DISQUS

Steve Zemke MajorityRulesBlog · 1 month ago

Voters were right in rejecting ITim Eyman's Initiative 1033. It was a poison pill coated in sugar to deceive us. It promised property tax reduction, which sounds good, but the cost was two fold. Voters would have seen public services frozen at their current recession level. We would have been unable to rstore any services lost due to the current recession without repeated public votes at the state, county and city levels. It was too radical a change.

The second change the public would have seen was that I-1033 would have made our current tax system even more regressive. It would have taken sales taxes and B&O taxes paid by businesses and other fees and used them onlt to pay property taxes. The problem was the tax rebate was not based on the taxes everyone paid but only on the property you owned. The more property you had, the greater the rebate. Meanwhile renters who pay sales taxes and other fees would have seen no rebate but their taxes would have gone to pay other people's property taxes, like for million dollar homes, and corporations and shopping malls.

Yes we can all breathe a sigh of relief but also pause and think next time before you sign an initiative. It would be good for voters to read initiatives and understand what they do before you sign them. Some measures just do not deserve to go to the voters.