I-695 does NOT cut spending (repost)

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After Olympia's Transportation meeting on I-695, I called the state budget office, and was told the following:

1. The initiative will be responsible for a 3% drop in funding

2. The proposed budget for 99-2000 increased spending approximately 7.6%

3. The net effect on the budget by I-695 is to hold the INCREASE IN SPENDING to 4.6%

I'm currently engaged in a line-by-line examination of the new budget. I'm about one-quarter finished, and already the numbers show that a lowering of the increase to 4.6% is easily achieved.

For instance, if the pay raises for government employees were cancelled, it would take care of the entire shortfall by itself.

Projected spending just on new computer equipment (much of it only 3 years old), including the purchase of new laptops, accounts for over $6 million.

One government agency wants to spend $25,000 on one photo copier and 3 paper shredders.

The House, because it's split 50-50, wants to continue to pay two, $104,000 Chief Clerks, one for each party. That's $416,000 for two part-time positions.

Another $8 million is budgeted for the creation of new data bases. What's so bad about the current ones, that an EIGHT MILLION DOLLAR FIX is needed?

Another quarter-of-a-million-dollars is set aside for a millennium party.

There's over $60 million budgeted to add a third lottery draw, and $100,00 for "problem gambling".

All this, and I'm just ONE QUARTER of the way through the budget. God knows what the figures will be when I'm finished.

No, a 4.6% increase in spending, rather than a 7.6% one, is quite reasonable. There will BE no need to cut vital programs. The proof is right there, in the budget, for anyone to see.

If my legislators think I'm going to buy their doomsday predictions, they'd better be prepared to prove to me they're right. They've certainly proven they're not good stewards of the people's money.

And, because of that, they've lost MY trust.

D. Baird

-- D. Baird (newstar@pacifier.com), August 12, 1999

Answers

Once there was a farmer who owned a chicken ranch. One day he awoke to a sunrise, without hearing his rooster crow. He looked out and saw the rooster dead in the middle of the barnyard with buzzards circling menacingly over the carcass. As might be expected, egg production subsequently plummeted and he was facing financial ruin. He put an article in the local paper for another rooster. That eveninghe heard a knock on the door. He opened it and saw.... nothing. As he was closing the door a voice said, "Wait, down here..." Looking down, he saw a small bantam rooster. The rooster told him he was applying for the job. Not wanting to hurt the rooster's self esteem, the farmenr told him as gently as possible that what was needed was a he-man type rooster, to keep the hens happy and increase egg production, Meaning no offense, the farmer just didn't think the bantam rooster was the right rooster for the job. The rooster said," Look you don't have ANY rooster right now. What would it hurt to give me a try?" The farmer said OK. The next morning he was awakened by the crowing of the rooster and looked out to see the rooster chasing all the hens all over the barnyard. The hens were happy, egg production soared, the farmer became prosperous. He decided to expand upon his good fortune by buying several hundred more laying hens. The rooster was active from dawn to dusk. Egg production reached staggering heights. The rooster was losing weight and moving more slowly. The next morning, the farmer awoke at sunrise to silence. He looked out to see the rooster collapsed in the barnyard with the buzzards spiraling down. In great remorse at having worked the little fellow to death, he went out to pick up the body to give the rooster a dignified burial. As he approached the rooster, one eye opened and the roostrer said "Go away." The farmer was astounded and said,"I thought you were dead." The rosster looked overhead as he replied, "Naw.... If you're gonna screw a buzzard, you gotta play a buzzard's game." The point, of course, is that unless we are willing to get into the budget documents and make them defend things like this, we will always be at the mercy of the bureaucrats. They're boring documents, it's not fun, but (particularly with more and more of them on the Web) it can be done. This line item by line item examination is the only way we are going to keep the bureaucrats and the politicians honest. If you are gonna screw a buzzard.........

Gary Henriksen

-- Gary Henriksen (henrik@harbornet.com), August 12, 1999.


Don't forget much of the tab money goes to county and city governments. Doubt they have much fat in their budgets. Why shouldn't state employees get a pay raise?

-- Russell Miller (rmiller@insidechess.com), August 18, 1999.

Russell- Don't forget much of the tab money goes to county and city governments.

Actually, a lot more of it goes to transit and the ferries. Some certainly does go to county and city governments however, with certain towns like University Place getting a fairly high (30-40%) of their budgets from the MVET. Most get much less, 5-6%. I wonder why the disparity?

Doubt they have much fat in their budgets. Probably a good reason for the state legislature to reallocate funding from ALL state programs to equitably distribute the shorfall. That would bring their budgets down to 98% of their programmed funding, but still more than they got last year.

Why shouldn't state employees get a pay raise? Why shouldn't taxpayers get a tax cut? There's a surplus of a billion (and increasing). If not now, when? Would you do it when we're running a deficit? If you can picture no circumstances under which you would approve of a tax cut, just say so and be done w

-- Gary Henriksen (henrik@harbornet.com), August 18, 1999.


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