Michelle Malkin
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
AT FIRST GLANCE, Election Day 1999 appears to be a decisive win for Change,
Revolution, and The Little Guy:
--Voters in Washington state overwhelmingly approved a $1 billion annual
cut in car taxes and gained veto power over all future tax and fee
increases. Small-business entrepreneur Tim Eyman triumphed over the
political, business, and media establishment. Opponents outspent Eyman's
tax revolters by more than 10 to 1.
"Never underestimate the stupidity of government," Eyman quipped at his
victory party.
--Voters in Houston turned down a proposal to use tax money to build a $260
million downtown sports arena and garage complex. Fiscal conservatives
defeated the measure despite being outspent more than 5 to 1.
--And voters in St. Paul, Minn. resoundingly rejected a proposal to
increase city sales taxes to help fund a new $325 million baseball stadium
for the Minnesota Twins. Supporters raised and spent more than $300,000,
compared to $8,000 drummed up by opponents.
These seem like heartening signs of fiscal conservatism spreading across
the heartland. The Va.-based National Taxpayers Union declared so in a
post-election press release: "Coast to Coast, Voters Reject Higher Taxes,
Embrace Tax Limits, and Tax-Cutters." Citizens are rising up and reining
in the excesses of government where faint-hearted politicians fear to
tread. Right?
Sorry, but my jaundiced eyes don't see any revolutionary trends worth
celebrating. Although two sports pork packages went down, two others
passed in San Antonio, Texas, and Scottsdale, Arizona.
And while the car-tax cut in Washington state has panicked public
officials, it will be business as usual. (I would dearly love to be proven
wrong.) Lawmakers will raid the state's reserve - a move embraced by the
car-tax-cut campaign -- and plan to repeal spending caps imposed by voters
in 1993. The politicians know they have popular support to eliminate those
caps. Voters approved a $2 billion, GOP-sponsored transportation package
last year that "temporarily" broke the spending limits, which were once a
national model of fiscal control.
Much ado has been made over the new veto power Washingtonians will have
over future taxes. The Wall Street Journal called it "the tightest
straitjacket on the power of legislators to tax that exists anywhere." But
when faced with cuts to "core" functions of government, voters will tax
themselves good and hard. Just last year, four out of five voters in King
County approved higher taxes to fund emergency medical services. Moreover,
citizens who slashed car taxes this year in Washington state also voted in
1997 for subsidies worth a half-billion dollars to pay for Microsoft
billionaire Paul Allen's open-air football stadium in Seattle.
And after local and state officials rammed a half-billion-dollar Mariners
baseball stadium down voters' throats, what did voters do? They elected
one of the leading architects of the plan, Democrat Gary Locke, governor of
the state.
The same tax-cut-and-spend-more schizophrenia infects the rest of the
country. In Virginia, home of the nation's first car-tax revolt, voters
gave control of the state Legislature this week to Republicans who promised
to cut tuition at public colleges and spend more on transportation than the
Democrats.
Supply-side conservatives will interpret this year's election results as a
mandate for less government. The sad fact is that many voters want Big
Government without having to pay for it. They never met a tax cut they
didn't like. They favor reducing the size and scope of their government --
as long as it doesn't hurt their favorite sports teams, public schools,
police departments, ferries, symphony halls, and art museums. Voters want
politicians who give us the laughing gas and skip the root canal.
For a final piece of evidence, look at the GOP-controlled Congress. "We
have lost our courage in advocating smaller government," Rep. Steve Largent
(R-Okla.) told the Los Angeles Times this week. "The energy to continue
this pressure on reducing government spending has been lost." According to
the libertarian Cato Institute, of the 50 largest federal programs on the
GOP chopping block in 1995, half had larger budgets in 1999 than they did
four years ago. Republicans no longer want to privatize Social Security;
they want to "defend" it. They're busting budget caps and binging on
federal education, arts, and transportation programs.
Why? Because for all their anti-tax fervor, Americans want more, more,
more. Never underestimate the addictiveness of
JWR contributor Michelle Malkin can be reached by clicking here.
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