Ever since I began to hear about it, I've wondered: Can Inslee jack up our gas tax a buck plus per gallon, merely by signing a piece of paper?
I don't think so.
Why?
Because no governor ever has.
Does anyone believe for a minute that if any of the past governors of this state had such an arbitrary power, they wouldn't have used it at some point during the past 135 years or so?
Has any one of them done that? Not that I can find.
Inslee wants a gas tax. Every leftist alive wants a gas tax. They don't want to bother asking us for our permission to do that: most people of both parties seem (wrongly) to believe that once we elect them, we've got no further say in what they do, save for either compounding our stupidity or genius at the next election by voting them back in or out.
Who can forget the famous electoral narcissism expressed by the politically late, politically unlamented democrat former commissioner Steve Stuart?
This certainly seems to be the model of governance for democrats generally from the president on down.
But more and more, those in the GOP seem to be gradually undergoing a transformation into the same thing.
But I digress.
What we have to date is a transportation package. At this point, it doesn't have a referendum clause in it, but it damned sure should have.
What it does have is a bundle of WADOT reforms, such as eliminating prevailing wage and the sales tax and so forth. And that's a good start.
But it also contains a so-called "poison pill" against Inslee's carbon tax/fee... as in, if he implements said tax/fee, then the the money for transit, which shouldn't be there in the first place, would disappears... or something. There should be zero state funding of Sound Transit. If the morons in the Puget Sound region want that massive waste of money... let them. But not us.
Well, I'm not sure of the legalities of that sort of thing: the moment this budget becomes law, and they immediately bond out the construction money for Sound Transit's expansion.... then guess what: Courts have ruled repeatedly that once bonded, the money can NOT be cut off.
But let's take it a step further: it appears to me, on the surface at least, that Inslee is bluffing and he knows he's bluffing.
I've concluded that for the same reason I've concluded the state supreme court is bluffing on McCleary: if Inslee COULD have whacked us with his gas tax/fee, he already WOULD have; much like if the supreme court COULD "punish" the legislature, they WOULD have by now. what's to stop them?
So, in large part, it would seem that the GOP senate has cranked out a transportation package that makes gas more expensive, driving us to the second highest gas tax in the nation, with a series of reforms that unions will hate and a "poison pill" for an option that likely doesn't exist.
Somebody appears to be getting manipulated here.
I'm just not so sure it isn't the GOP-controlled senate.
I don't think so.
Why?
Because no governor ever has.
Does anyone believe for a minute that if any of the past governors of this state had such an arbitrary power, they wouldn't have used it at some point during the past 135 years or so?
Has any one of them done that? Not that I can find.
Inslee wants a gas tax. Every leftist alive wants a gas tax. They don't want to bother asking us for our permission to do that: most people of both parties seem (wrongly) to believe that once we elect them, we've got no further say in what they do, save for either compounding our stupidity or genius at the next election by voting them back in or out.
Who can forget the famous electoral narcissism expressed by the politically late, politically unlamented democrat former commissioner Steve Stuart?
This certainly seems to be the model of governance for democrats generally from the president on down.
But more and more, those in the GOP seem to be gradually undergoing a transformation into the same thing.
But I digress.
What we have to date is a transportation package. At this point, it doesn't have a referendum clause in it, but it damned sure should have.
What it does have is a bundle of WADOT reforms, such as eliminating prevailing wage and the sales tax and so forth. And that's a good start.
But it also contains a so-called "poison pill" against Inslee's carbon tax/fee... as in, if he implements said tax/fee, then the the money for transit, which shouldn't be there in the first place, would disappears... or something. There should be zero state funding of Sound Transit. If the morons in the Puget Sound region want that massive waste of money... let them. But not us.
Well, I'm not sure of the legalities of that sort of thing: the moment this budget becomes law, and they immediately bond out the construction money for Sound Transit's expansion.... then guess what: Courts have ruled repeatedly that once bonded, the money can NOT be cut off.
But let's take it a step further: it appears to me, on the surface at least, that Inslee is bluffing and he knows he's bluffing.
I've concluded that for the same reason I've concluded the state supreme court is bluffing on McCleary: if Inslee COULD have whacked us with his gas tax/fee, he already WOULD have; much like if the supreme court COULD "punish" the legislature, they WOULD have by now. what's to stop them?
So, in large part, it would seem that the GOP senate has cranked out a transportation package that makes gas more expensive, driving us to the second highest gas tax in the nation, with a series of reforms that unions will hate and a "poison pill" for an option that likely doesn't exist.
Somebody appears to be getting manipulated here.
I'm just not so sure it isn't the GOP-controlled senate.
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