Oct. 13 Daily News editorial

Initiative 1033, on the Nov. 3 ballot, takes dead aim at most every taxpayer’s favorite target: Big Government. The measure would limit the growth of government by capping the annual growth of revenue at the rate of inflation, plus population growth. Any revenue collected above that cap would be put toward reducing property taxes the following year — unless citizens voted to allow the additional government spending.

It’s not at all surprising that this initiative has polled well over the past weeks and months. State lawmakers have repeatedly demonstrated a lack of discipline in good economic times, growing programs and services, and the size of state government along with it. That spending has served to make the bad times much worse than they need be. Sponsors of I-1033 say the measure would put an end to that boom-and-bust cycle. They’re right. But opponents of the initiative — who say the collateral damage I-1033 would inflict is too great a price, also are right.

The initiative’s reach and timing should give voters pause. I-1033 reaches too far, covering local and state governments, and its timing could not be worse with respect to setting the baseline for the revenue-growth cap.

Initiative 1033 would apply to city and county governments, as well as state government. Had it been limited to state government, we could have viewed the measure more favorably. That’s where spending is largely out of control, where government growth has long outpaced inflation and population growth. With the exception of education, that’s where an artificial revenue cap might have few unintended consequences.

Why include local governments? Spending isn’t out of control at the local level. City and county governments aren’t experiencing any growth spurt. Local governments, in fact, have been shrinking over the past couple of years. Cowlitz County and its cities have had to make deep spending cuts to cope with this deepest recession since the Great Depression. That, of course, is why the prospect of setting a baseline for a revenue-growth cap at this time is so troubling. As Kelso Mayor David Futcher commented earlier this year, “We’d be stuck at this year’s level of spending, and it’s a bad year. You’d like to be able to provide better services to your citizens, and what we’re going to end up with, if it passed, is being able to provide the level of service that we provide this year.”

Longview City Manager Bob Gregory has an equally grim view of what passage of I-1033 would mean for city services. “I would have a hard time envisioning us keeping all the current services going right now,” Gregory told Daily News reporter Amy M.E. Fischer last month. “It would be pretty devastating to the budget process.” Gregory speculated that, each and every year, the city would have ask voters for an operating levy.

Initiative 1033 may be good medicine for state government, but it’s certainly not needed at the local level. And the measure’s impact on cash-starved city and county governments would be far more damaging than anything it might accomplish in Olympia. We recommend that voters reject I-1033.

Read the entire Initiative Measure at www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/initiatives/text/i1033.pdf