AMIs Dan Evans saying anything about the Con-orail these days? And it is interesting that Dan Evans was supporting I-884 -- the increase in the regressive sales tax to allegedly provide more money for education. Sort of inconsistent with his courageous promotion of a progressive state income tax while Governor.
Posted by: Richard Pope on August 4, 2005 10:55 AMThe analysis is flawless. As one of the average Joes out there, that's exactly why I am for I-912. It's not that I don't want to spend tax money to fix roads, it's that I want it directed properly to the place where it will have the biggest effect.
We've got fancy dreams of mass transit in this region. Dreams that are great, I've been to NY, Paris and London and ridden their trains. They are fantastic, and I do wish we had them here.
But, and it's a big BUT, we have to solve the immediate problems. Congestion on our roads, and assuring that our primarily truck driven distribution system of freeways is working well, and flowing smoothly.
If we fix the key choke points and eliminate the HOV stupidity, we will speed up the freeways. Better yet, we then fix the crumbling infrasturcture, like 520 and the Alaskan Way Viaduct, but by spending the LEAST amount of money, so that we can use the extra money for other projects.
As long as Sound Transit, the Monorail, Expensive Tunnel option for the Viaduct, expanded bridges with HOV only net gains, etc. are the only things being proposed by Olympia, I won't be signing on to even 1 more cent of Gas Tax.
Posted by: Jeff B. on August 4, 2005 10:56 AMAnd don't you just love the blogs? In the old days, when people paid attention to government were in days when the population was low. You got the feeling you were part of the process. I just dream that I could visit the meetings of our founding fathers and listen to the arguments they had.
Small city councils and special purpose districts are like that today when they have a big project.
So, today, after the hiatus with secret government and too many people to get the 'word' out, we have the 'blogs'. Blogs are the savior of democracy. Hats off to all the bloggers who are bringing government back to us.
Posted by: swatter on August 4, 2005 11:02 AMRelated: I whole heartedly agree with Mr. Carlson that transportation priorities must change in order for our traffic situation to improve. My average speed in the HOV lane on 405 this morning was 25mph between Renton and Bellevue. HOV lanes don't work. Nor has the social engineering experiement involving Puget Sound transportation over the last 15 years. We need to begin to look at the wealth of transportation study results and development trends in THIS area as guidance for our future developments. We must abandon the myth of utopian, efficient mass transit projects in a geographical region unable to support that vision. We must focus on real world, Puget Sound development/expansion scenarios.
Posted by: k2 on August 4, 2005 11:04 AM(I don't presume for a second you give a flying f*** about my opinion, though.) :)
Posted by: Danny on August 4, 2005 11:06 AMJoni and the PI will go to great lengths to protect the temporary and illegitimate hold they have on power.
Posted by: Mark on August 4, 2005 11:11 AM"A lot of Washingtonians believe they must have a three- or four-bedroom house, two- or three-car garage and are willing to move to booming suburbs and exurbs to get it.
After stretching incomes to the max to pay for all that, and running up exorbitant credit card bills, little is left for investing in community."
That may describe a small minority of people in King County, but what the heck do you expect when people get fed up with King County and Seattle government? I currently live in West Seattle on a one-year lease in a house built in the 1940's. I just got married and after my lovely bride and I transition to building a home together, we are going to start looking for a home to buy in Snohomish County - one beyond the reach of Ron Sims and the King County Council. And no, it will not be a 4-bedromm house with a three-car garage. It will probably be an older home in Everett with a one-car garage if we get lucky.
And who the heck is Joni to preach to me about not investing in my community? Does she really believe that the only way to serve your community is to fork over more tax dollars? The federal, state and local levels of government harvest enough of my hard-earned income. Then they waste a good portion of it on huge overpriced public works projects that would inefficiently benefit a small minority of citizens. There are other ways to contribute to the improvement of your neighborhood, city and state. One way is to stand up for efficient government and accountability.
Our elected representatives need to learn that they do not know better than their constituents. It is their job to represent us in Olympia and Washington DC, not decide for us what is best for us and then slap us with higher taxes.
Posted by: Gary on August 4, 2005 11:15 AMI rode on 405 while it was being built... many orange cones... lanes funneled to one while they built the "other" lane. Now, 40 years later, many miles of 405 are... yep, still 2 lanes!
10 years ago my property tax was 133.00 per month, today, 466.00 per month. In just ten years I do not have the services/infrastructure to support more taxes. I will fully support a stop to tax increases. My earnings have not increased with the pace of the State wanting more dollars.
Posted by: Ted Bundy on August 4, 2005 11:22 AMLay this problem at the feet of government officials who won't build road lanes that people could acutally USE. The same ones who want to DE-EMPHASIZE roads but who don't point blank come out and say it except when they're in meetings with their like-minded comrades (wink wink).
The people are saying ENOUGH! Let's add capacity, and stop diddling around.
And notice that Miss Joanie did not mention that un-Sound Transit and other 'transit' is getting almost a billion dollars from this tax. Funny how they never bring that up when they're trying to sell this as a 'roads' tax.
Get the priorities straight and we WILL open up our wallets.
The reason there is nothing left over for "Investing In The Community," is that the taxes have already drained family income. That home construction, purchase, operation, and maintenance, was and is taxed each step of the way. The credit card purchases likewise taxed (gas for transport, payroll for employee handeling, state and local sales tax, and even more taxes that excape me just now).
The reason that there is no more money in our wallets to "invest in the community," is that it has already all been taxed away. That is how we ended up with the dubious distinction of being the most expensive city in the nation. There are alot of other American cities, as livable or more so, that operate on much less income from their citizens.
Grow up and get a clue, Joni.
Posted by: dl on August 4, 2005 01:07 PMAll utility bills have gone up 4 fold -- FOR THE SAME LEVEL OF USE
Income has gone up about 2.5 fold -- the increase in the fuel oil cost is about 3X - even with all the high cost of oil products -- the cost of local government and locally provided utility services has gone up more than income - and the bottom line is that they are providing no more to the average tax payer than they did 30 years ago.
Posted by: Bill on August 4, 2005 01:15 PMReferendum 48 or 49. Can't remember the exact number.
And yes, when the Ref. went down to defeat, Evans celebrated ... until he found out he couldn't subdivide his property as he wished because of GMA restrictions.
I distinctly remember tipping one back upon hearing that news.
Posted by: jimg on August 4, 2005 01:28 PMI realize that most of her hard-copy readers will be choir members and not reflective and rational critical thinkers. Still, there will likely be some readers who will read it without the requisite blue-colored glasses and see the paternalistic insults directed toward the great unwashed and become themselves part of the restless and righteously indignant anti-KC “normality” crowd.
Many times I have used the term “projection” in comments regarding Ms. Balter and her ilk. This time, I believe the best term is “myopia.” The source of this myopia may be her socialization, her disconnect from reality, or from being a blinded true believer. It doesn’t matter. The stark contrast between her writing and that of J. Carlson is dramatic. It’s polemical grasping of straws vs. rational analysis. That she has a regular outlet in the msm and John is a “guest” columnist further underscores the inherent problem.
Given the usual Seattle msm drift, I fully expect the unifying message of the letters in response to Carlson’s column to be calls for “balance;” debunking factual debunking in a funhouse mirror twist of logic.
Posted by: scott158 on August 4, 2005 02:23 PM
Imagine living in the tax area for both Sound Transit and the Monorail. How much extra would someone be paying already?
Imagine crossing the Narrows Bridge every day...and paying $3 for the benefit of an HOV lane. That same type of lane, BTW, that's so over capacity the state wants to auction it off to the highest bidder...on 167, so-called HOT lanes.
Or...$4 BILLION dollars (best Dr. Evil voice) for waterfront beautification for Seattle, that would add no capacity.
Or...$2 Billion +/- for a new 520 bridge where it's a given it will add no general purpose lanes...12' bike lanes will be there...just a question whether HOV lanes can be afforded besides.
A Seattle-centric package with $1B +/- for transit...talk about insulting my intelligence!!!
Ah, Joni, you ingorant slu... I don't think anyone has said that, but of course you are going to drum up as much hysteria as possible with false choices.
Actually, people want the state's DOT to spend the money it already has more responsibly and they want to see projects before they agree to pay for them.
But, perhaps most importantly, they want a duly elected governor that does not lie about their intentions to make these decisions. Gregoire arrogantly pushed this massive tax increase through, and there is no bigger reason than that as to why people hate it.
Posted by: BananaLand (aka Iguana) on August 4, 2005 03:27 PMBecause I'm sort of expecting that the entire transportation budget is bonded -> leading to a 2x or 3x increase in the total 'financed' price.
Doesn't that seem a little daft for _maintenance_? A _new_ bridge or whatnot is one thing.
Posted by: Al on August 4, 2005 05:09 PMOh, I just remembered. It took roughly 10 years to finish adding the HOV lane on I-405 between north of SR-522 and I-5, and I bet that SR-18 will take another 5 years to finish.
Posted by: C. Oh on August 4, 2005 06:44 PMShe obviously didn't do any research on the gas tax legislation, but hey, she has a reputation to maintain. If she feels so strongly about the necessity of the gas tax, she and her fellow liberal whiners could ask the state for a special card that will allow them to pay more at the pump when they fill up. Kind of like the rewards cards stores are doing these days. They would be so happy knowing they were personally funding the Light Rail to Nowhere and other useless projects.
Also, I believe there was a question about whether projects had been planned, rather than a "it may be a tunnel, it may be a bridge"? Check out www.wsdot.gov - they have project pages and contact information (human beings you can call on their cell phones, often) so you can get the straight story on anything. They'll even mail you the plans if you ask.
Posted by: Ben Schiendelman on August 4, 2005 09:15 PMYou wrote:
The reason that there is no more money in our wallets to "invest in the community," is that it has already all been taxed away. That is how we ended up with the dubious distinction of being the most expensive city in the nation.
I'm lost. I first looked for ratings of taxation by city, and found a report from Kiplinger Personal Finance in July 2004. Out of 51 US cities, they rated Seattle #10... that is, 10th BEST. The worst cities were primarily out East. Portland came in well toward the bottom. Seattle wasn't bad at all, according to that report.
Broadening the question out from just taxation, I looked for the cities with the highest cost of living. I found a report of the Mercer Human Resource Cost of Living Survey, from 2005. It is global, but the top US cities are NY, LA, SF, and Chicago. I have no idea where Seattle falls... it isn't mentioned in the report summary.
Are you basing your statement on some other information that I missed? Or, was it a "gut feeling" type of statement? I'm confused. It seems odd to throw an inaccurate statement such as that into the middle of an otherwise excellent post...
Mark
Posted by: Mark Congdon on August 4, 2005 11:57 PMSure suspending this theft of monies from its rightful owner (Da Gubmint) will set the liberal agenda of deckchair arrangement back for a bit, but I suspect that, once responsibility and common sense is restored to Olympia (AKA Republicans) we will easily make up the differences with useful, comprehensive projects that are conscientiously planned, funded, and implemented.
I-912 is making things better already!
Sounds like thor grapes to me ;'}
Posted by: alphabet soup on August 6, 2005 02:28 PMIt's not that my conservative pals and I are against new roads, quite the contrary. We want more pavement, it's just that John and Kirby make a lot of sense when they say that....
...Now wait a minute, what is it they say? I keep forgetting.
Well anyway, I can't exactly remember their arguments, I mean my arguments, but I know they're darn good ones.
Okay, I'd write more, but I've got to get to my Conservative Christian Book Club meeting.
Tonight we're burning "Catcher In The Rye"!
Posted by: Rocket on August 6, 2005 07:32 PMGet back to us once you've completed your assignment.....
Posted by: alphabet soup on August 7, 2005 12:52 PMOkay, now I remember why I'm voting for the No New Roads initiative.
Like I say, it's not that me and John and Kirby and my conservative friends are against ALL roads, It's just that we're against godless liberal roads.
Now you give me some good old GOD FEARING freedom-loving, red white and blue conservative pavement, and I'll be the first one in line to vote YE$!
Posted by: Rocket on August 7, 2005 03:27 PMI read with interest the arguments from the proponents of I-912. It seems, without exception, these arguments are simply talking points eminating from the radio shows of John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur, and parroted by their followers.
It would be instructive to hear an original idea or two instead of a recital of anti-goverment dogma by sycophantic zealots.
I believe the real reason so many on the right are against the transportation plan passed by the legislature, is that they see it as a way to exact revenge upon the govenor for their defeat in the recent election and court case.
Instead of thinking for themselves, the anti-roads sheeple simply act like good Germans and fall into line.
One of John and Kirby's favorite arguments is that the current transportation plan fails to address the problem of traffic congestion, yet they fail to offer a plan of their own.
Those on the right of this issue simply parrot these arguments and put no thought into solving the problem. They are behaving as simply easily-led obstructionists.
I would be interested to hear how the proponents of I-912 would create a plan that would ease congestion.
Widen I-5? Widen 405? Build a new freeway? Where would the new freeway go? How much would your plan cost? How would the revenue for your plan be generated? How long would the work take? What would be the economic impact for the state?
Please be specific and show your work.
And please spare us the tired old rhetoric of "No HOV lanes!"
Please have an original idea.
Thank you.
Posted by: Diogenes of Sinope on August 8, 2005 08:56 AMdl must have mis-typed-- Seattle was rated the #1 most OVERPRICED city in the nation recently, in a study published in Fortune magazine. This was based on a variety of (somewhat subjective) criteria, such as cost for services/housing/etc received vs. local income, taxes, and what can be bought for said costs.
Posted by: Kyle on August 8, 2005 04:18 PMWhat a positive way to invite discourse dimwit.
How 'bout "buzz off!"
Works for me!
Posted by: alphabet soup on August 8, 2005 06:37 PM