Property tax initiative will be on Wash. ballot

A plan to cap government revenue growth and issue property tax refunds will be the only citizen initiative on Washington's fall ballot this year, state elections officials said Wednesday.

Initiative 1033, the latest smaller-government effort from direct-democracy activist Tim Eyman, was cleared for the Nov. 3 election after officials checked a random sample of more than 315,000 petition signatures.

The initiative needed at least 241,153 valid signatures from registered voters to qualify for the ballot. Of the 9,614 signatures pulled for a quality check, only about 12 percent were found to be invalid, giving Eyman's initiative more than enough signatures, Secretary of State Sam Reed announced.

Sponsors of referendums have a different deadline later this month to get their proposed measures on the ballot.

If approved by voters in November, I-1033 would cap the amount of money flowing into the general checking accounts of state, county and city governments. Annual revenue increases would be limited to the rate of inflation plus population growth.

Any tax income exceeding the revenue cap would be used to lower property taxes the following year. The state's Rainy Day Fund would not be subject to the cap, and politicians could collect taxes above the limit by asking voters for approval.

Eyman and his Spokane-based partners, Jack and Mike Fagan, say the measure is necessary to flatten the growth of government, eliminating wild "roller coaster" swings of spending tied to economic booms and busts.

The voter-approval mechanism also will put more control in the hands of regular Washingtonians, rather than politicians and special-interest lobbyists, Eyman said.

"I've never seen an initiative that better fits the times than this one," Eyman said, pointing to the deep recession and heavy budget cuts for state and local governments.

The No on 1033 campaign, however, says the current recession perfectly illustrates why I-1033 is a bad idea.

After a major economic downturn, opponents say, the economy could rebound faster than I-1033's growth cap, making it impossible for government to quickly restore services that were cut to meet lower revenue.

If that happens, opponents argue that state and local governments could be trapped in a "permanent recession," constantly bumping up against a cap that's too low to account for growth in needed public services.

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On the Net:

I-1033: http://www.permanent-offense.org/

No on 1033: http://www.no1033.com/