RE: For Discussion

["Ron Force" <rforce@moscow.com>]

The other day I was reading a discussion of the referendum process in
Washington and its schizophrenic nature.  On one hand, they vote more
expenditures for roads, teacher's pay, and smaller classes.  On the other
hand, they cut the taxes used to pay for these goodies. The commentator
(sorry, can't remember who) stated that the voters were't stupid, they had
just bought into the soundbite "government wastes money". They think that if
only government would spend it on the right stuff, and cut out the waste,
there'd be plenty to do the things the public wants done. There's been such
a relentless drumbeat over the last couple of decades in the media and talk
radio from one political faction that it's almost reflexively assumed to be
true. Tim Eyman rode it to infamy.

The critics have been bashing Washington State government for increasing the
number of government employees.  The budget director pointed out that the
two biggest growth areas in employment were state colleges and universities
and prison guards because of the growth in "customers", neither of which the
public would want to restrict.

It was interesting to see Ron Rankin's attitude change when he became a
Kootenai County commissioner and had to start dealing with reality.  He even
voted to raise taxes to pay for the county jail (albeit the sales tax).

********************************************
Ron Force	      	  rforce@moscow.com
Moscow Idaho USA
********************************************


> -----Original Message-----
> From: thansen@moscow.com [mailto:thansen@moscow.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 4:26 PM
> To: Vision2020
> Subject: Re: For Discussion
><snip>
>
> My impression is that some people want everything given to them free.  My
> definition of "free" is that somebody else pays for it.  In this
> case it may be
> paid for by the next generation and they may be paying for it
> sooner than we
> think as we send them off to school.
>