Tim Eyman accuses I-1033 opponents of spinning scare-stories around the initiative’s potential impact, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see how the measure would unravel funding for state services and infrastructure when we only need look to Colorado. There a similar TABOR initiative pegged revenues to population-plus-inflation back in 1992, and the results have been devastating.
Joining Washington state educators at yesterday’s No on I-1033 press conference (you know, the one that Timmy so rudely crashed) was Colorado Education Association President Beverly Ingle, who explained how TABOR has eroded education funding, both at the K-12 and state university level. And, as I explained yesterday, as state education funding shrinks, so will local funding, despite Eyman’s uninformed and insincere assurances.
This isn’t rocket science. I-1033 will shrink the size of state and local government, and quite dramatically. That’s Tim’s goal. And by shrinking government I mean it will reduce the quality and breadth of government services, and defer crucial infrastructure investments.
So, if what you think we need to do is spend less money on education, I-1033 is for you. Because that’s exactly its intended result.
Allow me to quote the two bumper stickers our kids’ elementary school principal had on her car:
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
Won’t it be great when schools are fully funded, and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.
Mark my words, cutting public investments in education and infrastructure will lead to businesses leaving the state.
@1,
How do you think we got I-1033?
Eyman! Stop messing with my kids’ future!
How can this fiend look himself in the mirror?
The Timmy blowback hurts actual conservatives, and even Republicans.
Country and Western.
@4 “How can this fiend look himself in the mirror?”
From his general behavior, I’d expect great affection.
eyman looks like a watch salesman to me.
David, what would you expect a Big Labor boss to say?
Colorado has one good thing that Washington doesn’t: charter schools.
If Tim Eyman’s Initiatives were so great, why does he keep coming back with the same “cut taxes spiel”?
No on I-1033: tax rebates should go to those who paid them, not just wealthy landowners.
Does anyone know what Timmy’s educational background is? His level of antipathy toward education would suggest that he wasn’t a great student.
Wikipedia says he has a business degree from WSU.
AF @ 11
I didn’t figure he would have had any advanced degree. I would suspect he was a Wazzu frat boy who spent most of his evenings across the state line in Moscow.
Tim Eyman is a great public servant. He should be our governor!
Initiative 1033 freezes public services. Just figure it out yourself. If you use this years spending as the baseline and adjust for inflation all that allows you to do is buy this year’s services next year at next year’s inflated price. Government is not growing, it flat lining.
And any adjustment for population doesn’t increase individual services; it only means you have more people needing service.
The intent of I-1033 is to decrease services, not allow for growth. The implicit price deflator index Eyman uses in I-1033 does not track cost of government services; it tracks consumer prices for consumer goods nationally. It’s not even focused on NW costs which can vary from national figures.
Initiative 1033 is not an answer to anything unless your question is how to continue decreasing the effectiveness of government providing public services.