No doubt the Seattle Times editorial board doesn’t like taxes, as evidenced by the sarcasm they ooze in commenting on Tuesday’s decisive approval of the two King County Parks levies:
Yes, yes, everyone take a bow and gush over how much we need parks and how much we use them. It is all true, but that doesn’t make it any wiser that the county has become dependent on levies to run its park system.
Well, yeah, I think most tax structure experts would agree that it isn’t particularly wise to depend on dedicated levies to run our parks or anything else. But rather than presenting a constructive discussion of the circumstances that have led us to this situation, the Times merely adopts the lazy, anti-tax meme of blaming elected officials for failing “to make other, unpleasant budget cuts.”
Such as? Over 70-percent of King County’s general fund goes to the criminal justice system — a number typical for counties statewide. Shall we empty the jails? Cut funds for the courts or the sheriffs department? Slash salaries in the prosecutors office? Where’s the fat?
The Times doesn’t know, and they haven’t bothered to look. The editors have the reporting staff of the largest newspaper in the state at their disposal, yet I don’t see the expose on all the waste, fraud and abuse apparently sucking King County coffers dry. And I also don’t see a serious discussion of the reason the county was forced to go to special purpose parks levies in the first place: I-747’s arbitrary and unsustainable 101-percent limit on growth in revenue from existing construction.
The Times continues to editorialize on local property taxes as if they understand what they’re talking about, but I see no evidence of this from the cursory and muddled nature of their discourse. By setting a limit factor on revenue growth well below that of inflation, I-747 intentionally erodes the real-dollar value of regular levies over time. Indeed, the whole point of the initiative was to force local taxing districts to resort to special purpose voter-approved levies like the type the Times now disses; this is exactly the kinda “direct democracy” that Tim Eyman professes, and that the Times sacredly defends.
In fact, the only way for a district to secure a stable inflation-adjusted revenue stream under existing statutes is to run a multi-year lid lift, like the parks levies, which not only permits the district to replace the 101-percent limit factor with a more reasonable growth index, but also specifically requires that the levy be dedicated to a special purpose, and not supplant existing revenue in the general fund.
Ask nearly any government budget writer what they’d prefer, the current system that routinely forces the district to run special purpose levies, or a more reasonable limit factor — say, inflation or 4-percent, whichever is lower — and dollars to donuts they’ll choose the latter.
That’s the issue the Times should be discussing. But they don’t. Or they won’t. Or maybe, they can’t.
Off topic, but one of the people that is a vocal proponent of the system that implemented the need for special levys has yet again shown himself as the shallow, petty and vindictive cheapskate that he is.
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/301697/21078215
It is both entertaining and sad the comments he and his wife post. They show their true disdain of their fellow man.
That’s a start. Seems these days the police are more occupied with harrassing teenagers in Capitol Hill than “serving and protecting”. A sign of too many on the force bored with their jobs. And seriously why not curb back on jail quotas? I don’t mean to sound like a anarchist radical, it is just that I am tired of the criminal justice system serving more or less as a state funded jobs program. When a society, any society, spends 70% of it general fund on criminal justice that adequately demonstrates perverted priorities. I am sure we can scale back and have plenty left over to deal with rapists, murderers, and violent crime. But what about all the people in jail for trivial drug and alcohol offenses? Not to mention the mental health cases that might be better served through a robust mental health system.
I understand the gist of your pro tax polemic against the Seattle Times, but proposing a Sophie’s choice between the criminal justice and park systems seems like a center-right rhetorical flourish not suited to the truly liberal ambitions of the left.
Of course I can probably be accused of being curmugeonly libertarian in this post so, I guess, I will merely utter touche in anticipation of your response.
Why all the angst about taxes to run parks? People should be outraged that hospitals are dependent on volunteers (candy stripes) and schools need volunteers to do yard work and assist teachers in the classroom (after the M & O levy passes).
“Yes, yes, everyone take a bow and gush over how much we need parks and how much we use them.”
Nothing like insulting your own readership for having civic values, and for voting to fund those values out of their own wallets! Well, having to fluff Frank Blethen’s anti-tax crusade just to keep their jobs has made the Times’ editorial writers mean and bitter. Maybe if he hadn’t made their prostitution so bloody obvious, demanding they endorse Mike? because of just one issue, they’d have some class left. Then again, what’s the point of being rich if you have to treat your employees like something other than disposable conveniences?
It is so refreshing to read the words of someone who actually does understand Washington’s complex property tax system. I appreciate your posts Goldy but the subject probably makes lots of readers scroll right on down to the next post. The very complexity of our system has allowed for jerks like Eyman to offer exploit it with his initiatives. There are easier ways to impose property taxes, starting with imposing them on all property at 1 percent of assessed value, with homestead deductions on the primary residences and charity deductions on property of non-profits. The tax should be collected by the State, not counties, and distributed to local governments and special districts via formula, which would include a new construction and inflation limit. School districts and local governments could still seek voter approval of bond issues for construction to be collected locally, but the need for special levies, levy lid lifts, pro-rationing, and levy protection elections would end. Ah, well. Like a state income tax, this won’t happen either.
Maybe what Blethen, Eyman, and their ilk really want is a fee-based park systems so that only the monied classes can go to the parks. That way they won’t have to see homeless people sleeping on park benches.
Roger Rabbit’s Budget Cutting Quiz
Which is the better investment of county tax dollars?
[ ] A. A $9 an hour pollworker who doesn’t follow the manual or his supervisor’s instructions and walks off the job before the end of his shift;
[ ] B. A $12 an hour groundskeeper at the zoo who mows grass, blows leaves out of the parking lot, empties trash receptacles, and keeps the rest rooms clean.
Gordon @ 2 is correct. You ask “where’s the fat?” Start with the millions paid in pensions, ‘administrative’ leave etc. to sheriff’s deputies behaving badly, as recounted in the PI’s ‘Conduct Unbecoming’ piece. Then again, maybe that is better described as ‘tumor’ than ‘fat.’
@8 Not a problem, Reichert isn’t running the Sheriff’s Department anymore.
Correct–it’s his protege, Sue Rahr.
Who tried to place a jackboot on the PI reporting by taking the unusual step, especially for a govt official, of filing a complaint with the Washington News Council.
@10 Yeah, that’s a problem.
Different sheriff, different problem, same bullshit.