Republican Party Exposed

In an editorial in Thursday's paper, the Seattle PI tells it like it is (and pretty much like I've been telling it the past few weeks, for that matter):

It's enlightening to see that the state Republican Party has formally endorsed Initiative 912, which would repeal the gas-tax increase the Legislature approved earlier this year.

It's enlightening in that it's more evidence of the growing rift in the state party's traditional relationship with business. Washington business leaders have been outspoken in their insistence that the state's economic future depends on a safe and efficient transportation system to get employees to work and products to market.

Disregarding the clear and manifest benefits to business, dismissing the creation of thousands of family-wage jobs, disregarding the votes of respected Republican legislators, ignoring Hurricane Katrina's lessons in neglected infrastructure, rejecting long-needed highway safety improvements on hundreds of miles of two-lane highways, forestalling repairs to dozens of dangerous bridges -- that's the GOP transportation agenda.

The official endorsement means the state GOP can write checks to the I-912 campaign (providing there's anything left in the bank account after the profligate spending on the ill-fated gubernatorial election challenge).

So now the state GOP is forthrightly opposed to funding $8.5 billion in transportation projects.

When it comes to actually getting something done about dangerous highways, crumbling roads, dilapidated bridges and replacing parts of the transportation infrastructure key to the state's economy, the GOP is the party of "no."

Good of them to set the record straight.

Yow!

Hard to say it much better than that. The Republican party chiefs have decided they have a better plan for Washington state than your bipartisan legislature worked hard to make law. At best they want something for nothing. They want miraculous transportation solutions, but they want them to happen at no cost. If they have any interest in your safety, they hope it can be achieved by crossing their fingers and praying something bad doesn't happen. If they want to retain their traditional business community support, they're praying businesses don't notice that they're backing an initiative businesses strongly oppose. If they believe that by backing I-912 they will become the party of the people, they've misread the pulse of the nation that has learned the hard lessons of the hurricane devastation, that you cannot gamble with infrastructure needs and the safety of citizens, and that government has the obligation to make the hard decisions, and to do the long term planning needed to keep our bridges and roads from falling apart.

These people are dangerously leading those that blindly follow them into a future built on wishful thinking, the gambling of lives for political gain, and a legacy of complete and utter disregard for the responsibilities our leaders swear an oath to when they take office, to keep us safe, to provide the citizenry with opportunities for prosperity and a healthy land to live in, and to do the right thing for all of us, and those that will come after. By backing I-912, the short sighted, selfish, political vision of the Republican leadership has been exposed for all to see. They should be ashamed.