It’s well-know that Sound Transit (ST) has an insatiable desire for more of your tax dollars, as the bureaucrats running the show try to figure out how to get more money for more trains and tunnels through Seattle. As Shift has pointed out time and again, this year ST is trying to fool voters into giving it a permanent hold on taxes, so it won’t have to come back to voters again.
The Seattle Times took a close look at just how many taxes ST wants to grab with this year’s $54 billion-dollar Regional Transit Proposition, and the list takes a long, long time to get through.
Just consider the taxes shown in the sidebar that add up to your individual share of transit taxes in the Puget Sound region, according to the Times.
Of course, for all of these taxes, one might expect that traffic would get better – but, unfortunately, as a former Sound Transit CEO admitted, “We’ve never said we will reduce congestion.”
Instead, ST will focus on moving bus riders on to trains, so they can reduce the number of buses available to riders. Perhaps that is the bureaucrats’ idea of how to reduce congestion.
And the ST folks are very creative when it comes with keeping the tax dollars flowing their way. The Times story reveals that “ST3 taxes would stretch past the agency’s 2041 goal to finish the new rail, bus and park-and-ride projects, to finish repaying a proposed $11 billion in bonds… The last scheduled ST3 bond payment is 2068, or 30 years after the last bonds would be sold, the finance plan shows.”
But that’s not the whole truth, as the taxes don’t automatically go away once the bills are paid – it will be up to future ST “leaders” to make that decision, not the voters.
As ST’s current CEO reluctantly will admit. “Opponents claim the taxes are ‘permanent,’ but the word ‘indefinite’ better describes the situation. It’s a sensitive topic.
“‘We finance the projects,’ said Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff, during a debate. ‘…and then the taxes are rolled back, as required in the ballot measure, the taxes are rolled back to only the level needed to operate and maintain the projects that the voters approved.’ The full text of Sound Transit’s ballot resolution requires such a rollback to the levels needed for operations, but leaves final discretion to the future transit board.”
If you want to get even more depressed, you can use the Times’ own calculator to get an even clearer picture on how your own taxes might climb above the $1,000 per year mark, for a system that won’t be finished for 25 years – or longer.
If ST3 passes several things beyond what has been noted will happen. First, with the massive tax increases voters will be reluctant to vote for any other needed infrastructure projects and there will be further degradation of roads, bridges, water, sewer & etc. Second, ST3 will operate under a PLA or Project Labor Agreement which makes it a defacto Union only project and will start the unionization of all construction ball rolling. With ST3 and a PLA labor unions stand to rake around 425 millions of dollars from the project per year in dues and fees. With that kind of money they can further their influence in Olympia as well as the major metropolitan governments. Additionally they will be able to financially coerce private developers into implementing PLA’s on new projects with the threats of labor disputes and schedule delays as well as negative propaganda in media against hiring Open ( Merit) shop companies thus driving up the cost of private development and stifling future growth and investment in the region. This is not conjecture on my part as I have been a merit shop contractor in Seattle for +30 years and have seen the creep of forced unionization in public works projects and have been blocked from participating in projects my tax dollars fund. While the creep has been gradual, if ST3 passes everything changes and not for the better.
…with the massive tax increases voters will be reluctant to vote for any other needed infrastructure projects and there will be further degradation of roads, bridges, water, sewer & etc.
Well, we King County taxpayers already subsidize the conservative, Republican areas of the state to the tune of over $2B per year, so maybe we could just stop the gravy train to Eastern Washington, and pay for our own light rail here.
(The small-govermment types who always say they oppose big government spending should be fine with that, right?)
Squirrel!
Roots, since my point went right by you — rather like a Sounder train in broad daylight — I’ll spell it out for you:
ST3:
$54 Billion / 24 years = $2.25 Billion / year.
King County’s subsidy of Republican- voting areas of our state: $2.43 Billion / year.
We have the money. The question is, do we want to buy 66 miles of light rail, or spend more money on whatever we’re getting from Republicans now? (Please feel free to sell us on the latter.)
Tensor – Your response is irrelevant and immaterial. You ALWAYS trot out this argument when high taxes are discussed. This is NOT a state taxation issue, it is a local regional issue, therefore you wouldn’t have those tax dollar available as you infer.
Even if those revenues “stayed at home”, it still wouldn’t automatically make ST3 any less of a boondoggle nor a waste of taxpayer money.
That’s the point that consistently flies right over your head.
Your response is irrelevant and immaterial.
Yeah, from the way I describe it, you’d think money was fungible.
You ALWAYS trot out this argument when high taxes are discussed.
Yes, it’s like I know why we’re currently paying high taxes. (How about you tell us what we’re getting for paying those high taxes?)
This is NOT a state taxation issue, it is a local regional issue,
With the exact same source of funds. (Or do you believe the people paying the money should not decide how it should best be spent?)
…therefore you wouldn’t have those tax dollar [sic] available as you infer.
Actually, all we need is a law which says no county can receive more state benefits than it delivers in taxes to Olympia. (Are you saying our loudly self-proclaimed examples of self-reliant, rock-ribbed, small-government conservatives could ever possibly oppose such a law?)
Even if those revenues “stayed at home”, it still wouldn’t automatically make ST3 any less of a boondoggle nor a waste of taxpayer money.
Compared to what those revenues now buy? Again, please describe what we’re getting, and how it’s worth more than our buying regional mass transit here “at home.”
Actually, all we need is a law which says no county can receive more state benefits than it delivers in taxes to Olympia. Let’s be totally fair to all taxpayers and also pass a law that states: no individual can receive more state benefits than they deliver in taxes to Olympia. I’m sure you would press as hard for that law.
Sound Move estimated the first 25 miles of light rail would cost $1.8 billion.
The ST3 proposal estimates the cost for about 62 miles of light rail be over $34 billion.
56% more track for 95% more cost = boondoggle.
ST3 proposal:
$54 Billion / 24 years = $2.25 Billion / year.
The whole State of Washington only spends $4.35 billion a year in its transportation budget, and that includes the ferries and State Patrol. As many issues as they have had, that money moves more people and goods and services than light rail ever will.
ST3 = boondoggle. It costs too much and returns too little.
Let’s be totally fair to all taxpayers and also pass a law that states: no individual can receive more state benefits than they deliver in taxes to Olympia. I’m sure you would press as hard for that law.
Of course I would; as you can easily see at the link I provided, I currently receive sixty-five cents of state government services for every dollar I pay in state taxes. For my thus achieving parity, we taxpayers here in King County would have over $2 Billion per year to fund a great mass-transit system. Please let me know when your fellow conservatives will support this move towards less dependence upon govermment.
56% more track for 95% more cost = boondoggle.
$2.43 billion bought us what, again, exactly? Was it a “boondoggle”? Please explain.
The whole State of Washington only spends $4.35 billion a year in its transportation budget, and that includes the ferries and State Patrol. As many issues as they have had, that money moves more people and goods and services than light rail ever will.
So, what “transportation”
services does our State Patrol provide to commuters or goods? And what is your basis for projecting out to forever?
ST3 = boondoggle. It costs too much and returns too little.
What was our return on the $2.43 billion? You haven’t told us that yet.
Since you’re not going to answer any of the questions I’ve asked, nor will you provide any basis for comparison of public money spent, I’ll see you at the election.
Wow, you must have stock in a strawman factory.
ST is not a state issue and your pissing and moaning about your 65% return doesn’t matter.
The only reason I showed the WaDot data was to compare the size of statewide transportation spending to what was being asked for ST3. The bulk of ST2 and ST3 funding is primarily for only 116 miles of light rail.
Buses are less expensive, quicker to put into operation, and more flexible with scheduling and route changes. They can expand into growth areas that happen before the choo-choo is finished.
Light rail is a boondoggle.
What was our return on the $2.43 billion? You haven’t told us that yet.
I’m not justifying light rail, you are. You tell us what the benefit was. What percentage of commuters use light rail? How many were just forced transfers from bus routes? How did the first 14-21 miles of light rail reduce congestion in the region?
I’ve told you why I think it is, and always will be, a waste of taxpayer money. Your job is to explain why it is a valid expenditure.
ST is not a state issue…
Back to being not a state issue now. Right. Let us know when you have to flip-flop on that again. (Expediency is a harsh mistress, eh?)
… pissing and moaning about your 65% return doesn’t matter.
I haven’t been critical of King County’s massive and ongoing subsidies to the conservative and Republican regions of our state, though they have been both large and chronic. I’ve mentioned them because they are a relevant standard of comparison to the proposed expenditure on ST3, which you’ve loudly and repeatedly attempted to label a “boondoggle” without giving us any standard for that judgement.
See you at the ballot box.
Just as I predicted, a few comments (and days) ago. Thanks for the validation!
A boondoggle is a project that is considered a waste of both time and money, yet is often continued due to extraneous policy or political motivations. – wikipedia.
Sound Move vs ST3; 56% more track for 95% more cost = boondoggle.
I’ve told you why I think it is, and always will be, a waste of taxpayer money. Your job is to explain why it is a valid expenditure.
You failed.
Sound Move vs ST3; 56% more track for 95% more cost = boondoggle.
And again, I ask you: what numbers would you not call a “boondoggle”? Quoting wikipedia utterly fails to answer my question.
I’ve told you why I think it is, and always will be, a waste of taxpayer money.
No, you’ve quoted numbers without context — and loudly denied the context I attempted to provide, perhaps because King County already spends more money than the price tag on ST3 to get, um, something. Is that a “boondoggle,” by your definition? What is your definition? Give us some numbers, not just words from wikipedia.
Your job is to explain why it is a valid expenditure.
Actually, it’s not, because I never claimed it was a valid expenditure. That would involve doing an actual cost-benefit analysis of ST3 (including an estimated cost of not building ST3), and since you have shown no interest in doing anything of the kind, I’ll leave you here to yell “boondoggle!!1!’ to your heart’s content.
Again, thank you for the validation, and see you at the election.
“Well, we King County taxpayers already subsidize the conservative, Republican areas of the state to the tune of over $2B per year”
And you have a source for this ridiculous claim, Right?
Yes, it’s at the link I provided in this thread. Our state’s Office of Financial Management ran the numbers for FY2014, using three slightly different models, and reporting the results for each one. The model I quoted showed King County’s taxpayers contributing $6.8962 billion in state taxes, while the state spent $4.4646 billion in King County. That’s a difference of well over $2 billlion in just that one year alone.
(You’re free to quote the results of the other models if you wish; the resultant subsidy from King County is even larger.)
Would that be our state’s Office of Financial Management, in Thurston County? The county (according method 2) that received $8.55 expenditures for every dollar they contributed? You’ve identified the real drain on state taxes and it isn’t Eastern Washington. It’s the big-government leeches in Olympia. The same big-government leeches you moronic King County liberals keep sending back, year after year. You have no one to blame but yourself.
You’ve identified the real drain on state taxes and it isn’t Eastern Washington.
Yes, administering all that transfer of wealth from King County liberals to Eastern Washington conservatives requires lots of big government. Hence the cost of Olympia.
From an article on the 2008 report, properly titled “Welfare State,” which describes just how large those big-government transfers of wealth really are:
But perhaps the most glaring example of our rural welfare state comes in the category of “welfare” itself, where 2008 data from the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) clearly illustrates just how dependent on Western Washington tax dollars many Eastern Washingtonians have become. King County, home to our state’s largest concentration of urban poor, drew only $538 of DSHS expenditures per capita, ranking it 30th out of 39 counties. Meanwhile, such bastions of self-proclaimed self-sufficiency as rural Adams, Ferry, Pend Oreille, and Okanogan Counties consumed per capita DSHS benefits of over $900, while Yakima County—Washington’s “fruit basket”—topped the charts at $1,129 per person.
I will generously accept your apology for your having called my solid, factual claim “ridiculous,” — as soon as you make said apology, that is.
“administering all that transfer of wealth from King County liberals to Eastern Washington conservatives requires lots of big government”
Charging $8.55 to move $0.35 would make the mafia blush, but you’re cool with it because it’s government program. 96% Skim. That’s impressive. It’s way better than collecting tolls (75%) even better than the Clinton Foundation (93.1%)
Charging a quarter of a billion dollars for a statewide benefit of $0.00 would seem like a pretty sweet deal too. Oh, wait — it *is* the deal we’re getting on the North-South Spokane Freeway.
It’s even better than giving money to Shift (although I defer to your experience on that).
“Charging a quarter of a billion dollars for a statewide benefit of $0.00 would seem like a pretty sweet deal too”
Would that be the same kinda “sweet deal” as charging residents of the RTA 200 TIMES as much for an RTA system that they’ll maybe be able to use sorta in 25 YEARS, if ever?
And you totally fail to even mention the 96% skim on the wealth transfer. Idiot.
From the perspective of we Puget Sound taxpayers who’ll foot most of the bill for the North-South Freeway in Spokane, it’s a 100% skim on the wealth transfer.
You transit leeches are too busy sponging off RTA motorists to foot the bill for anything larger than a single shovel for the freeway in chronically underfunded Spokane County.
I guess just making up facts works a lot better for you than wrangling with, and then losing to, “ridiculous” numbers, eh?
*Every* argument made against ST3 works better against the North-South Freeway in Spokane. That you can’t ever figure this out is an endless source of amusement.
I wouldn’t try to use the “North-South Freeway” as an example. We’ve been waiting on that for decades and its completion continues to be hotly debated. In fact, the last I had read was that we may never see it completed.
In my 55+ years, living in Eastern Washington, that’s about the only honest statement I’ve ever heard about the project.
Exactly. Dont try to explain this to someone who thinks this RTA tax is going to help tax payers anywhere other than Metro King County. haha.
So you not only like big government, you like big government controlled by big labor ? My point is more about giving unions more control over state, county and city governments which drives up construction / operation costs and stifling competition for public works projects by mandating union only participation than the boondoggle factor of ST3 which on a scale of 1-10 is about a15. If you want to see the effect of more union control of public works in this state look no further than what the teachers unions have done to education.
So you not only like big government, you like big government controlled by big labor ?
So, you don’t just like non sequiturs, you like non sequiturs made from wildly undocumented assertions?
My point is more about giving unions more control over state, county and city governments …
Sound Transit is not part of any state, county, or city governments.
… what the teachers unions have done to education.
Teachers’ unions have been the only entities which had consistently demanded our legislature meet our state constitution’s requirement for funding education. Had legislators heeded our teachers’ unions, our legislature might now not be in contempt of court for failing to uphold our constitution.
Well, we King County taxpayers already subsidize the conservative, Republican areas of the state to the tune of over $2B per year, so maybe we’ll have to stop the gravy train to Eastern Washington to pay for light rail here.
1996 Sound Move – 25 miles, $3.9 billion; $156 million/mile
2008 ST2 – ~36 miles, $13.4 billion; $372 million/mile.
2016 ST3 – ~66 miles, $54 billion; $818 million/mile.
The cost is too high.
Seattle..you guys are the best….
This is why ST3 really is like an STD: https://www.wethegoverned.com/how-is-st3-like-an-std/