Initiative causes simultaneous spending and cutting
I agree with Danny Westneat that we elect public officials to make decisions and lead [“Divining the will of the people,” NWSunday, Feb. 28]. Government by poll does not work and more importantly for Washington state: trying to run our state budget process by initiative does not work.
We voters want low taxes. We also want good education, transportation and public safety. The only problem is that our initiatives don’t have to make the numbers add up.
In 1993, Washington voters passed the “three strikes” initiative to lock up prisoners for life — a very expensive idea. The same year we also passed I-601 to limit taxes. Neither of these initiatives detailed where the money would come from. Likewise, in 2000, voters passed I-728 to limit class sizes — which also costs money — while also passing I-722 to limit taxes.
Sure, I could vote for less taxes and more programs all day, but I’m not the one who has to make the trade-offs or hard choices. That’s what we elect legislators to do and we should let them do their job. It’s not a perfect process, but it’s far superior to “pseudo government” by initiative.
— Melanie Mayock, Seattle
Partisan politics created budget deficit
With all due respect, I disagree with David Johnson’s letter that supported bypassing I-960 and raising more taxes [“Bypassing Initiative 960: Alternative to taxes is unacceptable,” Northwest Voices, Mar. 1]. I believe The Seattle Times’ editorial calling for more fundamental tightening of operational purse strings was on point [“Democrats should have kept two-thirds rule,” Opinion, Feb. 28].
Just look at the business basics. Gov. Chris Gregoire and her predecessor added more than 14,500 public employees. After giving public employees excellent pensions and benefits over the years, our governor double-dipped for her voter personnel by significantly jumping their salaries when she took office. Also, she waived more than $100 million of annual revenue sharing from Indian casinos — the only state in the nation to do so.
Ironically, she got substantial contributions from both groups for her political campaign. In my personal and professional opinion, partisan politicians with law degrees that give away money to their constituencies just do not seem to understand the business of managing a budget — or have an interest in doing so.
— Harvey Gillis, Bellevue