Adele Ferguson - Oct. 22, 2009

“INITIATIVE 1033 SLASHES funding for nursing homes, in-home services and other senior services.” Shelby Gilje says in an ad that runs over and over again on television. “That’s why I’m voting no on Initiative 1033.”

You remember Shelby? The ad just lists her as a senior citizen, but she used to be the Seattle Times trouble shooter or reader ombudsman for many years, at least I think it was the Times and not the P-I. I worked with her when she was a reporter on the Bremerton Sun, and she was a good one.

Which is why she is being used in this ad, I figure. She gives off an aura of integrity so you are persuaded to believe what she is saying because you feel she does. I-1033 does not, however, slash funds for nursing homes, in-home services and other senior services although those could be the results depending on what government chooses to do in crafting its budget just as it has to do every year.

I-1033 limits the growth of certain state, county and city revenues to annual inflation and population growth, not including taxes that have been sent to the voters for approval. Any tax revenue collected over that cap would have to be returned to the taxpayers by reducing the amount of property tax they have to pay in the following year.

Eyman says I-1033 doesn’t reduce government’s size at all, it simply brings back inflation and population growth limit government lived under from 1993 through 2005.. That same formula was in 1-601 until the Democratic Legislature eliminated it in 2005 and spent money like it was growing on trees. Governments could have raised their budgets over the limit then as they can under I-1033 by getting voter approval first which they never like to do.

I AM NOT SURE it will pass because it’s not as straightforward as the initiatives that lowered the motor vehicle tax and limited property tax revenue growth to 1 percent. Indications, however, are that I am overly pessimistic.

The reason for the big push on anti-I-1033 ads is because results of the latest Rasmussen poll on the initiative scare opponents to death, proving, apparently, that whether they understand it or not, voters are willing to take any step to put a stop to the scandalous spending sprees that have been going on at all levels of government. Rasmussen said 61 percent of likely voters favored I-1033 with only 31 percent against it. That left 8 percent undecided. Eyman says a recent poll by the opponents, who are mostly public employee unions, showed 58 percent support for 1-1033.

And a poll by Stu Elway shows I-1033 leading at 46 percent yes, 22 percent no and 32 percent undecided.

The Seattle Times has stepped up its hatchet job on I-1033, with Eyman proclaimed in an editorial column as “a carnival huckster” who was “selling a version of snake oil” that would decrease future public spending but generate draconian cuts later on in education.

LAWMAKERS HAVE been told they face a $1.2 billion shortfall in revenue when they go to Olympia in January, and that they must double the $650 million they pledged this year to the state’s public employees and teachers retirement systems pension funds or both will run out of money by 2015. There is talk of closing two prisons which is surprising, considering they previously were discussing letting more prisoners out the back door to make room for the really bad ones of which there seems to be no shortage.

It’s up to you now. Do you want to put your government officials on a diet with I-1033 or wait to see what kind and amount of tax increases they come up with?

I’ll go with the diet.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)