I-960, The Taxpayer Protection Initiative, has been qualified for the November ballot.
1) The Times article says:
I-960 is sponsored by Tim Eyman, who earns a living trying to pass ballot measures.If the article were written by a fair-minded journalist, and not by someone who earns a living trying to pass off liberal commentary as objective journalism, the article would have mentioned that the opposition campaign is organized by Christian Sinderman, who earns a living trying to defeat ballot measures; and is financed by government employee unions, whose staff earn their livings trying to skim ever more money from tax dollars.
2) The Secretary of State qualified I-960 within 13 days by statistically sampling the petitions. Meanwhile, I-25, which has already been languishing at the King County Courthouse for an entire month, may take several more weeks to be qualified using the slowest and most expensive verification process imaginable.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 19, 2007 06:15 PM | Email ThisOf course, one may only presume now that he is upfront about the living he makes off of initiatives. In the past, he stole donor money for this purpose -- which is amazing on its own, that folks whom he stole from continue to support him. Guess it's the "victim" thing that right wingers love to rail against.
Posted by: Bill Anderson on July 19, 2007 06:46 PMThe constitution is the law of the land and I support it.
WIll I work hard to get the folks I want elected in office? Yes, I like to think the rules of our land are good ones. Best there are actually.
Now, you can support a person who stole from you. That's your choice. Sort of like the woman in Louisana who said Clinton should have his testicles cut for cheating on Hilary. Then he admits cheating on her...where are the scissors?
The hyporcites on the right are so standard...Eyman is the poster child (stealing from people who still give him money). Amazing actually.
Posted by: Bill Anderson on July 19, 2007 07:19 PMIt's Eyman who is the admitted cheater. He's the one you revere.
Oh yeah...must be FAMILY values. Cheating is ok for those who are on the right and say "family values" in their campaign. Guess STEALING is a family value for y'all?
Posted by: Bill Anderson on July 19, 2007 07:24 PMEyman gets paid because he provides a product/service of value, regardless of his personal morality, just as the people who benefit from Democrat fiscal policy get paid for bringing value to society - to wit, flipping burgers well - regardless of their personal morality. That's called commerce. He works in the marketplace of ideas and, as in any market, the person who provides the best product/service gets the business.
Would I vote for Eyman for any kind of position of public responsibility? Not if I could avoid it (maybe if he ran against Insley or McDermott - his moral equals); nor, I suspect, would most conservatives. Because then you're choosing a personal representative, not picking a vendor. And THAT's when values come into play.
To paraphrase one of your heroes: "It's the Initiative, stupid!"
Posted by: sro on July 19, 2007 08:09 PMWe can't be leaving any "Whines" out Bill you work to hard to put them out for all to see.
Posted by: Huh? on July 19, 2007 08:11 PMI noted it in the comments and in direct e-mail to the P-I "reader rep" and this error remains unfixed.
Posted by: pudge on July 19, 2007 10:33 PM"All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights."
That you've chosen to abrogate your rights to the government is your problem.
As for me, I am much more concerned about the contents of any initiative than I am about the history of the one leading the effort.
Your poor/weak attempts at deflection notwithstanding, you may feel free to send every penny you make to a wholly owned subsidiary of the labor union and tribal thugs that own this state's government, aka the Legislature, if you so desire.
Many others of us choose to exercise a little of that inherent "political power" the state constitution refers to, and try to keep a little of that money ourselves.
You don't mind awfully, do you?
There's a good chap.
Posted by: Hinton on July 19, 2007 11:24 PMI'm afraid that "government" in Washington is just another special interst group.
Posted by: Libertarian on July 20, 2007 07:37 AMEyman initiative wins ballot spot
The Associated Press
This story was published Friday, July 20th, 2007
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Tax rebel Tim Eyman's latest initiative has secured a spot on the November statewide ballot.
Initiative 960 is the only citizen initiative to qualify this year, an unusually small number in a state that often votes on a variety of issues.
Secretary of State Sam Reed announced Thursday that a random check of Eyman's 314,504 petition signatures showed enough to secure a place on the ballot. It takes about 225,000 valid signatures. About 17 percent of Eyman's sample were invalid or duplicate signatures.
The measure would close some loopholes in the state's spending limit law and require much more public information about all tax proposals in Olympia.
An opposition group already has formed, and Eyman said in a telephone interview from Yakima that he will lead a "counterpunch campaign."
"They're saying this means death, destruction and the end of western civilization," he said.
A King County Superior Court judge last week rejected critics' attempts to keep the measure off the ballot.
One referendum, dealing with a new state law on consumer lawsuits against insurance companies, also could qualify if sponsors submit enough signatures by Saturday. Backers and critics have been working with Gov. Chris Gregoire to see if compromise legislation would be preferable to running a ballot campaign.
-- END --
Many in the media are inaccurately reporting what I-960 does and doesn't do. Typical yet annoying.
I-960 doesn't require 2/3's legislative approval for tax increases -- it doesn't have to. There's already a law on the books that requires that -- I-960 just makes it tougher for the Legislature to circumvent/skirt that law.
I-960 doesn't require voter approval for tax increases -- it doesn't have to. The state Constitution gives the Legislature the power to put a tax increase on the ballot if they can't garner 2/3's legislative support.
To avoid I-601's spending limits, the Legislature has shifted funds among accounts and spent the same money twice. I-960 says that shifted funds are not "new revenue" and so they can only be spent once.
The Legislature has declared 'emergencies' to negate the citizens' constitutionally guaranteed right to referendum. Courts have refused to reign in Olympia's abuse/overuse/misuse of the 'emergency clause.' I-960 requires a public vote on any 'emergency tax increase' and lists the politicians by name and their recorded votes on the 'emergency' in the next general election voters pamphlet. The people have a right to know what Olympia is doing.
Opponents keep bringing up Colorado, California, and Alaska to see how 'similar' laws worked. I-601 has been on the books since 1993 -- we have 13 years of experience that shows that I-960's will reinforce the reasonable limits on state fiscal policies provided by I-601. I-960 simply closes loopholes the Legislature has put in I-601 over the years (and in the case of 'emergencies', I-960 closes the loophole the Legislature has put in our constitutional rights).
I-960 is a smart, reasonable, balanced proposal that will effectively protect taxpayers, something the Legislature is incapable of doing on its own.
Posted by: Tim Eyman, co-sponsor of I-960, http://www.VotersWantMoreChoices.com on July 20, 2007 08:19 AMEXCEPT for Sound Transit. Ron Sims alone gets to choose who runs that government.
The big problem with I-960 is that if it passes the legislature would a bunch more local governments run by appointees, like ST. And the legislature would not put any kind of voter-approval requirement on their taxing powers. We could have political appointee governments like ST popping up all over the place, imposing taxes willy-nilly, and there'd be no way for the public to do anything about it.
Legislators are like young children. They would beat us up for passing I-960.
If we tell them "You can't tax us," they will give political appointees of Ron Sims the right to tax us huge amounts, just to get the last laugh at our expense.
Plus, the advisory vote thing in I-960 is a bad idea. I think we learned something from the four advisory votes on monorail and the advisory vote on the viaduct replacement/whatever - advisory votes don't help taxpayers. They just give those who live by taxing ammo to use against taxpayers.
Posted by: Odwella on July 20, 2007 09:07 AMJust curious...
"Now, you can support a person who stole from you. That's your choice."
The way I look at it is that government confiscating exorbitant amounts of money from citizens and then pissing it away on politically expedient white elephants without giving citizens a say in the matter is nothing more than stealing. Literally, at the point of a gun, I might add. Try not paying your property taxes for five years and see what happens.
I have a choice to support Eyman or not. It's not the same with taxes. It's either pay, get out, or suffer the consequences.
I have no problem paying fair and reasonable taxes that are used efficiently for needed projects. I refuse to support arrogant politicians who thumb their noses at the will of voters and ignore citizens Constitutional rights.
Go Tim!!!
It's not supporting Eyman. It's looking out for my self interest. Why do you worship the political popularity contest winners? Whenever they oppose one of these taxpayer initiatives it is invariably their own self interest, not the taxpayers. But that is a topic for some other thread. Do you support your local mugger too?
Posted by: REBEL on July 20, 2007 10:47 AMHow many times does something come out that the democrats promote and the article highlights Bagdad Jim supporting it and it is reported to reflect more on the person who many have problems with as a means to change the real issue of the legislation being passed.
Even pointing out the bias causes the issue of discussing it among conservative minded people to be lessened .
Tim has a personality that makes the left loose their ability to debate intelligently and focus in on his real or perceived personality failings . Actually Bill Clinton did the same thing to the right ,
Will be interested in any views on if this will pass or not ?
Having that said it appears the subject was the media changing what should be independent reporting about a tax measure .
You expect that form of reporting from a liberal blog , just like support for the measure from a conservative blog .
Not in the newspapers where it is in the news section . Just consider Gore putting his name up for be a candidate , and the story goes , well here the guy who lost already and had his key points in a controverasl documentary been proven false is running for President . I mean that was the whole point , not your opinion about the tax measure , it was the method in it was reported upon .
You can be against the measure and still want newspapers to be fair , right ? I bet in conservative based areas it happens the other way around at times .
Maybe to you, but you can't see straight. There are a lot of Republican Party functionaries "here" who are for higher taxes and more government. Party regulars on both sides of the aisle want higher taxes.
Posted by: beastmaster on July 20, 2007 06:35 PMWell I have not been reading these too long , can you give an example ?
If that is the case , why doesn't anyone come up with a fair way of collecting them then ? Because we must have one of the worse systems for doing it .
That I know both parties usually agree on .
They both also do not do anything about changing it .
The state Republican Party apparatchiks are pushing for that scenario. They've got zero chance to dole out patronage at the state level now. Their only hope is to grow government massively at the local level. They have a chance at controlling huge taxing and spending if the legislature creates multitudinous new local taxing authority powers. R's could control some of that.
That is why the Republican Party likes I-960. At the state level now the Dem's are a machine. If I-960 passes it could throw a little sand in those gears. IF the R's ever get power back in Olympia, enough time will have passed that I-960 could be legislatively repealed.
The reasons Earling and Dunn back ST2/RTID now though, well, those are even less noble. Those reasons fall in the "selfish" category.
Can't you hear the legislators now? "The voters didn't want the state to raise revenue, so we had to create 23 new local taxing districts in King and Snohomish Counties. The voters also told us they wanted advisory votes only on tax matters, so we aren't going to let voters have a say on whether or not these new local governments impose taxes, when those new taxes would stop, etc."
Posted by: double-shot on July 22, 2007 10:13 AMAnd your claim about increased local taxes is proven wrong by our recent past experience with policies that follow what I-960 would enforce.
Posted by: pudge on July 23, 2007 12:14 AM
This is total garbage: "And your claim about increased local taxes is proven wrong by our recent past experience with policies that follow what I-960 would enforce."
First, what are you talking about (if anything)?
Second, what I wrote is that approval of I-960 is almost certain to lead to new local governments, less accountability to taxpayers, and more taxes. Look at how SMP, ST, and RTID were set up recently by the legislature, and how those are designed to eliminate control from voters and citizens. There will be many more of those, and the new ones won't have voter-approval requirements for taxes, in the event I-960 passes.
If you disagree, Pudge, explain your reasons. If all you are going to do is bite at ankles then just keep doin' what you're doin'.
Posted by: double-shot on July 23, 2007 08:30 AMThey will only get that taxing power if the voters are foolish enough to approve it. Last I checked, we are still able to VOTE on ST2/RTID. I'd rather have that vote than Gregoire and her rubber stamp congress passing it.
Posted by: Palouse on July 23, 2007 09:46 AMFine with me. If locals want to tax themselves, have at it. The local politicians who set up these taxing authorities will answer to their constituents.
Posted by: Palouse on July 23, 2007 12:29 PM