Government Waste Update

or, How Long Can You Afford It?

MORE CORRUPTION IN GOVERNMENT---DID YOU KNOW?
June 24, 2000

Did you know that our Washington State Attorney General, Christine Gregoire, has received more than $23,000 for her re-election campaign from numerous employees and spouses of a South Carolina law firm, Ness Motley. Who is Ness Motley? This is the law firm that Gregoire brought into the litigation against the tobacco industry. Ness Motley, of course, received a large part of the settlement with the tobacco industry. The law firm, however, could not pay Attorney General Gregoire's re-election fund $23,000 directly since our state campaign finance laws limit the amount of money contributed by one entity. So a bunch of employees and spouses who work for a South Carolina law firm suddenly became very committed to the re-election efforts of the Washington State Attorney General. It is amazing to see so many people from South Carolina get that interested in who is running for Attorney General in the State of Washington. It looks like payola for Christine Gregoire to me. Don't you wish you had those kind of connections!

Did you know that AGAIN this year, our legislators have passed a State budget which exceeds the voter approved I-601 spending limits. How did they do this? The legislature simply voted to change the limits. Your wishes do not matter. Not only that, but the legislators changed the limit without reaching the constitutionally required 2/3 vote in both the house and the Senate. You should not feel too bad that your wishes do not matter, neither does the constitution!

It should be clear to all of us that government intends to continue to be the fastest growing sector of the economy and the taxpayer is expected to keep paying more and more to support this growth. The newest taxes being considered are a raise in the gas tax and higher taxes on commercial trucking. We all pay more so that the government can keep growing.

Only about a dozen lawmakers voted against this last bulging budget. It is clear that we need to replace the governor and most of the legislators in this coming election. In addition there are some specific action steps to take.

1. Join the Washington Grassroots E-mail Network at www.idzrus@earthlink.net.
2. Support the efforts of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation at effwa.org.
3. Support the efforts of Tim Eyman to get I-711 and I-722 on the ballot at I-695.org.
4. Work to elect a new Governor and legislature who will commit to reducing the size of government and redefining spending priorities.
5. Join the Washington State Taxpayers Strike at http://listen.to/taxstrike.

GOVERNMENT WASTE UPDATE
May 3, 2000

The score is: Politicians and bureaucrats $250,000,000; over burdened taxpayers $0. This is the result of the State supplemental budget requested by our Governor and just passed by our legislators. There is not enough tax dollars for road projects, but here is enough for $250,000,000 in new operating budgets for a record number of new State programs and increased budgets and paychecks for the bureaucrats in Olympia. There is no room in the budget to provide for any tax relief to those who are paying huge property tax bills, but there is room in the budget to provide for new legislative office at a planned cost of $620 per square foot. (That is about 4 times what it would cost for Microsoft to erect a high tech gold plated office building. With the usual State government overruns, the cost is expected to grow to five or six times the normal cost for office construction.)

It should be clear to all of us that government intends to continue to be the fastest growing sector of the economy and the taxpayer is expected to keep paying more and more to support this growth. The newest taxes being considered are a raise in the gas tax and higher taxes on commercial trucking. We all pay more so that the government can keep growing. In the meantime, the I-601 spending limits have been completely blown away by this new budget.

Only about a dozen lawmakers voted against this last bulging budget. It is clear that we need to replace the governor and most of the legislators in this coming election. In addition there are some specific action steps to take.

1. Join the Washington Grassroots E-mail Network at idzrus@earthlink.net.
2. Support the efforts of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation at effwa.org
3. Support the efforts of Tim Eyman to get I-711 and I-722 on the ballot at I-695.org.
4. Work to elect a new Governor and legislature who will commit to reducing the size of government and redefining spending priorities.
5. Join the Washington State Taxpayers Strike at http://listen.to/taxstrike.

Help corporations subsidize world hunger RELIEF through ....