The People Want to Know

by Brett Davis

In a prelude to higher taxes, the word out of Olympia is that legislators are poised to suspend or modify Initiative 960, which requires a two-thirds legislative majority or voter approval for tax increases. I-960, which was approved by voters in November 2007, also requires the state Office of Financial Management to flag bills that would increase taxes or fees and to quantify how much those bills would cost taxpayers annually for 10 years.

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation recently asked legislators to go on record as answering the following two questions about I-960:

1) Do you support informing taxpayers about the cost of proposed legislation, and if so, will you vote to uphold I-960’s transparency provisions?

2) Do you agree with I-960 that two-thirds of the Legislature should agree before
passing tax increases?

The responses so far have ran the gamut—an enthusiastic “yes,” or two, to a definitive “no” that cited the Washington State Constitution, to canned responses that make us suspect the legislators in question didn’t even read the questions, to long-winded non-committal rejoinders (they are politicians, after all).

To see what your representatives and senators said on this issue, please check out the results so far here. We plan on updating the site once or twice a day, depending upon the volume of responses we receive.

If you find that your legislator or legislators haven’t responded, feel free to get in touch with lawmakers to ask ’em yourself. Let us know what they say.