The Obama era of cool government makes Tim Eyman irrelevant

President Obama wants to make government cool again. At a time when the private sector has failed spectacularly, the new Obama administration holds the hope of shoring up a failed economy, creating millions of new jobs, extending benefits for the unemployed and helping college kids stay in school.

Obama summoned us in his inaugural address to step up as citizens, in a new era of responsibility and individual involvement. Obama urges Americans to build things up, not tear them down. Upward and onward, not backward and downward.

Back here in Washington, one of our accidental leaders, initiative writer Tim Eyman, wants to make sure government remains the opposite of cool. Hated would be good, or at the very least, huuuuugely distrusted.

For Eyman to remain successful — and by that I mean able to offer an initiative or two every year and raise nonstop funds from supporters — government must remain the straw man/bad man.

What a contrast. Eyman begins to sound like bad 1970s music while Obama does the bump and dances a more-modern rhythm.

Obama is the tomorrow guy who envisions a brighter future. Eyman is yesterday, 1990s, early millennial with government as the boogeyman.

Eyman needs you to dislike the state, county or city where you live because that is the only way he stays afloat.

If you think about it, these are not grass-roots initiatives rising from the populace. These are initiatives, combined with nonstop fundraising at the bottom of every e-mail, designed to keep this odd character in the game. Please, he says in so many words, do not let me become irrelevant. I wouldn't know what to do.

Eyman is running around these days like a chicken sans head because he really needs a win. His 2008 initiative, the ditty known as the "Reduce Traffic Congestion Act," was a little daring for him. It was off his regular topic of lower taxes or lower car tabs. It had the added benefit of making him perhaps the only person in the state who understood his hodgepodge of transportation ideas: Getting rid of red-light cameras and ruining high-occupancy-vehicle lanes were among the highlights.

All but one of our state's 39 counties told him to forget about it. He is very proud that Pierce County voted for his transportation succotash.

So Eyman is back with a whir of initiatives. Many of his ideas have appeal on paper or in sound bites. Don't you love $30 or even $25 car tabs? You do. He is bringing that concept back, too. Like I said, he needs a win.

Look no further than the Washington State Ferries, which have never run as well as they did before Eyman's maiden initiative voyage, Initiative 695, the original car-tab measure. No individual can boast wreckage of the ferry system the way Eyman can — and his supporters as well.

But I digress. The latest proposal reads, "This measure would limit the growth rate of state, county and city general fund revenue, not including new voter-approved revenue, to inflation and population growth. Excess revenue collected above these limits would be used to reduce property taxes."

The signature-gathering effort began Wednesday. It sounds so great. But we are no longer in the era of no government is the best government.

We are in very dire straits and we have learned that deregulation and free-market nonsense can be very painful. Citizens need help with so many things: health care, flood relief, unemployment benefits.

Yes, government is bulky and unwieldy and makes tons of mistakes. This is no paen to government.

Government is trying, for example, so far unsuccessfully, to get the banks to start lending again, and government is trying to create stimulus packages that will spur new jobs, including "shovel ready" projects. The success of those endeavors is yet to be determined.

In good times, bloated government can be the perfect straw man, but not right now. A lot of us simply need help. Sending further arrows into the heart of systems that are the last possibility to help the least fortunate is ill-timed.

Over the years, with anti-government rhetoric in vogue, we saw what floods and hurricanes and lack of government oversight of financial markets looked like. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww.

As always, Eyman is only as powerful as voters let him be.

Last year, voters saw through his efforts.

Local and state governments, the targets of this year's initiative, may have been bloated in the past. But these governments are being cut — deep in K-12 funding, deep in higher education, social services and a variety of things people want. Pay attention this year. Eyman is the anti Obama and oh-so yesterday.

Joni Balter's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is jbalter@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to www.seattletimes.com/edcetera