End of Tim Eyman era signals opportunities for reform

TIM Eyman may be finished. His Initiative 1033 proposal to freeze government spending was not only rejected by voters, it was crushed by a 15-percent margin. And he lost not only in Puget Sound, but also in most counties in Eastern Washington, counties that supported his previous tax-cutting initiatives.

There are reasons to think that this may be the end of line for Eyman. Major economic crises often provoke major political turns. If the past is any guide, voters are now becoming pragmatic. They know that the priority has to be jobs and basic social services, and that the anti-government campaigns that have dominated politics for the past generation have to be rejected. There is nothing like a major illness to inspire faith in doctors; a lasting economic crisis tends to do the same for faith in government.

Elected officials may want to think about this. If things follow the pattern of the Great Depression, next year's elections are going to continue to deliver the message voters just sent to Eyman.

Three years into the Depression, elected officials at federal, state and local levels who had tried to keep taxes low and cut government budgets were dumped wholesale by voters who demanded jobs and services. The Republican Party was crushed in the 1932 election, blamed for a do-nothing approach to the economic crisis. Our current crop of do-nothing politicians could suffer the same fate.

Eyman has cast a dark shadow over this state in the 12 years that he has been writing initiatives that locked down government spending, imposed supermajority rules on the Legislature and banned affirmative action. The Legislature has been hamstrung by his successful initiatives and paralyzed by fear that he will launch others.

Like California, another state where tax-cutters have imposed so many limitations that lawmakers cannot function, Washington struggles with the problem of governmental gridlock as elected officials find that they lack the power to do what they know they should do.

Now that shadow may be lifting. In the past five years, two of his measures have won the support of voters. Two were defeated and two failed to qualify for the ballot.

It is time for our leaders to stop being afraid of the Eyman shadow and get to work solving problems. We need to create jobs. We need to support our schools and universities. We need to provide adequate services. And to do that we need to reform how we raise money to pay for government services.

Our tax system is unfair and inefficient. By most assessments, it is the most regressive system in the nation, blatantly unfair to people with modest incomes and also to small businesses.

Most state revenue comes from sales tax, meaning that those with small incomes pay a greater percentage of it in taxes than those with large incomes. Wealthy families pay taxes at a lower rate in Washington than in almost any state in the country.

Similarly, the Business and Occupation tax rests more heavily on small and marginally profitable businesses than on the big and profitable ones, some of which have won exemptions from the Legislature. Everyone knows this is wrong, but in the age of Eyman no one was able to do anything about it.

Washington last overhauled its tax system in 1935, not long after the Eymans of that era had been swept from power. Pragmatic voters and pragmatic leaders understood the need for pragmatic change. They reorganized the tax code to produce more revenue because the state government needed to expand its responsibilities. And they reorganized it to make it fairer.

That was 74 years ago. Now, as the Eyman shadow lifts, let's set our minds to fixing some of the economic problems we face.