MSNBC: King County Executive Dow Constantine will propose a public vote on a possible sales-tax increase to avoid sharp cutbacks in county services. […] Constantine and other officials have been involved in intense discussions in the past week on whether to propose such an increase and how large that increase should be.

How about an increase of 0%?

Better yet, how about you give me your budget of all programs and a red marker and we’ll see what bloat can be found there, without taking lobbiest and special interests into account. I know you’ll want to say “we have to cut unemployment if we don’t raise the sales tax” as part of your plan. Nothing passes laws like the motivation of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Even if it’s for another sales tax increase, but I would truly love to see what can really be cut.

Like salaries. That’s always a good one to point out as a scapegoat. OK, so if not salaries, how about bonuses? How about looking at it as “if you mismanage the programs of WA and have to increase taxes, due to piss-poor planning, you don’t get a bonus” because you didn’t do your job? The only people I know of that get bonuses and get to fuck up their jobs are politicians and CEOs. At least CEO’s have bonuses in their contracts so the most they can do is be fired; politicians don’t have that guarantee… why not give it to them based on merit like every other working class hump in the country?

Or maybe we can look at the parks program, which seems to be buying land and adding new parks an awful lot these day. …during a recession? Or maybe some planning-board that reports the sub-committee that was spun up to deal with the eventual collapse of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Or the brain-trust study group that you’ve put together that has been planning the SR-520 bridge replacement for over thirteen years.

YARALY, I’m being straight honest here: I would love to help WA state reign in the “programs program” so we can keep our sales tax at 9.5% and restaurant tax of 10%.

Hell, if there’s enough ink in the market, maybe we can even lower it a point or two.