I-985: Giant Sucking Sound
This is curious. Washington state initiative-mogul Tim Eyman is known for writing ballot measures that appeal to eastern Washington residents, but give western Washingtonians -- particularly in greater Seattle -- a sharp poke in the eye.
This election season, though, Eyman has thrown his usual tactics into reverse. His new ballot measure, called Initiative 985 (or I-985 to the...er...initiated), is ostensibly targeted at a problem that's mostly focused in greater Seattle: traffic congestion. And the solution Mr. Eyman proposes is to suck tax revenues from all over the state, put the money into a special traffic account -- and spend most of the cash on transportation projects in greater Seattle, leaving almost nothing for his political base east of the Cascades.
Huh?
I was puzzled enough by all this that I dug into the numbers a bit, just to make sure. Could he really be alienating his traditional supporters so badly?
Well, at this point, my best guess -- well, at this point it's more than a guess, it's a near certainty -- is that, yes, I-985 does in fact shift large amounts of money from Eastern Washington to the Seattle area.
We looked in detail at the flow of revenue into I-985's transportation fund, the required spending under the initiative, and the regional concentration of the congestion problems to which I-985 is directed. And whatever Mr. Eyman might hope or claim, I-985 would wind up shifting about $180 million in revenues from the rest of the state into greater Seattle. Over 5 years, we expect that the average family of four outside of the Seattle area will ship about $229 in tax dollars to pay for Seattle-area road projects.
See the full report, with citations and methods, here.
So if Mr. Eyman has his way, folks from Spokane, Walla Walla, Vancouver, the Tri-Cities, and rural areas and small towns all across the state will foot the bill for increased transportation spending in the central Puget Sound. And weirdly, it looks to me that even Pierce County loses out in I-985; the Tacoma area has fewer HOV lanes and less congestion than its neighbors to the north, so Pierce County residents would probably wind up shipping some money northwards.
Here's how it all works...
