It is editorial endorsement season, and a loud round of cheers was reportedly heard the other day from the pro parks levy folks at Yes For Our Parks, when news broke that they had lost the endorsement from our friend Stefan over at (un)SoundPolitics. (u)SP is kinda the Chicago Cubs of local politics: perennial losers whose endorsement is considered the kiss of death by those who confuse cause with effect. This preeminent local righty blog is more of a looking glass than a window into mainstream political thought — a mirror image of public opinion that tends to reflect the proprietors’ own fantastical take on both policy and the polis.
Take the reliably anti-republican/pro-Republican Stefan, and his curious logic for rejecting the levies:
I like parks too, and am willing to pay a reasonable amount to support them. But the financing mechanism is flawed and the only chance of changing that is rejecting the levy.
The “financing mechanism”…? You mean going before voters for a special levy vote, rather than funding park maintenance and acquisition through the general fund? But isn’t this nickel-and-nickel approach exactly the kind of “direct democracy” for which Stefan and his cohorts routinely argue in their reflexive support for Tim Eyman and his anti-tax/anti-government initiatives?
When Eyman foisted I-747 on voters, with its arbitrary one-percent cap on growth in property tax revenues from existing construction — a rate that doesn’t even account for inflation let alone growth in demand for public services — he argued that local governments could always go directly to voters for special levies and lid lifts. Indeed, he argues that government should always go directly to voters to approve tax and fee increases. And by starving the general fund of adequate revenue growth, he got exactly what he wanted.
Local governments now routinely go to voters with special levies to fund popular and essential public services like parks, libraries and EMS, and while such dedicated levies may make for bad tax policy, elected officials really don’t have any other choice. Over 70-percent of King County’s general fund goes to the criminal justice system, so if Stefan is going to criticize the parks’ “financing mechanism,” he might want to offer up an alternative.
Perhaps he can find one through the looking glass.
[Deleted — Darryl
HA Comment Policy]
Eyman didn’t starve anything of funds. Car tab tax relief was enacted by legislators who knew how to write laws that are constitutional. Eyman merely creates make-work for the courts.
Goldy, Stefan is being consistent for once. Don’t you realize the reason he wants every tax put to a public vote is so he can vote “no”?
Stefan also thinks we should vote against school funding so the schools get so bad that people will demand government subsidies for private schools. To be consistent, perhaps next he will say that we should reject public park funding so the parks deteriorate and people demand government subsidies for “private parks” in their backyards.
I wonder what Stefan thinks of the way we fund the Iraq war…
If Steffy’s mouth is moving – he’s lying.
How dare you equate Sound Politics to the Cubs? I’m a democrat and a Cubs fan and I’m highly offended.
Besides, the Cubs are loveable losers. Nothing loveable about SP.
I actually think that a better analogy for you, Goldy, would have been that SP is sorta like the Phillies…the losingest team of losers on the face of the earth.
“…only chance of changing that is rejecting the levy.”
Because only by saying “no” many times can we make them believe we mean “yes, always”.
Somewhere, George Orwell is laughing…
Who’s this Stefan guy? He sounds like a real dullard.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..
Stefan, Eyman and their ilk can hide behind principle all they want. I’ve not yet met an anti-taxer who wasn’t, at heart, a tight-fisted bastard. Remember that episode where Eyman was caught trying to dump his garbage in the Post Office’s dumpster; and he responded that since he bought so much postage HE DESERVED TO USE THEIR FACILITIES??? Yeah, like every book of stamps includes a free dump certificate.
Principle, schminciple. People who don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes are, 9 times out of 10, simply selfish.