The Road to Ruin...good intentions!
Tim Eyman had the state by its tail.
The savvy anti-tax crusader had power. People listened when he spoke. They gave money when he asked. As his influence increased with every successful voter initiative, Eyman had lawmakers seeking his advice before they made decisions...
..."I get no money promoting the various initiatives. I make a lot of money selling watches," he said then. "I don't need any extra."
Sunday, he acknowledged that was a lie.
He had paid himself $45,000 for the 2000 initiative campaign, and he planned to pay himself another $157,000 for last year's initiative. [by Candy Hatcher, Seattle P-I]
...you don't have to live in Washington State to appreciate this story. This gas-bag has strangled this state's budget over the past four years with his 'grassroots' initiative campaigns. Voters have lapped it up and are now faced with a devastated budget and politicians who are at a loss on what to do.
Washington State has the most screwed up tax system in the country. We have no state income tax (at least I could have written that off). We have a high sales tax, something called the B&O Tax that screws small business, big business gets exemptions galore, and we pay just about the highest gasoline tax in the country. Our booze is really expensive and when we need new revenue the only thing the State can do is raise "sin taxes." Property taxes aren't great either. We won't even talk about the state of our roads...traffic hell does not even begin to describe the hell that has become the commute.
So what do we do? We have been cutting taxes and fees all over the place. Then we restrict the legislatures ability to deal with the mess. In the end we are looking at a meltdown.
So what am I predicting...
Boeing is leaving town. I think they will be sucking jobs out of area. That was the reason they moved the headquarters to Chicago..no other reason mattered. Microsoft is heading for a huge brick wall with the Anti-Trust case. I expect that we will see a collapse of the housing market by the end of this year...just like California, Arizona, and Texas before us...hold on, cause the ride is going to get a little bumpy...mj
1:01:39 PM 
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