I have read many people's comments that government will reallocate money to programs that need it once I-695 passes. I have also read that the cut will be minor (around 2% ?) and that programs will not suffer too badly.

My main concern is that the first programs to face budget cuts will be police and fire protection, transportation funding and city and county budgets.

No matter how small, can we afford to cut these types of programs? Can any proponents tell me how much these programs will suffer? How long will it take for the government to redirect funds back into these programs after they lose the MVET money?

I am unsure of my position on this issue, and your responses are appreciated and will surely help me make up my mi

-- Concerned Citizen (washingtonian@hotmail.com), August 18, 1999

Answers

I-695 is long overdue. The State Legislature is incapable of limiting their spending so the people have to take control of the situation. We have to send a solid, unambiguous message to our legislators that what went on in the past will no longer be tolerated. This means that all of their pet projects will face the scrutiny of the people who put them there. As for the $30 limit, this is long overdue. Chaos will not ensue as many predict. The people of Colorado did the same thing to their legislators several years ago and they haven't gone under yet. As a matter of fact, they have reduced spending dramatically and over 70% of issues put to the people have passed. That is because they do not put forth frivolous, pet projects to build constituent loyalty. They work to put the citizens of the state first and that is as it should be. VOTE YES I-695.

-- Bob King (robert.t.king@boeing.com), August 18, 1999.

Your concerns are well warranted. Although supporters claim that the state government can redistribute its wealth (the surplus) to make up for losses at the county and city level, there are a few problems with that theory. First is that the state has no responsibility to do this in the first place. Cities and counties are responsible for making sure that they fund their own programs, and the state responsible for their programs. It is unlikely that the state will cut its own programs in favor of local ones. The second issue is that even if the state does decide to reallocate funding to the local level, it will not be immediate. Such funding would probably not make it to the cities and counties until mid-next year. In the mean time, the local budgets will be finalized in December of this year, they will not be able to assume they will receive the funding, and they will be required to make cuts. The final issue is that the budget surplus is a one time thing. Even if the legislature could muster the 2/3 vote to spend the money (unlikely), it would be exhausted in less than one year, and eveyone would be facing the same budgetary questions.

Individual counties and cities would be affected differently depending on how much they depend on the various funds. The Sales Tax Equilization funding goes towards cities and counties that don't have as much commercial development, while the Distressed County funding goes to assist the rural counties whose economies are struggling.

You should contact your county and city governments for information on how 695 would affect them. They all know now how much funding they will lose, and many of them have started planning on how they will address this. Supporters of 695 have set up a nice catch 22 situation, where they agree that government will be required to do some belt tightening, but when any of these governments announce what specific belt tightening they will do, they are called "Chicken Little" scare tactics. The simple fact is that most counties and cities provide just basic services like police and fire protection, road construction, and planning. There is very little beyond that in which most counties and cities provide, so when they discuss cuts, they will have to consider them in these areas.

I'm sure this post will be followed by several complaining about the waste in state government, and how their particular local government won't be affected that much. That's fine. But the fact is that there will still be a great many local jurisdictions, who don't have much if any fat to trim before they start cutting into so called "vital" services.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), August 19, 1999.

Patrick is making a lot more sense to me right now than Bob - I have a hard time justifying fire and police protection as "pet projects" and I really don't think that the transportation budget can be considered a "pet project" either.

I will agree with Bob in that the legislature shouldn't feel as if they can spend our tax dollars on frivolous expenses, but I have yet to see that the MVET money is currently going anywhere but to projects that deserve and need funding.

Any thoughts from other proponents??

-- Concerned Citizen (Washingtonian@hotmail.com), August 19, 1999.

Well there are 'proponents' 'opponents' and 'red-herrings'. First off NO ONE can give you information on what will be cut and what will not be cut. Information like that does NOT exist.

All the people who give you detailed information about how much 'fire' 'police' or any other 'fearful' thing will be reduced is talking through their hat.

Actually NOTHING will need to be 'cut' because ALL budgets have been INCREASED.

What possibly will happen is that all the EXTRA money that they wanted to squander won't be there for them to play with.

There is NO reality in the requirements put forth in these budgets because they aren't REQUIREMENTS.....they are DESIRES.

There are many useless programs that are ignored by all the people who are against i-695..

For example the TWO MILLION DOLLAR STUDY OF THE 520 FLOATING BRIDGE. It cost TWO MILLION BUCKS to determine that it needed to be widened so to accomodate the traffic flow. And now there needs to be an enviromental study to figure out just how that can be done.

Do none of you 'extremely intelligent and educated people' understand that such activity is a pure waste of time and money? That is just one GLARING example and there are hundreds, maybe even thousands.

And 'Concerned Citizen' you are not doing your job. Intelligent people can see through the facade and understand that you are trying to create confusion and doubt in the minds of the supporters by pretending to be a 'concerned' citizen instead of a manipulator.

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), August 19, 1999.

Contrary to what Maddjak claims, there are quite concrete figures that you can find on how much money will be cut. He will probably argue the semantics behind what defines a "cut" and that projected funds do not constitute real funds. The fact is that the numbers are projections, but after 62 years of collecting the MVET, the state has gotten quite good at projecting how much money it will bring in via this tax the next year.

Regardless of this fact, budget writers at the county and city levels make their budgets based upon these projections in December, and they don't change them until the next year, unless they receive even less funds than they predicted. So if the budget writers are told that they will receive less money than anticipated, they will take that into account. For some, that will mean a reduction in the growth of their budget (of course inflation and population growth are always a main factor when budget growth is discussed), for others, they will indeed see a year over year real dollar reduction in funding.

All counties and cities have the information on how much funding they are projected to receive if 695 fails, and thus, how much money they won't receive if 695 passes. And regardless of what Maddjak says, they can (or will) be able to tell you what items they would spend the funds on if they receive the funding, and what items they won't be doing if they don't receive the funding. You can argue about the decision not to buy new police cars, or hire new employees as being a "cut," but it would be very hard to argue that the elimination of existing programs and jobs are not cuts.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), August 19, 1999.

When I ask questions about the specific impacts of I-695, it seems that I only recieve concrete numbers and facts from opponents, and ranting criticisms from proponents.

I am waiting for arguments that can correctly inform me about how I-695 will BENEFIT the economy of Washington state, how I-695 will not cut the programs that most benefit individual citizens and how I-695 will not make my commute time longer or the roads in front of my apartment worse.

Please do not cite that Washington is the "Xth highest taxed state in the nation" or sources that have an obvious bias or political slant. All I am seeking is the truth - I would love to pay only $30 next year for my car but I need good reasons to vote "yes" on this initiative.

But right now, I am tired of reading tirades by supporters, and am ready for some cold hard facts.

Thank you.

-- Concerned Citizen (washingtonian@hotmail.com), August 19, 1999.

Okay Concerned Doofus, if you think you're so cool why don't you go down to Olympia yourself and file you're own initiative. Ralph Munro is just waiting to take all your money so he can spend it on a new cadillac and you probably want him to to you are such a shill for Big Government. If you had any guts you would give him a good stomping and take the money back, but you won't cause you are a whiny liberal woosie. Your arguments have no substance. Why don't you just accept the afct that we are right and you are wrong. Take it like a man or go cry home to your mommy.

-- Travelodge (flame@troll.com), August 19, 1999.

When politicians are threatened by loss of power and tax money, their first reaction is to cut programs like transportation projects and community protection services. This is to create a sense of urgency to continue spending and increasing taxes to support their own agendas, never mind what the people want. It's no wonder I-695 has been presented.

The biggest expense of any organization is employee payroll. If you want budget cuts that do not cut necessary services, explore government employee compensation packages, specifically retirement. Government retirement programs average the last three years of an employee's salary, then that average is used as an annual retirement salary. Government agencies maintain small staffs to maximize overtime pay. Once three years of an overtime-enhanced salary is established and the employee retires, the government must pay the inflated retirement salary. How many former employees are enjoying this "benefit"?

The argument that somehow the state is going to "lose" money is completely absurd. In business a loss is referred to as less earnings for a time period in comparison to the same time period one year earlier. For example if Boeing states earnings for a quarter represent a "loss", it means the earnings were less than the same quarter one year earlier. Boeing still had sales and still had revenue coming in, it just happened to be less. Boeing would not necessarily raise prices to cover this loss. They would look at ways to maximize efficiencies and maintain customer loyalty by not raising prices. Government should take this same approach.

Maybe I-695 could also allow for voters to have the final say on what agencies, programs or services should be cut too. Thank you.

-- James Feczko (jimfive@hotmail.com), August 19, 1999.

Mr. Jak- There is NO reality in the arguements put forth by 695 proponents because vehicles aren't RREQUIREMENTS...they are DESIRES. If you really want to attack this problem at its source than you should probably try to propose an ammendment to the bill of rights: The inherent and inalienable right to drive a car? and another thing: USING CAPITAL LETTERS DOES NOT CONVINCE ME OF YOUR ARGUEMENT, IT ONLY CONVINCES ME OF YOURE MASTERY OF THE "SHIFT" KEY. ooo neeto! I think I just mastered it too!

-- Nate (ilduche@u.wa.edu), August 19, 1999.

Dear el douche

Glad you got the shift key down. Work on spelling and grammar.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), August 19, 1999.

What is extremely obvious is that all of the opponents and shills on this forum refuse to acknowledge SPECIFIC government waste in anything. And they pretend to be conscientious and concerned citizens who have nothing but our welfare uppermost in their minds. There have been no facts figures or documentation presented that support any of the outrageous claims put forth by them.

But there is ample evidence that the resources at the UW are definitely being squandered..

The duchess, jeff, and whoever else who squat in the library represent how poorly government does everything.

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), August 19, 1999.

Cheer up, Tim, er, ah, maddjak: at least our football team scandals are catching up to those of your alma mater (Wazoo)! The administration here must be doing something right!

-- Si Dawg (hiyonkrak@u.washington.edu), August 19, 1999.

Dear Concerned,

You asked how will I695 benefit the state. I think the point is that individually we don't work for the state. Each of us works for our own benefit. Just think what the government could do if they took 60% or 70% of your income.

We know people from Denmark who pay a70% tax rate. Their ecomony is stagnant. Unemployment is rampant. The government takes care of everyone but it appears to me that they have ground down into a state of comfortable servitude laced with long periods of inactivity.

I don't work for the state. I work for my own benefit. I have attempted to add up all the taxes that I pay on my car, water, sewer, power, phone, property and gas. It's an incredible amount of money!

It's not irrelevant to say that we are somewhere in the top taxed states. It impacts our lives everyday. How many people drive from car repair to car repair because they can't afford a new one. Their kids are clothed from second hand stores and Target. They clip cupons and watch for sales. Yet the government can always take more and more of our money. The average car owner would save $142. That may be chump change to you, but that's real money in our house.

Don't ask me how handing that money over to the state is going to benefit them. I work so that it can benefit me.

-- K. Loucks (kaljhsjr@sttl.uswest.net), August 21, 1999.

If you want to find out the impact of 695 on your local city, ask any local elected offical or your city manager. In our small city, 7000 population, we'll lose about $625,000 or 26% of our annual general fund budget. If 695 passes we'll have no choice but to cut services and heads. Even if the State does something to help( which I doubt), it would take them months, if not years, to figure it out.

-- john wiltse (johnwiltsejr@hotmail.com), August 23, 1999.

The legislature could solve the problems the small cities have with the loss of MVET revenue. They could direct 0.2% of the sales tax to compensate for the loss of MVET revenue. This could be done with a majority vote of both houses and the Govenors signature. This would help reduce the rate of growth of the surplus. The state's take from the sales tax is currently 6.5%. A reduction to 6.3% is not drastic.

-- RD (Monte) Benham (rmonteb@aol.com), August 24, 1999.

In answer to John Wiltse comments below "If you want to find out the impact of 695 on your local city, ask any local elected offical or your city manager. In our small city, 7000 population, we'll lose about $625,000 or 26% of our annual general fund budget. If 695 passes we'll have no choice but to cut services and heads. Even if the State does something to help( which I doubt), it would take them months, if not years, to figure it out."

Yes ask any of them. They will gladly lie to you about all of it. The entire commentary is false.

If you have no choice but to cut services and heads then maybe, just maybe someone in your local government has enough brains to shed the useless garbage in your system.

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), August 24, 1999.

I would like to respond to Mr. Wilse's comments on August 23. First, I am hopeful that this forum can be civil and not flame out over everything that is asked. I know there is suspicion, that may be true, that some are posing as if they are concerned when they are just trying to confuse things. Still, I would hope we could keep things civil. Although it seems a bit steep to me, I am willing to grant your hypothesis that your town will lose $625,000 in revenue from the MVET if I-695 passes. I totally disagree, however, in your conclusion: "we'll have no choice but to cut services and heads." There is an obvious choice that you did not mention: Convince voting majority of your small town that the $625,000 is of sufficiently high priority that taxes should be raised directly (or other user fees increased for things which the city provides). If your fellow citizens believe as you evidently do that the services produced for the $625,000 are critical then they will most likely vote to raise the necessary funds. If, when faced with the prospect of keeping the $625,000 in the hands of those who paid it in the MVET or raising their own taxes, the voting majority decide that they do not think the $625,000 of city services are as important as keeping the taxes as they are, then the people do not really think as highly of the services as you may. Of course, those who believe each side of the issue would have the opportunity to convince their fellow voters of the "rightness" of their view. This Initiative does not limit the amount of money that government can obtain through taxes. It just says that the majority of voters will directly have to agree to any higher taxes than currently exist in the relevant jurisdiction. Since those who fear loss of revenue will know whether I-695 passes two months before it is effective it will give people time to plan and scedule votes on any desired tax increases without much dislocation if such increases should pass. Thus, the only real fear that I can understand is if you feel that the majority do not actually believe as you do. But that is the price of democracy. I hope this is helpful as you consider this issue.

-- Vancouver car owner (KCEEPeters@aol.com), August 24, 1999.