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Friday, November 3, 2006
Preventing chaos
Voters in Seattle and King County are motivated by certain priorities in life, among which are environmental protection, quality of life, education and fairness. That's why voters here will -- and should -- soundly reject Initiative 933 and Initiative 920.
Initiative 933 would box local governments into a lose-lose choice to play along or pay up on illegal land use, tossing out duly passed laws and regulations as much as a decade old. It echoes Oregon's Measure 37, under which more than $6 billion in landowner claims have been filed. I-933 would hand taxpayers the multibillion-dollar bill for protecting environmental quality and quality of life.
Initiative 920 is simply a tax break for heirs to multimillion-dollar estates. The other 95.5 percent of Washington taxpayers would be expected to take up the slack, or accept the $100 million a year loss to public education funding. Middle- and low-income families in this state already pay a disproportionate share of their hard-earned money. It seems reasonable to ask fortunate heirs to large estates to pick up their fair share of the load. I-920 would lighten the load on the state's wealthiest descendants.
And on top of all that, each of these initiatives will guarantee years of policy chaos ahead. It's important to vote no on I-933 and I-920.
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