Eyman Funding

[Superman]

To all my Washington State neighbors who have favored Mr. Eyman's admittedly self-serving initiatives:

I'm tired of being stuck in traffic. When is Tim Eyman scheduled to announce how much money he has found for transportation infrastructure? He and many others say that gubmit is so wasteful that we should reduce taxes AND expect gubmint to improve roads and increase their capacity. Of course, none of our legislators would agree with that, since they are "insiders" as opposed to the "outsiders" who think they can have better roads and lower taxes. The governor has just proposed a tax increase, and no one is balking except "outsiders" who appear to be clueless.

So, I'm interested in the second part of Mr. Eyman's (who I'm using as a caricature of "outsiders" here) theory. He's convinced everyone to avoid taxes, but when is he going to find the needed money? Our legislature has been on a witch hunt for this wasted money for fifteen years and cannot find more, so we're wondering if the heros and spokemen among "outsiders" have delivered on the second part of their theory. My most accounts we are behind in transportation infrastructure somewhere over $100 BILLION dollars. At least. That is conservative.

This is going to be really expensive if we find that Mr. Eyman is wrong, and we're this far behind. So....where's the money going to come from? Or are you just happy with traffic jams that put a noose around the neck of our local economy?

[arcsine]

I am of the opinion that Timmy was delusional in the beginning and just blowing the "cut spending" horn because it was easy. Unfortunately lots of folks love to hear the sound of that and bought into it without thinking of ramifications. Well, Seattle and most of Western Washington is in a transportation hole so deep, they will never crawl out of it (failed before it starts light rail, monorail with promise but questions, failing viaduct, I-5 in need of lots of help, Mercer St, Narrows Bridge, I-405, Sammamish Valley development, just to name a few).
Sad thing it roads are just one aspect of the problem. How about the Seattle School District going bankrupt as another indicator of failed budgets. Or the fact that in higher education, we have not received even a cost of living adjustment since 2000 and will not get a raise or COLA this year either.

[Superman]

I know this, Gary, and you know it and many others do as well. And it's not just a somewhat bad thing. The deterioration of our transportation and education infrastructure is going to hurt us badly.

Anyway, thanks for your opinion. Sometimes I feel alone around all these gubmit-bashing outsiders. Sounds like you have accurate information. Oh BTW, you mentioned the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Project. There's one where the powers that be were afraid of using public dollars to construct a bridge, which would have been in my humble view, the best longterm strategy. Instead it's one of those glorious public/private partnerships where the public takes all the risk and a private company takes all the revenue. It's going to be a toll bridge of course, so the taxpayer can pay for it twice or three or four times.

[Superman]

Seriously. If Mr. Eyman's ideas are so good, when can I expect he will announce the (no taxes) funding plan to ease gridlock? Any how does he know more than our governor and legislators?