Comments on: Rossi Wants to Steal Money From Sound Transit

By: HorsesAss.Org » Blog Archive » Dino’s Double Standard

HorsesAss.Org » Blog Archive » Dino’s Double Standard — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:19:47 +0000

[...] He’s also planning to take $690 million away from light rail to pay for roads—even though the voters in Pierce, Snohomish, and King County said the money is for mass transit. Permalink | Leave a Comment | RSS addthis_pub = ‘nietsdlog’; addthis_brand = ‘HA Seattle’; addthis_options = ‘email, digg, delicious, reddit, newsvine, facebook, stumble, more’; Share [...]

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 06:35:01 +0000

Hm. Thanks. I’d say you’d need to exempt transit projects as well, but there’s an issue here of distribution. The sales tax isn’t just state sales tax – it’s also city and county. It isn’t as simple as double taxation, because this involves local sales taxes as well. The state shouldn’t pay sales tax to itself, but it should probably pay the local portion.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:06:38 +0000

I agree that is a good idea.

By: Brian in Seattle

Brian in Seattle — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:52:11 +0000

Here’s a link to a P-I story about trying to exempt the 520 project from state sales tax and also talks about other publicly funded projects paying sales tax and the issues involved.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/354287_transpo08.html

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:37:39 +0000

I’m not clear that state highway projects DO pay sales taxes…

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:36:03 +0000

Sam, I don’t think it’s yellow journalism. Moving money from Sound Transit to another project would likely be unconstitutional. It would be illegal, hence, stealing.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:34:53 +0000

It’s not that it’ll backfire – it’s that it’s unconstitutional on its face. Money allocated by a public vote can only be changed by a public vote or a constitutional change, as far as I know.

By: AJ

AJ — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:33:58 +0000

What term would you use for illegally repurposing money that has been allocated by popular consent for other purposes?

“Borrowing without permission”? “Reallocating without proper consent”?

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:33:43 +0000

Moving voter approved money without a vote is pretty much stealing, I’m afraid. It’d also be unconstitutional.

By: Brian in Seattle

Brian in Seattle — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:27:17 +0000

WSDOT money, aka gas tax money builds carpool lanes.
ST money builds express bus on and off ramps/interchanges.

The only thing I agree with in Rossi’s proposals is to stop making the state highway construction projects pay sales taxes. If you can make the transportation projects be 6-9 percent cheaper across the board by doing this, than I am all for it. Doing this on public transit infrastructure projects would be great too. :)

It would also put to rest the accusations by conservatives that some of the gas tax money ends up in the general fund and gets spent on everything else. Which indirectly, it does via this mechanism.

By: joshuadf

joshuadf — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:12:49 +0000

I’d actually prefer a different wording too. Personally I believe “his” plan (copied from last year’s Prop 1!) happens to have no merits and no hope of passing the legislature, so saying Rossi “wants to steal money” only makes his voters less likely to listen to the reasons. The Recording Industry also uses “steal” as a synonym for “copyright infringement” precisely because it elicits a polarizing emotional response instead of fostering a logical discussion about merits each side has.

How about “Rossi wants to cover construction costs with money from schools, transit”. There is a very real possibility this will backfire on him. He’s drawing attention to the fact that the state doesn’t have money for transportation infrastructure improvements. If voters want anything at all to move forward this year, they’ll vote for Prop 1.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:47:46 +0000

I think steal is appropriate. Steal means “to take surreptitiously or without permission”. Rossi has no permission under state constitution to take the money, therefore he wants to steal it.

The word is appropriate in this use.

By: runnerodb83

runnerodb83 — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:29:05 +0000

Stealing…taking money that was taxed, collected, and directly allocated per the initiative the people voted for. Does ST take money from WSDOT or Metro or the state general fund? nope

By: runnerodb83

runnerodb83 — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:26:21 +0000

Well, I’m assuming they are in favor of an 8 lane bridge provided the east approach remains at 5.5 lanes ;)

By: Sam

Sam — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:05:52 +0000

AJ, I’m not going to argue with you. If you like yellow journalism, fine. I don’t.

End of discussion.

By: AJ

AJ — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:55:18 +0000

How is it not stealing, Sam? Please enlighten us.

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:34:16 +0000

“Steal.”

If you want to earn my respect, you’re not going to do it with stupid headlines like that.

By: Max

Max — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:56:41 +0000

That’s just one hole.

By: BFR

BFR — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:09:38 +0000

It’s funny too, those are the folks that are typically his sure votes. I like how Dino’s plan magically works in his world, the world without cost overuns and material price escalations.

I wonder about that – isn’t it true that Medina/West Bellevue are a lot more in favor of a big bridge than Montlake? So maybe this is about delivering to his Medina base while giving the finger to the farther left leaning Montlake/U district crowd.

Am I over-simplifying this?

By: EvergreenRailfan

EvergreenRailfan — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:07:57 +0000

If he does that, and is elected, he should not be invited to the ribbon-cutting for LINK. His party fought it at almost every turn, why should he be allowed to make a speech at the ribbon cutting, while taking away a chunk of Sound Transit funding at the same time. I wonder if he is one of the few that still think nothing has been built. If that is the case, Dino, come to SODO, and the Ranier Valley. Sure there may not be Republican Votes there, but you might see the construction that is almost complete.