The joining of the No-Tax crowd with the Greens

Proposition 1 failed last week. But there is no single reason why it failed, rather a coalition of normally opposed groups coming together to defeat a large umbrella project that would have cost billions with no accountability.

A letter written to the Seattle Times:

It should be readily apparent to even the densest Democrat that the results of Tuesday’s election are saying loud and clear: NO MORE TAXES FOR LIGHT RAIL, RAPID TRANSIT, STAGECOACH OR ANY OTHER FORM OF MASS TRANSPORT!

This society is not a society of cattle-car movement. We are not going to abandon our cars to satisfy the ego of politicians aspiring to be amateur social engineers at any level of government, and those who persist on this course of action will find themselves unelected next November.

Get back on the job and give us more freeways and better and safer bridges.

Have done with the foo-foo hand-wringing and procrastination and get on with the job.

Another letter tried to claim that the reason the measure failed was not because of environmental concerns. Really? Because environmental concerns about unchecked and unsustainable development are exactly why I opposed Prop 1. I liked the parts of the proposal that called for better mass transit and disdain the attitude that voters are unwilling to “abandon our cars” even facing rising gas prices and environmental harm. I opposed the measure because of the massive expansion of freeways, not increased spending on mass transit. It seems that the author of this letter felt the opposite way. This is why Prop 1 was such a debacle. Put these separate issues in separate ballot measures and see which ones get passed. If there really is opposition to light rail that measure will fail. If there is enough support for expanding suburban freeways a freeway proposition will pass.

If the fallout and varying opinions on Prop 1 teach Washington politicians anything it should be that you can’t bundle many issues (each with their own support and opposition) together and expect to get a clear picture of what voters are thinking. Put light-rail on the ballot by itself. I’ll vote for it.

Voters turn down spending, higher taxes

Both here in Washington and in Oregon some big ballot measures just failed (as well as around the country). The most notable are Proposition 1, a huge transportation expansion measure, and a SCHIP-like bill in Oregon. Additionally, several other measures failed all over the country. There are numerous explanations for why each measure failed, the NY Times attributed the failure of the Oregon healthcare initiative to deceptive advertising opposing the measure that was financed by Big Tobacco. What the Times doesn’t mention is that the tobacco companies opposed the measure by portraying it as a “blank check” for the government.

The NY Times uses the opportunity to decry the role of money in politics, since supporters of the measure could only send 25% of what opponents could. This logic doesn’t hold, however, when you look at the fund raising and spending done for and against Proposition 1 in Washington. Proponents spent far more money than the opposition and the measure still failed. Along with it, a state constitutional amendment requiring a portion of revenues be put into a hard-to-tap “rainy day fund” passed, a measure requiring a 2/3 majority to raise taxes also passed, and a measure to reduce the threshold from 60% to 50% to raise school taxes looks like it will fail (not all votes have been counted yet).

For me it looks like people are asking the government for more fiscal restraint as voters were unwilling to approve massive bills that could raise money for any number of projects. Personally? I opposed Proposition 1 and I’m glad it failed. My main problem with it was that it lumped too many things together. Want to build a light-rail system to supplement I-5? Sure! Put it on the ballot by itself and I’ll vote for it. But don’t try to lump in a massive expansion of 405 that will encourage suburban sprawl and do very little to help reduce gasoline consumption or CO2 emissions. More roads mean more cars, not less.

The bottom line for me? There are many reasons why certain measures passed and certain measures failed, but I think that they all revolve around the fact that voters are getting more and more skeptical of expanding government spending, especially in non-specific bundles, and the higher taxes that go along with it. I would have voted for a measure to expand light rail, and against one to expand freeways. But because they were lumped together I could do neither. I’m sure some people would have voted the opposite way. But at least we’d know which projects have popular support and which don’t. But asking for billions for a laundry list of projects turned out to be too much to ask.