What part of "No!" doesn't Eyman understand?

Last November the people of Washington resoundingly rejected I-912 by saying "No!" to the initiative that would have eliminated funding for the landmark $8.5 billion transportation bill that had passed in the state legislature earlier that year. The vote wasn't even close with the initiative that would have eliminated the gas tax funding component going down 45% to 55%.

For months leading up to the elections lawmakers, businesses, and citizens alike spent day after day educating the voters about why the funding was needed and why this state could not afford to eliminate it.

And the voters heard that message, understood it and voted in support of better roads, bridges and transportation corridors, and against short-sightedness, dangerous roads, and more expensive future costs.

Yet back in November shortly after the results were in, Tim Eyman tried to spin the I-912 loss as another win. He also began his campaign for his next initiative, stating:

Next year, we’re pushing an initiative called “$30 tabs, round 3” that not only lowers vehicle tabs to $30, but requires that vehicle taxes be calculated using a vehicle’s market value, not the dishonest, inaccurate and artificially inflated manufacturer’s suggested retail price.

In response I wrote:

Tim, you claim the goal of your next initiative, that flattens vehicle tab taxes at $30, is to calculate the tax based on a vehicle's market value. I have to ask though, in which country Tim? Communist Cuba? Since when does a Hummer cost the same as a Ford Focus? If one tax is to be flattened, then why not all the other taxes paid at purchase time that are at least a percentage of the purchase price? Indeed a flat tax costs the Focus buyer a larger percentage than it does a Hummer buyer.

In January, as soon as he could do so, Eyman filed his new initiative, since dubbed I-917. I call it his "Screw Washington Initiative" because not only would the lost funding for the transportation bill (this initiative goes after the other major funding source for the bill: weight fees) screw Washington, but Eyman himself is basically saying "screw Washington voters", who had already said "Hands Off!" our transportation funding just two months prior to his filing.

I-917 is now probably going to be on this November's ballot, one year after voters said "No!" the first time, and Tim Eyman once again has been provided with editorial space in a major newspaper in an effort to spin his initiative and sway the voters -- will the newspapers never stop providing this snake skin salesman such a forum?

Yet this was a fascinating read in revisionist history and spin.

Get this: not once does Eyman refer to I-912 in his opinion piece. As if it never happened and voters never expressed their position through their vote against it, and what it aimed to do. Not a single word!

Instead he makes his usual shallow pitch:

Paying a flat, fair and reasonable $30 per year is more than enough to register our cars, trucks, motorcycles, motor homes and other vehicles in Washington.

Again, regardless of the vehicle, regardless of the cost of the vehicle, or the weight of the vehicle and the wear and tear the vehicle has on our transportation infrastructure. You cannot tell me that such a flat tax is either fair, reasonable or appropriately differentiates between the range of vehicles that roam our roads. You cannot tell me that a vehicle the size of three Hummers doesn't do more damage to our roads than a Ford Focus.

Each year you have to pay for the right to drive a vehicle on the roads that our transportation taxes go toward maintaining. If you don't pay for your registration, and that right, then you cannot drive your vehicle on our roads. Establishing an arbitrary flat tax such as Eyman has done ignores all of this, and will put a stranglehold on yet another piece of popular legislation that will cause projects to be delayed and probably canceled completely.

We're finally making progress on so many projects, finally attacking our transportation infrastructure needs and getting them funded and underway. We're closing in on funding even the largest of these projects - all because Washingtonians rejected the politics of "No!", and said "Yes!" to safer and better roads and bridges.

Eyman ends his piece by saying:

Politicians should respect the voters' ballot-box decisions

And so should initiative whores like Tim Eyman.

As I wrote in January, the people spoke loud and clear last November telling us that they want their transportation issues solved and that they backed the transportation plan the Washington Legislature passed last April to solve them, gas taxes, car taxes, weight fees and all. They want the 2005 Transportation Bill to be funded so that the 270 plus projects around the state can be completed. But Eyman didn't care what the voters said last November because he knew that his sugar daddy, Michael Dunmire, would pitch in a princely sum to support an effort to place another anti-transportation initiative on the ballot -- over $300,000 in fact.

So Tim, tell me, just what part of "No!" don't you understand?