|
Printer Friendly |
Car-tab initiative would erode state's quality of life
Car-tab initiative would erode state's quality of life
YOU'VE met these people, at least you know the type: the millionaire eager to
get out of paying his car tabs; the neighbor with the shiny new Ford Excursion
who doesn't care if his vote for the car-tab initiative reduces police, fire and
bus service; the friend with four cars who'd rather pay for two.
Owners of fancy cars will save up to $1,200 per car if Initiative 695 passes,
and many will vote accordingly. But when the rest of us take a closer look,
we should recognize I-695 puts the interests of people with glitzy cars far
ahead of the common good.
I-695 does three things at once.
It sets car tabs at $30 and wipes out $750 million a year for state government,
including a bundle of cash for local governments.
The initiative calls for a public vote on every tax and fee increase imposed
by government - down to ping-pong ball rentals at the community center. Supporters
say that's a scare tactic, their answer to almost every credible challenge.
Read the proposed law. That's what it says.
Most insidiously, I-695 kills the transportation package voters approved a
year ago. Vote for I-695 and learn to love your traffic jam, because more are
on the way.
Supporters ask people to lie back, meditate, take a chance and join the nationwide
fad.
They never tell you this proposal is the most extreme car-tab measure in the
country. Several other states have approved car-tab reductions, but most of
those roll back the tax gradually over a few years. No other state approved
a car-tab plan that whacks car taxes in one year and combines that with a stringent
voter-approval requirement for all taxes and fees.
"It's right out on the far reaches," says Scott Mackey, chief economist for
the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan research organization.
Washington's initiative would be very disruptive in terms of its impact on state
and local governments.
In addition to being a wealth transfer, this initiative alters the way government
operates by using the Trojan Horse of cheaper license tabs.
Several tax-cut enthusiasts confide that sponsors of I-695 went too far.
Further than Colorado, a state that decided to require a public vote on tax
increases. Colorado voters do not approve fee increases, because the public
twice rejected attempts to require votes on fees.
Requiring a vote on tax and fee increases is an absurd abandonment of representative
government. You elect candidates to do the work; let `em do it.
Colorado has a state income tax, which grows along with a booming economy.
In Montana, which also has an income tax, the Legislature is rolling back car
tabs gradually over a few years, not in the fall-off-the-cliff style Washington
is being asked to bless.
Montana slashed car tabs by one third and will ask voters next November if
they want flat fees - for example, $195 for newer cars.
In separate action, voters, not lawmakers, agreed to require a public vote
on all tax and fee increases - a vote that held about 10 minutes until the Montana
Supreme Court ruled the measure unconstitutional.
Many individuals backing I-695 do so because they consider the car tax burdensome.
They detest the way the bill presents itself - separate, all at once and not
wrapped into any other payment. Sponsors, using funny numbers, keep saying Washington's
taxes are sixth-highest in the nation.
That's misleading. Washington's tax burden is actually 11th in the nation,
and its household tax burden is lowest of the Western states, according to the
fiscally conservative Washington Research Council. Businesses taxes, by contrast,
are the highest in the West.
Washingtonians care about taxes but they also expect smooth delivery of services,
which is one reason I believe cooler heads will prevail and defeat this initiative.
Another reason this plan has a chance of going down to defeat is this: No
other state that approved car-tax reductions simultaneously undid the transportation
program voters blessed one year earlier. Referendum 49, approved last November,
authorizes the use of license-tab money to finance $2 billion worth of road
improvements.
If I-695 passes, it's back to the drawing board - back to a gas-tax increase
- for a Legislature that concocted R-49 as a pain-free way to ease gridlock.
Total amount of time wasted on road projects: four years.
I-695 also cuts police, transit, fire and public-health programs.
Proponents of I-695 set up a straw-man argument: Life won't end if their initiative
passes, they say.
Nobody said it would.
But as services decrease, the initiative will gradually chip away at tangible
and intangible things that make Washington a better place to live. Quality of
life will start to go downhill.
Joni Balter's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times.
Her e-mail address is: jbalter@seattletimes.com
