The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 4 of 10)

"The normal way of things in Washington is that politicians work hard to raise fees and taxes and pass irksome regulations, and then citizens sign petitions and vote for initiatives, pulling the rug out from under said pols at the ballot box." -- Jeremy Lott, "Locke Box," 7/30.

The "normal way"? There hasn't been a general fund tax increase in Washington state since 1993, and nearly all of that was repealed by the Legislature in subsequent years. So what is Mr. Lott talking about? Anyone with a passing acquaintance with the fiscal history of the state in the last ten years would know that it has been marked by tax cuts, not tax increases. The Legislature, under Republican majorities for a good deal of that time, effected significant reductions in the gross receipts tax on business (the business & occupation tax), the motor vehicle excise tax, the sales tax and the property tax. The state of Washington faced a budget gap this year of about $2.4 billion, and it solved its budget problem without tax increases --one of the few states that can say that this year.

Yes, the Legislature raised the gas tax by a nickel a gallon this year, and with bipartisan support. The state has a severely deficient transportation infrastructure that is, by wide agreement, hurting the state's economy. As hard as it may be for some to accept, sometimes it does take new revenue to meet the primary responsibilities of state government. If Mr. Lott knows of a way to pay for the work that must be done on our transportation network without an increase in the gas tax, I invite him to share it with TAS readers.

p>If there is anything more tedious these days than the faux populist worship of the initiative process by ostensibly conservative writers, I truly don't know what it would be. Somewhere amid his recitation of clichés, Mr. Lott might have wanted to let TAS readers know that among those "citizen" initiatives he admires so much was one, I-773, that raised the cigarette tax to the then-highest level in the country and vastly expanded state-subsidized health care, two pushed by the teachers' union, I-728 and I-732, that committed the state to enormous new spending for public schools, and one, I-775, that enabled one of the most left-wing public sector unions in the country, the Service Employees International Union, to organize about 20,000 private providers of long-term care services. If not for the "pols," who amended all four of these this year to spare taxpayers their outrageous costs, it would have been impossible for Washington to have balanced its budget without a tax increase. So thank God for the "pols." They've been a better friend to the taxpayers of late than the initiative writers have been. br> -- John Archer br> Olympia, WA /p>

Style note: "Washington State" is a land-grant university in Pullman. Washington state is a U.S. state located between Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia.

Jeremy Lott replies: John Archer's analysis is misleading. Recent legislation upped the gas tax to the eighth highest in the nation, increased the sales tax for new vehicles, and also raised trucker fees. That may not have been a general fund tax hike, but it was a tax hike nonetheless. Also, most of the tax cuts enacted by the legislature (e.g., the repeal of the sky high car taxes) came only after the voters had voted to repeal said taxes and the state supreme court had overturned it on a technicality.

p> REAL SMART GUYS br> Re: Jed Babbin's Betting on the RSG :

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