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PRESS RELEASE
 April 8, 2003
Contact: Jason Mercier,
Budget Research Analyst Taxpayers fight back OLYMPIA—Concerned taxpayers have joined forces to run a large, full-color newspaper ad that will appear in The Olympian tomorrow. The ad, which implores House representatives to follow the lead of Governor Locke and the recently passed Senate budget balanced without new taxes, is the second joint effort between The Mike Siegel Show on Seattle's KTTH 770 AM and the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF). The previous performance audit ad, which ran on April 2 in The Olympian, resulted in numerous contacts from concerned legislators regarding their performance audit bills. In the follow-up ad, Siegel and EFF highlight that state revenue is already increasing and that lawmakers would exacerbate the plight of Washington families and businesses by increasing tax rates during these difficult economic times. The new ad is captioned: "Shortage in Olympia? Not in money." Text below the caption continues, "You've probably heard about the catastrophic $2.6 billion deficit facing Olympia. What you probably haven't heard is that it doesn't exist." Recent media stories have noted that revenue for 2003-05 is actually increasing by $1.3 billion. This is the exact message taxpayers are trying to send to the legislature: that a deficit only occurs if lawmakers choose to spend more than forecasted revenue. "Tax increases during a recession backfire: overall tax revenue rarely increases as lawmakers had hoped," said Bob Williams, President of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. "Lawmakers should also remember that both parties have been swept from office following recessionary tax increases. The 1993 tax increases also ‘gifted' lawmakers with Initiative 601, imposed by angry taxpayers in 1994." "Speaker Chopp may be able to avoid a repeat if he moves forward with one of the two no-tax-increase budgets before him (the Governor's or the Senate's). He shouldn't continue to hold the taxpayers hostage to big-spending self-interest groups," warned Williams.
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1 Part Honesty; 2 Parts Arrogance At a March 23, 2005, House Appropriations hearing on a bill to gut the voter-approved I-601 spending limit, Rep. Jim McIntire (D) asked a supporter of I-601’s two-third supermajority requirement for the legislature to raise taxes the following question: "Can you name a time when we [legislators] have actually not just set it [supermajority requirement] aside by majority vote? I mean, this is in many respects a procedural motion that has no bearing. It’s a statutory constraint that cannot constrain any legislature that chooses as a majority to set it aside . . . have we ever used a supermajority [to raise taxes]?" - Rep. Jim McIntire (D - 46) Despite the arrogance of some state officials, Washington's constitution is clear: "All political power is inherent in the people..." |
