Proving that raising taxes is always a good way to rally the liberal base in King County, a Sound Transit support group – Seattle Subway – is suggesting that local Democrats are not thinking big enough when it comes to next year’s planned $15 billion light-rail tax plan. According to liberal blog PubliCola, Sound Transit should make the third ask twice as big at the ballot box.
“ST3 is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Let’s make it great!” is the jump off point for the transit zealots at Seattle Subway. They go on to suggest that by making next year’s vote one for a $30-billion dollar plan, light-rail cheerleaders can avoid the pesky detail of going back to voters for more money when Sound Transit underperforms (which is always a good bet).
Here is the kool-aid these folks want the Democrats on the Sound Transit board to start drinking, starting at a meeting tomorrow:
“The basic concept is this: Sound Transit puts forth a ballot measure that has more projects with more time to pay for them and more time to construct them. By planning and building a system instead of multiple votes for a few lines at a time, we have the ability to think and act strategically, save staff time and set ourselves up for more federal funds.”
That’s the magic for Democrats like these spending other people’s money – just double the tax hit on homeowners in the Sound Transit area during a presidential year, when turnout among the least-informed voters is highest, and you can avoid going back on the ballot when Sound Transit runs into its customary budget and delivering on promises problems.
With Jay Inslee also on the ballot in 2016, it’s certainly watch out for your wallet time!
Well we all you folks at ShiftWA want to shift more bodies off of mass transit onto cars, damn the consequences.
That said, not many are currently happy w/ ST3.
So, Joe, do you just want to keep shoveling tax revenue at them so they can flush it down big holes in the ground?
I’ll be honest Clay I don’t know where I stand on ST3 as currently constructed.
But I have to point out ShiftWA is anti-transit.
Does that include ALL transit, or just that which is as wasteful as the hodge-podge of overlapping transit authorities, none of which operate in an efficient manner and top it off with the grossly over-expensive boondoggle called Link Light Rail and the Sounder trains.
Clay;
a) I suspect ALL transit.
b) I would like to see some transit agency mergers but that will never happen. Seattle folks mistrust Piece County, Everett mistrusts Community Transit and for good reason, and everybody wants some modicum of local control over transit. Most of the problem is really city folk don’t want exurban folks having a say over their transit.