Seattle Trasportation Politics
There is only one major political issue bombing the television and radio ads in Seattle this year. The local Republicans and Democrats are pushing voters to approve a 9 billion dollar tax increase, ostensibly to fund transportation.
Local transportation projectshave been plagued with scandal, cost overruns, and lack of results. It is fair to say that nobody in the area trusts the local government to actually produce anything with the money, since the money from all of the previous tax increases seems to have disappeared with nobody to blame. This has led to the peculiar situation where R-51 supporters are advertising that “it has accountability built in!” The typical TV spot shows some policewoman standing against a backdrop of gridlocked traffic, saying “R-51 won’t solve all of our traffic problems, but it will be a start, and IT HAS ACCOUNTABILITY BUILT RIGHT IN!” The dominantstrategy of the TVads (andallof them are in favor of R-51) is to say “if you give us your money, we won’t screw you over this time; we promise!” I’ve never seen anything like it; it’s rather funny.
Critics have pointed out that the referendum texthas no specifics about what will get done with the money, and no specifics about how accountability is built-in. There are many pages of specifics about which taxes will be increased. However, Washington has the nation’s highest unemployment rate at the moment, so I think most voters won’t worry about the specifics. What’s another 9 billion, anyway?