The tax paying public sure is doing their part. And here in Whatcom county, Pete Kremen and Sam Crawford make something of a gruesome twosome.
Particularly entertaining is the legerdemain our pals employ as they trot out the latest budget fiction with its oft lauded tax neutrality.
Having been exposed in their earlier attempt to punish Bellingham while keeping a lid on taxes in the development zone, the latest ploy appears to be a particularly cynical game of rob Peter to pay Paul. Peter being the funds set aside specifically to protect agricultural lands and fund remedial water projects. Paul, of course, being the insatiable beast they created with decades of poor planning and sprawling growth that now sucks unrelenting at county revenues.
I say “cynical” because when the public voted to create a conservation futures fund they weren't told it would also be a slush fund to save developers from paying the costs their projects caused the county. “Cynical” because just last year the county council's neo-cons nearly busted their soap boxes in their fervor to decry tax increases not approved by voters. What a difference a year makes!
And “cynical” because in opposition to the program to raise taxes to fund water remediation and flood control efforts (opposed by Kremen), Crawford called the taxes unfair to county residents. He, and his, swore they would repeal the tax and the program; apparently in the belief that the Lake would cure itself, and we'd seen the end of floods.
Now there is no discussion of repealing the tax. Now it's just gut the program and use the tax revenue to pave for their constituents. No, not you voters; the people who get them elected and reelected.
When you go to the grocery store, and you pick up a box of cereal, shake it and notice that it's no longer full, does it bother you that the price for 13 ounces is the same as 16 ounces used to be? Would you say the price of cereal has gone up, or there's no increase in cost?
Same game with taxes and the budget: fewer services same taxes. So who's hiding the little pea?
When will they get honest about the structural problem in the county budget and take responsibility for putting us in this pickle? Is it lost on the public that their taxes don't buy them services but are just a transfer to the people who finance elections around here?
Pretty soon you'll be wonderin' if the box is half empty, or half full.
Wake up suckers!
