WOW! Did the GOP ride to the rescue on the general fund budget battle, or what?
Or what.
Be careful about the "slight of hand," we may... MAY... have dodged a bullet on the general fund budget... but on the gas tax?
We're getting run over by a WADOT Truck.
The reality of the gas tax... the indisputable reality... is this:
1. The corruption of the GOP Senate is responsible for this.
2. It was widely disseminated that Brad Owen, who has zero right to do so, declared the GOP Senate Super Majority tax increase rule (requiring a super majority vote for new taxes and tax increases) "unconstitutional," and he did that specifically so the gas tax could pass out of the Senate, since there were not enough votes otherwise, and, of course, it would not pass under the Senate rules.
The GOP Senate failed to challenge his ruling, which they could have overturned with a simple majority vote.
There are 26 Members of the GOP Caucus. They would have needed 25 votes to overturn Owens.
3. Not mentioned was a month later when the "unconstitutional" GOP Senate Super Majority rule suddenly BECAME constitutional again when the same Brad Owen, now let off the hook by the GOP Senate from his ethics changes, reversed himself and said that rule was OK on the general fund budget to give Andy Hill several campaign photo ops to begin his campaign for governor by making all these democrat-type amendments to the general fund budget... and even though many of those amendments received 29 (!) votes, they needed 30 and they lost, but Hill is on record of voting FOR them.
4. The GOP Senate made sure that there was no referendum clause AND that there's an emergency clause on this crap pile, making it, effectively, impossible to put to a vote.
5. Of the BILLIONS in this package, Clark County stands to get a whole 1.5% (Actually, 1.3% as it turned out) or so of all of that money, most of which is being sucked up by the unwanted, unneeded CRC-project-I-5 Mill Plain intersection scam. That leaves practically nothing for other NEEDED projects in Clark County.
6. MY senator (Rivers) told me that she HAD to vote for this, otherwise her district would get zero projects. The problem I had and still have with that is that Cleveland, in the 49th, was a "no" on this scam, yet where is the most money going?
Right to Cleveland's district for that I-5/Mill Plain rip off.
7. I was also told that they HAD to vote for this scam because if they didn't, the governor, Inslee, was going to do something that he had no way OF doing, specifically, jack up the gas tax $1.60, arbitrarily and on his own by edict as if there was no legislature and this 11.7 cent scam contains some unenforceable poison pill to allegedly keep him from doing that.
As if.
8. Folks, once that money is bonded out, you CANNOT stop it. Courts have ruled that repeatedly. And that's why the GOP-controlled Senate slapped the emergency clause on it and refused to put a referendum clause in it.
You know... like the democrats?
Do not listen to what they say. Pay the closest possible attention to what they do.
This is a Puget Sound, Big Bertha/Floating Bridge scam that makes the horror of the CRC/Loot Rail rip off look like a fender-bender in comparison.
Or what.
Be careful about the "slight of hand," we may... MAY... have dodged a bullet on the general fund budget... but on the gas tax?
We're getting run over by a WADOT Truck.
The reality of the gas tax... the indisputable reality... is this:
1. The corruption of the GOP Senate is responsible for this.
2. It was widely disseminated that Brad Owen, who has zero right to do so, declared the GOP Senate Super Majority tax increase rule (requiring a super majority vote for new taxes and tax increases) "unconstitutional," and he did that specifically so the gas tax could pass out of the Senate, since there were not enough votes otherwise, and, of course, it would not pass under the Senate rules.
The GOP Senate failed to challenge his ruling, which they could have overturned with a simple majority vote.
There are 26 Members of the GOP Caucus. They would have needed 25 votes to overturn Owens.
3. Not mentioned was a month later when the "unconstitutional" GOP Senate Super Majority rule suddenly BECAME constitutional again when the same Brad Owen, now let off the hook by the GOP Senate from his ethics changes, reversed himself and said that rule was OK on the general fund budget to give Andy Hill several campaign photo ops to begin his campaign for governor by making all these democrat-type amendments to the general fund budget... and even though many of those amendments received 29 (!) votes, they needed 30 and they lost, but Hill is on record of voting FOR them.
4. The GOP Senate made sure that there was no referendum clause AND that there's an emergency clause on this crap pile, making it, effectively, impossible to put to a vote.
5. Of the BILLIONS in this package, Clark County stands to get a whole 1.5% (Actually, 1.3% as it turned out) or so of all of that money, most of which is being sucked up by the unwanted, unneeded CRC-project-I-5 Mill Plain intersection scam. That leaves practically nothing for other NEEDED projects in Clark County.
6. MY senator (Rivers) told me that she HAD to vote for this, otherwise her district would get zero projects. The problem I had and still have with that is that Cleveland, in the 49th, was a "no" on this scam, yet where is the most money going?
Right to Cleveland's district for that I-5/Mill Plain rip off.
7. I was also told that they HAD to vote for this scam because if they didn't, the governor, Inslee, was going to do something that he had no way OF doing, specifically, jack up the gas tax $1.60, arbitrarily and on his own by edict as if there was no legislature and this 11.7 cent scam contains some unenforceable poison pill to allegedly keep him from doing that.
As if.
8. Folks, once that money is bonded out, you CANNOT stop it. Courts have ruled that repeatedly. And that's why the GOP-controlled Senate slapped the emergency clause on it and refused to put a referendum clause in it.
You know... like the democrats?
Do not listen to what they say. Pay the closest possible attention to what they do.
This is a Puget Sound, Big Bertha/Floating Bridge scam that makes the horror of the CRC/Loot Rail rip off look like a fender-bender in comparison.
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