Tim Eyman saysI told you so

April 23, 2014

Sky Valley Chronicle

(SEATTLE, WA) — There’s something about those car tab fees that continue to turn voters off.

King County voters are saying no to proposed sales tax hike and an increase in the car tab fee to pay for roads and to prevent cuts in Metro transit bus service.

In early returns Tuesday night, Proposition 1 was failing by a ten point margin, 55 percent to 45 percent.

The measure asks for a $60 car-tab fee and a one-tenth-of-a-cent increase in the sales tax in order to raise some $130 million a year over 10 years.

Sixty percent of the proceeds were to go to Metro Transit for bus service and some 40 percent to pay for roads.

County officials say without that money they will have to cut 16 percent of the current bus service to balance its budget.

The measure’s supporters says those who will be hurt by the cuts are those who can least afford to absorb the cuts: the poor, seniors, students and working families who rely on those bus runs to get to work, school and social services.

Anti-tax guru Tim Eyman is doing an “I told you so,” in a release sent to media late Tuesday night:

“We’ve sponsored numerous initiatives lowering car tab taxes. Every time voters have had the chance to lower them, they’ve voted to lower them. Every time voters have had a chance to raise car tab taxes, they’ve voted against raising them. Every single time.

Car tab tax increases are an absolutely radioactive revenue source, voters just hate ’em. Most of the campaign over Prop 1 focused on King County Metro’s unsustainable spending. And there’s certainly good arguments for that. But this loss was baked in the cake the day they included higher car tab taxes in the package.”

Eyman says that is why on the day the measure was announced he wrote that after four initiatives and four signatures drives on the issue of car tab taxes, everyone has learned a lot about voters’ attitudes on car tab taxes.

“Voters have repeatedly told politicians: we want $30 car tabs, no more,” he wrote.

“Every time politicians put higher car tab fees on the ballot, voters reject them overwhelmingly. A $60 car tab tax was recently rejected by tax-friendly Seattle voters. There is zero chance King County voters will OK these massive tax increases.”