During his years as a columnist at the Seattle P-I, Ted Van Dyk earned a reputation for, um, not responding kindly to editorial feedback, which I suppose explains why the editors at Crosscut don’t even try. For example, take his recent prescription for balancing state and local budgets without raising taxes:
Big capital projects should be put on hold. That would mean, in Seattle, moving forward with both the deep-bore tunnel, to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and the Evergreen Point bridge modernization.
Now that’s the sort of logical, coherent prose that makes Van Dyk a must read for lazy bloggers everywhere.
Yeah sure, if you read further you eventually figure out that he really means that all big capital projects other than 520 and the Big Bore should be put on hold, but from a writerly perspective one could make a strong argument that there’s an entire paragraph missing between the two sentences above.
Which of course distracts from the factual incoherence of Van Dyk’s argument, in that capital and operating budgets actually have nothing to do with each other. For example, Van Dyk surprises no one by arguing that King County Executive Dow Constantine should halt light rail’s Eastside expansion:
Its crushing prospective pricetag ($23 billion and counting) already threatens to displace not only non-rail transportation but other spending for other public purposes in the decade ahead.
But the dedicated taxes to pay for this project were overwhelmingly approved by voters for the express purpose of building rail, not roads. (Remember, the “Roads & Transit” measure failed at the polls one year before the transit-only version passed.) And even if Constantine could halt construction, in clear defiance of the will of the people, it’s not like the revenue could be legally shifted to, say, jails, courts and law enforcement… a criminal justice system that eats up over 70% of the county’s general fund.
So to use an operating budget deficit as an excuse for arguing to halt capital spending on projects you don’t like, is just plain dishonest. Or stupid.
But either way, it makes for juicy blog fodder.
There should be an extremely high stupidity tax levied on both those providing and those given free media space to actively promote breaking the law–as TvD does in that column.
As If! Those rail agency taxes can’t be stopped – that’s what the CONTRACT CLAUSE of the CONSTITUTION is all about.
He’s losing it . . . so sad . . . foggy thinking, pining for the old times . . .
What’re even worse are the pandering “Thanks for your wonderful article, Ted, keep writing forever!” comments after he posts something. They sound like he writes them himself.
I vote for dishonest and stupid. No, wait, can I change my vote to senile? He’s too out of it to be dishonest or stupid.
@2 Actually, as eastside light rail construction is still in the future and contracts haven’t been signed yet, ST could get out of it.
Also, you can get out of contracts — by going bankrupt. See, e.g., airlines vis-a-vis union contracts and pension obligations.
The constitutional provision merely says Congress shall not pass laws impairing contracts. That doesn’t keep the parties to contracts from breaking them, which is something you should think about anytime an employer promises you something. When it comes to how employers treat workers, having it in writing isn’t enough, you’ve gotta have it in escrow, because there are no honest employers anymore.
@4 Rodent:
Looking in your mirror, eh?
I don’t know if he’s stupid…or just knowingly writing down to the dumb people level (Tim Eyman supporters) who don’t understand how money and organizations work. Like the tea-party nut bags, they just lump EVERYTHING into childlike categories called “taxes”, and all functions into a thing called “government”. They have no understanding that many of these things are totally unrelated, covered under entirely different legal constructs. I don’t think he’s stupid, but I think he’s writing FOR the stupid people.
True ’nuff, you could break/stop the ST project (or any other). But canceling light rail to Redmond has 0% to do with the King Country court budget or any other. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Totally unrelated. They both involve “money” but that’s about it.
Actually, as eastside light rail construction is still in the future and contracts haven’t been signed yet, ST could get out of it.
It is the bond contracts, not the construction contracts, that mean the taxes can’t stop. Those contracts are signed sealed and delivered. They are the ones that require the agency to keep up the taxes while any of the bonds are outstanding (through 2039). The agency isn’t going to break those!
TvD wants the taxes to continue but no construction with the taxes – wtf, that’s taxing for no good reason!?!
ps – it’s the state contracts clause, not the federal one, that’s the biggie here :)
@7 Bonds can be defaulted. See, e.g., WPPSS.
Ted Van Dyk is TOO CLUELESS to figure out that that there is no “displacement.” Gas tax and other fees pay for roads. Locally approved sales tax and some left-over mvet pays for regional transit.
Furthermore, the state can’t get a piece of locally-approved tax revenues of any shape or form, according to a little something called The Washington State Constitution.
Van Dyk was quite a player back in the ’60s.
But, when you look at the sheer stupidity of his endless-loop ranting about transit, it’s obvious you didn’t need to be that smart to be a Vice Prez staffer, or a corrupt money grubbing Nixon suck up lobbyist back in the day.
All you had to be, apparently, was snobby and elitist.
He’s perfect for Crosscut.
I’ve quite enjoyed getting to know him on Twitter, thanks to the link from this website. LoL.
This is exactly the time to be bidding capital projects. I have personally overseen two projects in the $10-20 million range in the last 12 months. Bids came in 25-35% below estimate and projects are substantially complete without claims making up the difference. Contractors are hungry and want to keep employees and to suppport their equipment.
13 is right, and the borrow/bond action puts people to work in infrastructure investments.
I could understand if there wasn’t already MicroSoft at the other end of the east link. You (TvD) could argue, kind of, that the people to be served in the unknown future could be served later and use an unknown to influence public opinion (though it would still have the giant flaws mentioned above).
But, there are the masses churning about on the east side, where green houses used to be. Maybe somebody should clue Ted in to that fact, somebody other than me. I am kind of tired of pointing out Ted’s opinions, that he uses as facts, to him.
Ted’s column can best be summed up as, because I said so.
And a good home for Cary Moon, too.