This is just to let the uninitiated in on some of the ploys of the bureaucrat and/or politician in defending their funding baseline. A common ploy is known in the trade as, "Offering up the family jewels." It goes like this: Assume I-695 is passed. The net result is a 2% decrease in funding line available, and a requirement that anything above this level be submitted to a vote of the taxpayers involved. This ploy works by grossly inappropriate prioritizing. That is, rather than take the 2% cut against the least important item in the funding cut (smart business) or taking an across the board 2% in all funding lines (not smart business, but you don't hurt a subordinate's self-esteem by telling them that their item was in fact the least important), the bureaucrat/politician/program manager will instead use their entire funding line up on things LESS IMPORTANT than their best program, and zero out the funding line for that program.

The threat is that, unless you restore their funding, this most important program (the proverbial family jewels) will go away.

Now lest you believe that I'm unduly cynical, this is the very thing that happened in King County with proposition 601. Since a special levy (and super majority) was required to raise property taxes over the 601 limits, the King County Council spent their baseline taxes on items that did not have broad support (public art, subsidies for daycare workers, etc.) and put up for the special levy the extremely important (and popular) Medic 1 service. Although the taxpayers initially turned this down, it was restored (for three years) on an 80% vote when the promise was made that if they were granted this time they could reprioritize. For those following this issue (on www.metrokc.gov), it is obvious that they instantly reneged on this promise. They are hoping to sweep this under the table and sneak the issue by again after the current levy is up. This is pure extortion, of course, but it often works.

When I-695 passes, expect some of this to happen. With the funding that they believe they are "entitled to" decreased by even 2%, a certain number of politicians and bureaucrats will decide to turn vicious and "punish" the voters for taking "their" funding away from them. Either the voters will give in to extortion and vote to "restore these funds" or they will pick a particularly important issue to demonstrate the pain caused by the nasty initiative. Even in the current debate you see the seeds of these arguments. No one in opposition to this initiative talks about an across the board 2% cut or a cut of lower priority programs. They pretend that the dollars are locked into the current program lines and can't be (by and large) interchanged by the state legislature. That allows them to say that I-695 must be defeated to spare program "x" rather than having to address the ineffici

-- Gary Henriksen (henrik@harbornet.com), August 06, 1999

Answers

I have seen the same thing employed in Virginia. It often does work against the stupid taxpayers. If they do this we should call them on it and become enraged. If I-695 is blocked in court we should band together and refuse to pay this tax and dare them to put us in jail. A few of us would go to jail but they can't put thousands of us there if the rest of us raise holy hell. After I-695 we should find another tax to roll back and continue to do so until families can live on one income if that is what they desire. At the present we are not "free" we purchase freedom on the installment plan.

-- James Coats (deovin@whidbey.net), August 06, 1999.

Whoa Mr. Coats I'm not sure I'm up for another Whiskey Rebellion. I do believe that the Initiative power is a powerful force for overcoming the cozy relationship between the suppliers of governmental functions, and the politicians. We can, if we keep the initiatives coming, force privatization of many government functions, decrease the ability of interest groups (both corporate and union) to buy our legislators, and force the government to find efficiencies. But if we start yelling Aux barricades!" and waving black and red flags, we will play into the hands of those who would like to convince the public that initiatives are the playthings of radicals, and should be voted down (or the very concept of initiative stricken altogether from the state const

-- Gary Henriksen (henrik@harbornet.com), August 07, 1999.

Mr. Henriksen,

Your concern is shared. Our Constitution reserved two powers to the people. The first was the initiative, and it is still functional. The second was the Referendum, the right of the people to challenge legislative nonesense. We have this second power when the legislature declared the Mariners' stadium to be an emergency, and emergency legislation is not subject to the referendum process. Unfortunately, the %#&@^%*@!?#% Washington Supreme Court decided that whatever the legislature declares to be an emergency, is an emergency. So now many bills routinely declare themselves to be an emergency, obviating the possibility of a Referendum.

Let us hope the the Initiative power is retained for the people. The establishment doesn't like being challenged, and they may try to take away this constitutional power. Like maybe needing 2 million signatures?

-- Art Rathjen (liberty@coastaccess.com), August 07, 1999.