Tag Archives: I-1033

Initiative 1033 – Abolishing Local Control of Ciies and Counties

Posted on September 7th, 2009 | Comments Off on Initiative 1033 – Abolishing Local Control of Ciies and Counties

Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1033 would wreck havoc on the idea of local control of cities and counties. Tim Eyman’s one size fits all measure would remove the authority of Washington State cities and towns to control their budgets and spending.

It would impose Tim Eyman’s legislative priority that the most important thing local governments can do, when the economy improves from this recession and more revenue comes in, is help large property owners, real estate developers, mall owners and other businesses and corporations pay their property taxes.

Initiative 1033 would not just deal with the Washington State budget and spending but also puts the same rigid freeze mechanism on spending in place for all 39 Washington counties and 281 cities. Any money above the current year’s spending level must be put in a “Lower Property Tax Account” for each city and county.

Gone would be the ability of elected city council members and the Mayor and county council members to decide how to spend any revenue that comes in above this year’s spending level. It would all go to pay property taxes for property owners in cities and counties.

Eyman says paying property taxes for property owners is a higher priority than restoring any services lost during the current recession due to decreased revenue. He says it’s a higher priority than making sure parks and libraries can stay open, than paying for police and fire protection, than fixing roads or providing public transit or providing health care or help for seniors and the disabled.

If you want to fund any of these programs beyond the current budget level you will have to go to a vote of the people to get approval. This will be the new way all cities ant counties (and the state) will have to operate. It will be budget approval by referendum.

Of course this won’t be free as elections cost money. And then there will be campaign spending for and against any increased spending. And sound bites and campaigning. It’s how California got into their budget quagmire, having campaigns waged for and against spending this or that.

Gone will be legislative deliberations and public meetings and input on budgets and spending. It’ll now be based on polling and politics.

This whole process of reorganizing how local governments makes decisions is the opposite of local control by local taxpayers. Rather than local voters deciding how they want to run their city and county, Eyman proposes that state voters should make this decision for all 39 counties and 281 cities.

This sounds like the worst of ideas, and if Eyman hadn’t stolen this idea from national supporters of TABOR type legislation and Colorado you would think he would be on the other side railing against big government running roughshod over local governments.

If cities and counties want to put this “budgets by referendum” scheme in place they should be able to decide for themselves, not have it decided by state voters. This is overkill and abusive having a statewide vote dictate how local public entities like Spokane or Yakima or Vancouver or Whatcom County or Clark County or Pierce County have to run their governments.

Voters should keep local control of their cities and counties and vote against I-1033 this November 3, 2009 . Keep Eyman from meddling in your local government’s business and vote no on I-1033.

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Posted in Economy, Elections, Initiatives, Right Wing, Washington State Legislature

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Initiative 1033 -Eyman’s Sugar Coated Poison Pill

Posted on September 3rd, 2009 | Comments Off on Initiative 1033 -Eyman’s Sugar Coated Poison Pill

I-1033’s goal is to freeze government spending, that’s the poison pill Eyman’s hiding. Giving voters the illusion that they’re going to see some reduction in property taxes is the sugar coating covering this goal that he hopes will induce voter’s to unknowingly swallow the poison pill.

Eyman’s fear mongering of out of control government spending and runaway taxes is over hyped. Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. He supports a limited role of government in society and a free market economy where it’s everyone for themselves.

I support a role for government that helps and assists. I much prefer our representative style of government that deliberates and involves public input into writing our laws and budgets and sets priorities.

I-1033 is a bad idea. It is a radical approach that is complex. It imposes a permanent freeze on public spending for services that everyone uses. The freeze does not take into account any public needs. It imposes a cumbersome costly process of voter referendums to raise revenue for any reason at the city, county and state level.

It is a reverse Robin Hood wealth transfer scheme that takes tax dollars from the poor and gives them to the wealthy to reduce their property taxes. Renters, senior citizens and working families will still pay sales taxes and other taxes but if they own no property they will see no benefit from I-1033.

Large property owners, like shopping malls, real estate developers and corporate property owners, will see the most benefit from the special tax break Eyman is giving them at the expense of providing public services.

It is an unnecessary and costly shell game transferring money from the less fortunate to wealthy property owners, businesses and corporations to pay their property taxes.

I am not crying wolf as to its impacts. We already have seen the results and impacts of this approach in Colorado. Go to http://www.teachersalaryinfo.org/ and see how this approach of freezing public spending and services has decimated Colorado’s educational system.

The average teacher salary in Colorado is the lowest in the country. The average teacher salary in Colorado compared to the median household income is 49th lowest out of 50 states. Do we want to compete with Colorado to see who can have the lowest teacher salaries?

I-1033 is a radical experiment we don’t need to try in Washington State to know what will happen. It was tried in Colorado and failed. Public services have plummeted there.

I-1033 will lock us into a permanent recession, prohibiting state and local governments from restoring services lost as a result of the recession. Things are already bad enough without making them worse.

I-1033 also prohibits any new investments in public infrastructure and services and ignores changing demographics like more seniors needing help as the population ages.

Just Vote No on Initiative 1033 and keep Eyman out of our pockets. Dealing with budgets by referendum has failed in California and isn’t needed here.

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Posted in Economy, Elections, Initiatives, Right Wing, Washington State Legislature

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Eyman’s I-1033 Says Paying Corporate Property Taxes More Important than Educating State’s Children

Posted on September 2nd, 2009 | Comments Off on Eyman’s I-1033 Says Paying Corporate Property Taxes More Important than Educating State’s Children

Initiative 1033 on this November’s ballot is Tim Eyman’s clone of a failed Colorado measure. It proposes to freeze state and local government programs permanently by limiting the growth of tax revenue to the current year’s spending plus a slight adjustment for inflation.

Any money over this year’s spending as adjusted will go into a special account to reduce property taxes. What Eyman hasn’t told anyone is that 40% of this special tax break will go to Washington businesses and corporations. That’s because the fund must reduce all property taxes equally. And currently 40% of property taxes are paid by businesses.

And of the remaining 60% in the fund only 65% of that will go to help homeowners who own their home. The other 35% of households in the state will not see any tax break or return on their taxes they paid. They lose twice because they also will not see any increase in public services as a result of their paying taxes over the baseline.

Initiative I-1033 is a complex measure that actually turns out to provide a special tax break to property owners at the expense of not providing public services.

If you collect tax dollars like sales taxes everyone pays does it make sense to use them to give a special tax break that benefits wealthy property owners at the expense of not providing public services like educating our kids or paying for public safety or having libraries open and parks open?

Colorado has tried Eyman’s proposed freeze on public services since 1992. Looking at how they now fund education will gives us a frightening glimpse of Washington State’s future if voters pass I-1033.

I came across the following website, www/teachersalaryinfo.com which graphically compares 5 different factors on teacher salaries across the country. The information below is taken from this website.

The average teacher’s salary in Colorado compared to median household income showed Colorado ranking 49th (with 1 being the highest) among the 50 states. An estimate showed that teachers in Colorado made about $32,000 below the median income.

Another graph showed Colorado teachers ranking 50th lowest in salary compared to other states. Washington State by comparison ranked 24th lowest – and we know the lack of funding currently in this state to raise teacher’s salaries.

Another graph shows Colorado’s average teacher salary compared to the median home price in Colorado as 44th lowest out of 50 states.

Is this the future for Washington State if voters approve I-1033? You can’t freeze education spending under I-1033 and expect that there will be any spare change to raise teacher’s salaries in the future. In fact because many public services like Medicaid and education increase in cost faster than the consumer price index adjustment in I-1033, cuts will have to be made to existing services as their costs rise faster than the consumer inflation index.

Colorado once ranked 35th in education spending. It’s now 49th because of this problem.

So you decide – is it more important to give wealthy property owners and corporations a special property tax break or help our children get a quality education by investing our tax dollars in them?

I think we’ll all lose if we don’t fund our educational system and have good teachers. How many teachers are going to stay in Washington State if we are competing with Colorado to see who can pay the educators of our children the least amount of money? Is this another Eyman brilliant idea or not?

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Watch Video on Why I-1033 Would be Bad for Washington State

Posted on August 13th, 2009 | Comments Off on Watch Video on Why I-1033 Would be Bad for Washington State

Initiative 1033 is Tim Eyman’s Washington State version of Colorado’s TABOR law (Taxpayers Bill of Rights). It’s been a dismal failure. It has permanently decreased Colorado’s level of basic services by using the same inflation plus population growth limits. Voter’s recently put the measure on hold to try to undo some of it’s disastrous impacts. You can watch a great video and listen yourself to how Coloradoans now feel about their disastrous experiment. We don’t need Washington State to become a Tim Eyman experiment. Vote No on I-1033 this November 3rd, 2009.

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Why I-1033 Limits on Spending Growth Won’t Work

Posted on August 7th, 2009 | Comments Off on Why I-1033 Limits on Spending Growth Won’t Work

Colorado has had the experience of living under the growth limits on government spending that Tim Eyman is proposing with I-1033 . The Colorado measure was called the Taxpayer Bill of Rights or TABOR. It was passed by Colorado voters in 1992 as a constitutional amendment and placed strict limits on spending by local and state government. The end result was a drastic decease in public services in Colorado.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a good analysis of some of the many problems Colorado has had and you can go to their website for more detailed information.

I’ve reproduced a section below from their website which addresses some of the specific problems that exist with inflation and population only growth limits like Eyman proposes in I-1033. The magic potion Eyman claims I-1033 is, is actually a very toxic potion that will act as a poison on our state in many ways.

Limiting government spending to only population and inflation growth each year like I-1033 does creates real problems and does not provide for growth of services. It is in the best of times a freeze on government programs and in the worst of times actually decreases government services.

Here the analysis done by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities based on the real experiment with this legislation in Colorado that points out some real problems.

“Why a Population plus Inflation Growth Formula Cannot Provide a Constant Level of Public Services

There are several reasons why states cannot provide a constant level of public services under a population-plus-inflation formula.

■No existing measure of inflation — neither the Consumer Price Index nor the GDP deflator nor any other measure — correctly captures the growth in the cost of the kinds of services purchased in the public sector. State governments, for instance, are major purchasers of health care, the costs of which are rising far faster than the general rate of inflation.
■In most states, a rising share of the state population is utilizing public services. For instance, the number of senior citizens in most states is rising faster than the general population, putting new burdens on programs such as Medicaid.
■States often face the burden of providing new or expanded services for reasons outside the control of lawmakers. These include court mandates to increase school funding or other services, response to natural disasters or public health emergencies, major economic shifts such as plant closings, or other reasons.
■In an era of large federal deficits, states are increasingly expected to finance a substantial share of new domestic priorities. Some of these expectations take the form of formal mandates, such as the additional education expenditures required under the No Child Left Behind law. Others may reflect what one analyst has called “underfunded expectations,” such as the expectation that states and local governments will provide heightened levels of security as part of the war on terrorism.
■New public priorities may require new funding from states above and beyond levels of inflation. Recent state initiatives in areas such as K-12 class size reduction, prescription drug coverage for seniors, college scholarships for students with high levels of academic achievement, and other initiatives generally cannot be accommodated under the population-growth-plus-inflation formula.
It is important to note that all state programs — not just those with cost pressures exceeding the population-growth-plus-inflation level — are threatened by a rigid population-growth-plus-inflation limit. This is because such limits typically cover nearly all areas of state and local spending. So, if one spending area is forced to grow faster than the rate allowed under the limit (for instance due to court order, federal mandate or popular demand), then another spending area must grow at a slower pace — which is to say that in terms of the level of service provided, that second spending area must actually shrink.”

We don’t need to repeat the Colorado experience in Washington State. Vote No on Initiative 1033 this November 3rd. Keep local control of government services and keep government flexibility to respond to changing needs.

for more information on the campaign go to www.no1033.com

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Posted in Economy, Elections, Initiatives, Washington State Legislature

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Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1033 Grassroots Joke

Posted on July 20th, 2009 | 3 comments

We all love a good joke. Tim Eyman told one the other day on KING 5 News Up Front Blog. He was bragging about how much grassroots fundraising support Initiative 1033 had gotten.

Initiative 1033 is Eyman’s latest wealth transfer scheme. This one is to transfer state tax revenue, of which 57% comes from the state sales tax, to commercial and residential property owners in the form of reduced property taxes. The more property you own, the larger your tax break or loophole.

Anyway, twice on the Up Front blog comment thread Eyman couldn’t resist claiming I-1033 has “a very broad base of grassroots support.” He claims that he has “received 2063 individual donations totaling $664,769 so far. 2063 – that’s really extraordinary…”

What’s extraordinary is that how big a misrepresentation of the facts this is. The fact is that only 3 donors contributed some 86.5% of the money raised for I-1033.

Michael Dunmire of Woodinville gave $300,000. Tim Eyman borrowed $250,000 and loaned it to the campaign. And Kemper Holdings LLC of Bellevue owned by Kemper Freeman who owns Bellevue Square Mall gave $25,000.

These top 3 donors in the campaign contributed 86.5% of the total cash raised. This hardly sounds like a grassroots campaign to me. Especially since they spent $598,081 to get the signatures. That’s an average of $1.89/signature.

I was also curious how Eyman’s number of individual donations doesn’t match up with what the Public Disclosure Commission has.

The PDC reports Eyman raised $664,769 through June. This is the figure he used in his comment. Yet the PDC website lists only some 897 contributions. A closer look revealed that some contributors gave 2 or 3 or 4 times, so the numbers of contributions is actually more than the number of contributors.

The PDC in addition lists without names or amounts some $20,345.56 Eyman reported as small contributions so I’m sure that this is where his 2063 “contributions” come from.

The funny part is that under named contributors he lists one person as giving 5 cents four different times. (That’s 4 contributions!) Another gave 7 cents 2 different times (That’s 2 more contributions!) and a third contributor gave 2 cents.

Manipulating numbers is so much fun. The number of contributions is obviously not the same as contributors and can easily be manipulated. And recording someone giving a nickel to I-1033 four times makes it easy to inflate the number of contributions made.

Have one person give me $25.00 in pennies one at a time and I’ll have more grassroots support than Eyman. What a joke!

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Posted in Economy, Elections, Initiatives, Washington State Legislature

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New Report Confirms Initiative 1033 Will Make Recovery Worse for Washington State

Posted on July 18th, 2009 | Comments Off on New Report Confirms Initiative 1033 Will Make Recovery Worse for Washington State

A just released report by the Rockefeller Institute of Government confirms analysis that Initiative 1033, if passed by voters in November, will likely make economic recovery in Washington State more difficult. While not directly addressing I-1033, the negative impact of the initiative is clear from the current economic figures.

Steeply declining revenue would reset the baseline from which next year’s inflation plus population growth would occur under I-1033. Analysis by the Washington State Budget and Policy Center notes that deceases in revenue during a recession will permanently lower the baseline and revenue to fund government services in future years.

The Rockefeller Report is entitled “State Tax Decline in Early 2009 was the Sharpest on Record“. Overall it notes that “State tax collections for the first quarter of 2009 showed a drop of 11.7%, the sharpest decline in the 46 years for which quarterly data are available. Combining the census Bureau’s quarterly data with its annual statistical series, which extends back to 1952, the most recent decline in state tax revenues was the worst on record.”

The figures given for Washington State in the report in Table 9 points to a 13.2% drop in sales tax and a 9% overall drop in quarterly state tax revenue comparing the January – March 2008 revenue to the January – March 2009 revenue.

The report also notes in looking ahead for all states that “The January – March quarter was the worst on record for states. The worst decline in sales tax in 50 years represents historic weakness in one of two major tax sources for states. Preliminary data for the April – June quarter suggest that fiscal conditions deteriorated even further …Such extraordinary weakness in revenues, along with continued if more moderate growth in expenditures, make widespread budget shortfalls highly likely this year.”

For Washington State a decreased revenue baseline under I-1033 will mean the emergency budget cuts this year become permanent budget cuts. There will be no new money to reduce classroom size or fund educational reform. Cuts to state health care are permanent. Cuts to all state services will not be restored. And future budget cuts due to the recession lowering the state’s revenue baseline will be necessary.

A state budget that only keeps pace with inflation and population growth under I-1033 is at best only able to keep pace with decreased purchasing power and increased population growth. An ever decreasing ability to fund government services under the recession resetting baseline that I-1033 mandates allows its sponsor Tim Eyman to follow in the footsteps of conservative Grover Norquist and his goal to continually reduce government spending and drown it in the bathtub.

The problem with this philosophy is that it doesn’t track reality. The free market economy does not solve many of society’s problems. Government is needed to help meet basic needs and provide balance and legal protections from those motivated by self interest and greed. History has shown us the shortcomings of societies that only serve the privileged few. It is the vision of being compassionate and providing legal protections and helping people that sets us apart from those like Eyman that make it their life’s mission to berate government serving people.

Taxes provide police and fire protection, free libraries, health care, roads and buses and sidewalks, education, environmental protection, parks and much more. Those that berate taxes like Eyman too often demagogue the issues while using these public services.

Eyman for example went to Washington State University and received a subsidy of his education because public tax dollars paid part of the cost. Maybe he should refund what the state paid for his education. Likewise he went to public school – maybe he should refund what others paid for his education there.

One could go on and on – the point is that government is not some evil leach sucking up tax dollars. It is providing benefits day in and day out that we all use and too frequently take for granted. Taxes are part of the cost we pay to live in our society. While no one really likes to pay taxes, we all benefit from the multitude of services government provides.

You can also find a write up of the Rockefeller Institute report in today’s New York Times.

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