Walla Walla Union-Bulletin: State anti-tax crusader’s latest effort not worthy of support

Tim Eyman, Washington state’s high-profile anti-tax crusader, has come full circle. He is pushing an initiative to set every vehicle license tab in Washington at a flat $30 rate.

Eyman came to the public’s attention in 2000 when he successfully pitched Initiative 695, which set car tabs at $30 a year rather than basing them on about 2 percent of the vehicle’s value. At that time, car tabs were routinely at least $200 a year, often far more.

Eyman’s I-695 was (metaphorically speaking) a club upside the head of government.

The annual license fee was outrageously high. The measure was declared unconstitutional by the courts but the Legislature reduced the license tab fee.

And while the wake-up call to state officials wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, the loss of revenue created myriad problems in providing services at the state and local level.

Over the years Eyman has gone to voters to reduce taxes (and funding) for government with some success and some failure.

This year Eyman is trying to get a measure on the ballot that would reduce car tabs to essentially cut funding for Sound Transit in the Puget Sound area.

In addition, it would bar local transportation benefit district fees, which are used to fund local transportation projects. Currently, nearly 60 Washington cities and towns have such fees, which are normally $20, but range up to $80 in Seattle.

Walla Walla has a voter-approved transportation benefit district used to fund street construction, but it’s funded by a sales tax rather than a license fee, and thus would not be impacted by Eyman’s proposal.

Nevertheless, this is not the best way to set license tab fees.

Determining tax policy or law through the initiative process is generally a lousy approach. Initiatives are too narrowly drawn and have unintended consequences.

Beyond that, this proposal is essentially aimed at those living in the Sound Transit district, which includes parts of King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.

It is really the folks who live in that area, not the entire state, who should have the say in their taxation.

We would urge Eastern Washington voters to not sign the petitions to put this measure on the ballot. It’s likely to create problems on the west side of the state and could have negative impacts on our side of the Cascades.

This story was originally published July 29, 2017 at 1:08 PM with the headline "Walla Walla Union-Bulletin: State anti-tax crusader’s latest effort not worthy of support."