Newsroom Archives by Year: 2005

March 14th, 2005

Eyman initiatives have real consequences

Election PostmortemRethinking and Reframing

Years after their passage, the aftershocks of Tim Eyman’s dangerous initiatives are still being felt.

In an article published in the Everett Herald yesterday, the story of the struggling town of Gold Bar is told. Ever since the passage of Initiative 695 in 1999, Gold Bar has been in trouble. And now, the city is in danger of having to disincorporate.

The city’s troubles are indeed the result of Eyman initiatives, as the article notes:

The reason Gold Bar and numerous other cities around the state are struggling financially can be traced to the passage of the car tab initiative in 1999, which lowered licensing fees to a flat $30 rate.

Since then, Gold Bar has lost about $707,000 in revenue, according to the Association of Washington Cities. That loss is bigger than the city’s 2005 general fund of about $508,000. The city already has tightened its belt, cutting expenses on staff training, laying off staff and restructuring the police service contract with the county, which has saved the city about $194,000, said Hester Gilleland, the city’s clerk and treasurer.

The reality is that cities need money to operate. It costs us money to live in a society – something that Tim Eyman has never been intelligent enough to recognize. There comes a point when there is simply nothing left to cut and no belt-tightening left to do: the government simply stops functioning.

Public services, such as police and fire protection, swimming pools and libraries, roads, parks and public schools – aren’t free. Without money to operate those services, the government has no choice but to stop providing them. This seriously endangers the health of Washington state’s communities.

Gold Bar is unfortunately at the end of its string. But the city’s residents haven’t got anybody to blame except themselves.

Hawkins [mayor of Gold Bar] said she finds it ironic that even she voted for Initiative 695 – the major cause of the city’s financial headaches.

The town’s registered voters supported the initiative by a vote of 354-138. Courts eventually struck down the measure, but state lawmakers heeded the will of the people and adopted $30 license tab fees anyway.

In 2002, voters approved a second car-tab initiative, which eliminated a $15 license registration fee that Snohomish County and several other counties had been charging.

That money was earmarked for street repairs. As a result, the street fund in Gold Bar dropped from $17,200 in 2002 to nothing in 2004, Gilleland said.

“Even though these initiatives are appealing, they are giving a death warrant for local government,” Hawkins said.

Voters have been tricked into voting with their pocketbooks thanks to Tim Eyman and his sadistic rhetoric. Even mayors have been sold on the premise that they can have it all and not pay for it. By refusing to look at both sides of the equation, and refusing to acknowledge that tax cuts are equivalent to cuts in public services, Eyman and his cronies have distorted the truth and caused a lot of damage.

The Republican position that we must “live within our means” may sound appealing, but it is insane. Too many years of tax cuts are wreaking havoc on Washington State and its many local governments. If something isn’t done in the next few years, city halls across the state will be forced to close and some counties may even collapse into insolvency.

At a time when many rural citizens are angry about the lack of local control in their quest for “property rights”, they risk losing out and ceding more power to officials that are further away. Many of these people are the same folks that eagerly embraced Tim Eyman’s initiatives.

You get what you vote for, and they will pay dearly for their lack of vision and their self-centered thinking. If they’re upset about losing local control, then they should join the bandwagon in clamoring for the state Legislature to pass a budget that will plug the deficit with new revenues.

Cities and counties need money to operate. They’re out of funding. Without the state’s help or increased local revenue, there is no hope for them. And the state cannot possibly provide them funding when it faces its own budget shortfall.

It’s time for people who have been avoiding reality to acknowledge it. We cannot afford any more tax cuts. We need new revenues and real tax reform. We must fund public services or be forced to stop providing them.

February 16th, 2005

Permanent Defense’s founder testifies in support of HB 1744 before the House Finance Committee

Legislation & Testimony

Editor’s Note: The following are the remarks prepared by Permanent Defense founder Andrew Villeneuve in support of House Bill 1744, which received a public hearing before the House Finance Committee today.

Chairman McIntire, Members of the Committee:

Good afternoon. My name is Andrew Villeneuve. I’m a citizen activist and the founder of Permanent Defense and the Northwest Progressive Institute.

I’m here today to talk to you about a bill before you: HB 1744, an act providing for property tax fairness. I’ve spent a fair amount of time studying our state’s tax structure and the issue of affordable home ownership.

Having read the Washington State tax Structure Study, which was produced by a commission headed by William Gates, Sr. several years ago, I have come to agree with one of its main conclusions: Washington’s tax structure is deplorably regressive… and something needs to be done about it.

As the editorial board of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer noted a year ago, individuals earning less than $20,000 a year spend nearly sixteen percent of their income paying state and local taxes, while those earning more than $130,000 pay just over four percent.

HB 1744 would provide much-needed property tax fairness by creating a homestead exemption.

A homestead exemption would shield from all local property taxes a portion of a family’s primary residence, equal to twenty percent of the local county’s median property value, and from the state property tax an amount equal to twenty percent of median state property value.

Because this proposal is revenue neutral, the quality of public services would not be affected if it were to be implemented.

This gives the homestead exemption an advantage over other, more draconian proposals, which would cut taxes across the board and hurt local governments and vital public services by taking needed revenue away.

Under this proposal, the vast majority of homeowners in Washington State would see some reduction in their property taxes. Owners of less expensive homes would pay less, and owners of more expensive homes or non-residential property would pay only slight more than they do away.

Middle income Washington homeowners are already paying more than their fair share of income in property taxes. A homestead exemption would help reverse this trend and create a more progressive tax structure.

The issue of affordable home ownership is increasingly becoming more serious.

Yesterday, in an article from the Associated Press entitled “Housing affordability dropping in state”, Glenn Crellin, the director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at Washington State University, noted: “Affordability is going down, there is no question about it. When you’ve got prices rising as rapidly as they are… it’s hard for incomes to keep up that increase.”

As the article also notes:

The center’s housing affordability index, which measures the ability of a middle income family to purchase a median priced home using a 30 year mortgage at prevailing interest rates, slipped in the fourth quarter to 116.9. That was a 17.5 drop in the past year and the lowest reading since 2000, the report said.

A score of 100 means a typical family makes enough to buy the median home.

When the index is below 100, even repeat buyers face affordability constraints. King County, the state’s largest, has remained below 100 for the past two quarters the report said.

The problem of unaffordable home ownership will not go away by itself. This Legislature, however, has an opportunity to do something.

By shifting tax obligations without hurting local governments, the implementation of a homestead exemption would help make home ownership more affordable for middle and lower income families without hurting the quality of life in communities across Washington State.

George W. Bush spoke of an “ownership society” in his second inaugural speech [read the full text of the address] when he said:

We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance — preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.

It’s hard to create an “ownership society” when present economic conditions discourage individuals and families from owning their own homes. The Washington State Legislature should send a signal to the citizens of Washington that it supports affordable home ownership by enacting HB 1744.

Thirty-seven states have some form of a homestead exemption to help middle and lower income families afford their own homes, but Washington State does not.

Last year, in an article in The Olympian, one of my state representatives, who was also a cosponsor of HB 1744 (Toby Nixon), said he hoped to start a discussion about property tax fairness. He said:

I have lived in states like Georgia that have a homestead exemption, and it’s worked well. I think it’s a way to help ensure that senior citizens, in particular, are not taxed out of their homes. I understand fully that it represents a shift of tax obligations to businesses that owners of large rental properties.

Washington needs to move forward and take action on this issue. We cannot afford to do nothing – we must do something. There is going to be criticism for any proposed remedy or solution. But this legislation has, I believe, strong advantages over other alternative proposals that purport to address this problem.

The Washington State Legislature has the opportunity to help the people of Washington by encouraging affordable home ownership.

It is my hope that you will seize this opportunity to improve tax fairness and send HB 1744 to the House floor so we can move forward.

I very much appreciate this opportunity to speak to you about this issue.

Thank you for your time.

February 13th, 2005

Three Years: Statement from the Founder

AnnouncementsThreat Analysis

This week and this month, Permanent Defense is proud to celebrate three years of political activism in Washington State – opposing Tim Eyman, fighting for real tax reform, and promoting the value of public services.

February 2005 marks the end of our third year of operation and the beginning of our fourth.

The last year has been Permanent Defense’s most successful year to date. Working together with our friends and allies, we have accomplished much of what we set out to do a year ago.

Last year, in this statement, I wrote about how imperative it was that we stop Tim Eyman and his initiative factory from causing further devastating harm to Washington State. Thanks to your hard work, and our cooperation with other groups opposed to Eyman, we successfully defeated both I-864 and I-892.

I’d like to reflect on some of the things we’ve accomplished this past year- from February 2004 to February 2005. I’m proud of what this project has been able to accomplish, and I’m confident that we will continue to be successful in our efforts to change Washington State for the better.

  • We defeated Initiative 864 in July of 2004, destroying a threat that would have brought certain disaster to local governments and public services across the state. We fought this issue for a year (June 2003 to July 2004) and won, dispelling Eyman’s myths and rumors about the tax climate.
  • We defeated Initiative 892 in November of 2004, with voters rejecting Eyman’s attempt to proliferate our state with slot machines by a landslide. We mailed flyers, distributed yard signs, appeared in the media, and attended community events to voice our opposition to I-892.
  • We debuted a new e-newsletter for the press – Permanent Defense Focus!, which has helped to counter the lies that Tim Eyman continually feeds the media.
  • We retooled our site through January Launch, July Relaunch, and December Update, with lots of new sections and features, especially the Release Center and the Permanent Defense Forum.
  • We had three times the traffic to our website this year of what we had in 2002 and 2003 combined, with thousands of visits to our site.

In the years since Permanent Defense was founded, Tim Eyman has had one initiative which passed at the polls:  Initiative 776. All of the others have been failures. Eyman is currently is in an 0 for 4 slump and is trying to break out of it by qualifying an initiative to the people that would overload our state with audits.

Eyman’s proposal would have the state shelling out around $90 million every biennium so we can pay to audit every single state agency, program, and account and would require the auditor’s office to expand by four times its current size over the next decade.

Fortunately, the state House and the state Senate are considering much more practical legislation that has the state auditor’s support.

We will continue to vigorously oppose Eyman on all the issues. And we will step up our efforts to fight for real tax reform, including pushing for a state homestead exemption.

We’ll talk about a long term plan for fixing Washington’s tax structure, including alternatives to the state sales tax and the obnoxious “business & occupation tax”. We’ll also talk about tackling the state’s current funding problems.

We will continue to roll out improvements and additions to our website during the next year. So, I hope you’ll stand with us as we embark on the beginning of another year of political activism, and take a moment to pause and reflect on our achievements and accomplishments from the last one.

Thanks for your involvement. Here’s to another successful year!

January 26th, 2005

Eyman acts to try to prevent initiative process reform

Legislation & Testimony

Initiative profiteer Tim Eyman, desperate for more media attention and hoping to preserve the status quo of an initiative process currently manipulated by special interests, announced he was filing an initiative Wednesday to stop lawmakers from tinkering with the initiative process – even though legislators aren’t currently attempting to make any drastic changes.

“If Tim files too many more initiatives, he’s going to become the laughingstock of the state. What he’s doing now is reacting to something that don’t even exist,” said Permanent Defense Chair Andrew Villeneuve. “Eyman says legislators are making subtle attacks on the initiative process. But legislators know that Tim Eyman isn’t a force in Olympia any longer. They’re not worried about the initiative process because they have more important things to be concerned with. ”

This latest announcement is nothing extraordinary.

Eyman has been incapable so far of getting any initiative on the ballot for the last couple of years without special interest money. Eyman’s initiative is all about preserving the status quo of a manipulated initiative process and stifling reform that could put the power of the initiative back in the hands of ordinary citizens. But with his recent 0 for 4 record, it’s clear this latest Eyman initiative is all hype and no substance.

“Tim Eyman’s recent record on qualifying initiatives for the ballot and passing them speaks for itself. He isn’t going to be able to manage getting this or his performance audits initiative on the ballot this year unless he finds a new source of cash,” Villeneuve concluded.

January 25th, 2005

PDC fines Eyman and associates after completing investigation into complaint filed by Permanent Defense and allies

Eye on Money: DevelopmentsStatements & Advisories

The state Public Disclosure Commission, acting on a complaint filed August 26th, 2004, by Permanent Defense, TaxSanity.org, and Taxpayers for Washington’s Future, fined Tim Eyman and his associates three hundred dollars for again violating Washington’s public disclosure law at an enforcement hearing Tuesday morning.

The complaint accused Tim Eyman, his associates, and his three PACs of a broad array of campaign finance and public disclosure violations.

The PDC fined Eyman one hundred and fifty dollars each for two occasions on which PDC staff found that Eyman, his associates, and his PACs had violated the public disclosure law:

  • By failing to timely disclose an in-kind contribution received from Tim and Karen Eyman in the amount of $1,500 for a poll conducted in October of 2003.
  • By failing to timely disclose an in-kind contribution received from the Voters Want More Choices PAC in the amount of $2,109 for a mailing.

Permanent Defense Chair Andrew Villeneuve called the enforcement action significant. “Tim Eyman has a long history of violating the public disclosure law, and he somehow thinks that it doesn’t apply to him. The PDC is making clear once again that his careless disregard for the rules will not be tolerated.”

“Eyman also claims, and continues to claim, to his supporters that his committees are completely separate from each other, but the boundaries between them seem to be pretty transparent.”

He noted that Tim Eyman made the following comment last September in a letter to the PDC regarding the complaint: “Our campaign committee [Voters Want More Choices] pays for these mailings and the accounting and other costs associated with our compensation fund [Help Us Help Taxpayers].”

“It’s just been a continual pattern of infractions, both small and large, which continue to land Eyman in trouble,” concluded Villeneuve. “He wouldn’t be getting fined if he would just follow the rules like everybody else.”

January 3rd, 2005

Tim Eyman and Dino Rossi: Friends and Allies

Threat Analysis

Washington State GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi likes to promote himself as a sunny independent thinker who will bring prosperity to Washington State.

But what most people don’t know about Dino Rossi is his extremist positions – including his ties to initiative profiteer Tim Eyman, as well as his similarity to previous GOP candidates John Carlson (2000) and Ellen Craswell (1996).

Did you know that:

  • Dino Rossi supported Initiative 200, Tim Eyman’s first initiative, which attacked affirmative action, back in 1998.
    • “He [Rossi] supported anti-affirmative action Initiative 200.” (Seattle Weekly, Dino Buys Big Time, 8/4/2004)
    • “He [Rossi] supported I-200, the successful anti-affirmative-action initiative championed by [John] Carlson.” (The Stranger, The Salesman, 8/19/2004)
  • Dino Rossi supported Initiative 807, Tim Eyman’s 2003 attempt to require a supermajority vote of the Legislature for any tax increases.
  • Dino Rossi supported Tim Eyman’s I-695, which slashed road and transit funding, and defended it in the spring of 2000.
    • ‘”There’s a lot of people politically in a little bit of a box,’ said Sen. Dino Rossi, the ranking Republican on the Senate Ways and Means Committee. ‘They [opponents] said the sky was going to fall if 695 passed, and unless a little bit of the sky does fall they’re going to sound like they were telling stories during the campaign.'” (Seattle Times, Legislators employ I-695 to promote long-held agendas, 1/9/2000)
  • Dino Rossi supported slashing public services, sponsoring bills which proposed more tax cuts in the wake of I-695.
    • “Last year (2000), he [Rossi] was among several lawmakers offering tax-cut bills, catching the momentum generated by Initiative 695, [Tim Eyman’s] $30 car-tab measure.” (Seattle Times, Property-tax-cut talk is big in 5th, 10/18/2000)
  • Dino Rossi supported the “direction” of Tim Eyman’s I-745, which would have required 90% of transportation funding to be spent on roads.
    • “But Sen. Dino Rossi, R-Issaquah, the top Republican on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said the state has barely tried to keep even with needed highway construction. [Of Eyman’s proposal], he said, ‘It’s going in the direction many of us have been trying to push. That’s not to say mass transit doesn’t have a role, but it’s not the Utopia people say it is.'” (AP, Seattle P-I, I-695 sponsor sets sights on gridlock with initiative, 12/16/1999)
  • Dino Rossi supported an unsuccessful Tim Eyman effort to kill Sound Transit’s light rail effort in 2003.
    • “Sen. Dino Rossi, R-Issaquah, said he hasn’t seen Eyman’s proposal but supports the concept of a revote because the light-rail project has changed in recent years. ‘Why not put it back on the ballot?’ said Rossi, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. (Seattle Times, Eyman kicks off effort to kill light-rail project, 2/15/2003)
  • Tim Eyman endorsed Dino Rossi’s bid for governor from Day One, and has repeatedly referenced Rossi in his emails to supporters.
    • “Initiative king Tim Eyman cheered on Rossi from the crowd. ‘Taxes are out of control and tax increases should be a last resort,’ Eyman said later. ‘Rossi embodies that philosophy not by what he has said, but by what he’s done.’ After his speech, Rossi posed with his wife and four children as the crowd chanted ‘Dino! Dino!'” (King County Journal, Rossi says he needs $5 million, 11/11/2003)
    • “Our taxpayer-protection efforts over the past six years have changed Washington’s politics forever. This was an incredibly successful election for taxpayers: * Dino Rossi ran for Governor touting his courageous efforts to balance a $2.6 billion deficit without raising taxes. He’s on the verge of victory due to his efforts to protect taxpayers from the insatiable desire of politicians to raise taxes.” (Tim Eyman, Email to Supporters, 11/3/2004)

The Washington State Democrats also have a page where Dino Rossi’s conservative positions are outlined in comparison to Craswell’s and Carlson’s.

It’s clearly apparent, from their own words, that Tim Eyman and Dino Rossi are friends and allies, sharing the same ideals and philosophies on taxation.

Though Dino has supported many of Eyman’s initiatives, this year he tried to skirt the issue and refused to comment on supporting either I-864 and I-892 in order to soften his image as he ran for Governor.

And that bid for the governor’s seat was firmly and openly supported by a very eager Tim Eyman, who longed to see someone of his own creed occupying the Governor’s Mansion. Ever faithful, Tim has even recently urged his supporters to back Rossi’s call for a revote.

Permanent Defense exists to oppose people like Tim Eyman and Dino Rossi, who, in positions of power, have shown are capable of contributing to a more regressive tax structure and damaging the public services of Washington State.

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Permanent Defense works to protect Washington by building a first line of defense against threats to the common wealth and Constitution of the Evergreen State — like Tim Eyman's initiative factory. Learn more.

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