Generally, the fall has been one of my favorite times of the year.
But then I was elected sheriff and that changed, as it was budget preparation time.
And the message then — which has only become more dire these days — was to reduce spending somehow without reducing services.
Recent stories in both Lewis and Thurston counties reflect the challenges counties have, which are worse now than ever it appears.
Olympia is no help.
Governor and Spender-in-Chief Bob Ferguson, along with his progressive posse in Olympia, recently passed a number of increases in taxes, which as also reported in The Chronicle and elsewhere, were the highest ever.
And, somehow, still not enough.
Not long ago, it was surprising to drive through California to find cheaper fuel, although still crazy expensive.
Our costs are likely to get worse.
Now that all those new taxes are kicking in, we find Gov. Ferguson blaming President Trump for all our problems.
To be fair, the progressive legislators and our governor are careful to explain to us that they are not taxing us, just businesses, so we’re not even going to notice this. Pinky promise. Except, they are.
Meanwhile, many of the progressive pet projects heavily “funded” by the federal government are being pulled back. I say “funded” in quotes because the federal government is broke, too, and shouldn’t be borrowing from China or anywhere else to provide handouts.
As reported, the Washington state Department of Revenue (DOR) held listening sessions — which is rich, because Olympia doesn’t listen — and found there was “confusion and frustration from a variety of groups” about the implementation of all these new taxes that won’t affect us (they promised). Again just businesses across the state will pay, not people of course.
I always thought the Department of Revenue was a curious name for an agency that doesn’t provide any revenue at all — it just collects it, but I digress.
But during this difficult time for our state, we can be assured that Planned Parenthood will be backfilled from any cuts in federal dollars. And we will continue to sue the Trump administration because we want to spend money they don’t have on things we’ve spent money on for years.
And if counties want to take advantage of the money promised by the governor for additional law enforcement, they need to add more taxes on top of the burden from Olympia to get the money. Which, from the whining from Olympia about what’s coming, they don’t have to give now and not likely in the future, either.
It’s pretty clear something is going to give in the near future; either Olympia gets its act together and cuts both taxes and spending, or the lights are going to start to dim. The revenue (taxes) projections are poor, proving once again they can’t tax their way out of this, and cuts will have to be made.
They should have already been made.
But we will have some very nice electric-powered ferries made from an out-of-state (Florida) company, which should tell us something about our state's business climate. For the first time in 50 years, new ferries will be built out of state, along with the jobs that go with them — and that’s exciting given all the bad news recently.
Seriously though, our state needs to stop spending and pretending they have the money to keep doing it.
Pushing unfunded mandates onto local governments because they can, crushing businesses with new taxes, is not a long-term successful planning strategy.
Whether they like it or not, elected officials run for the jobs at whatever level they are, and sometimes the answer to new stuff is simply “no.”
Just like business and families do all the time.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@gmail.com.
