04/15/2005: "Candy Store Lesson"

She could barely see over the counter. She had as much candy as she could carry. She reached up and piled it all on the counter one at a time in front of me. She had that look of pure inner joy that only a kid-in-a-candy-store can feel. She gave me that don't-tell-mom look. I had seen this many times before. I owned the store. Lots of kids do this. So before I rang it all up I asked her to show me how much money she had in her pocket. She paused and looked a bit confused, then silently reached deep into her pocket and pulled out some change. Then she reached in again and put all of it on the counter. 42 cents, mostly pennies. Now I had the hard job of telling her she was about 10 dollars shy without making her start bawling. I told her that she needed to count her money first then prioritize her purchases accordingly. That did it. Her formerly cute innocent face transformed before my eyes into some sort of evil creature. She cried and screamed so loud the other customers thought I was guilty of child abuse. I thought she might have a future career in politics.

How do you explain the basic principle of living within our means to a kid? How do you explain it when no one else seems to follow this principle, especially politicians? So at tax time each year we must all contemplate the reason why in the heck we work half the year just to pay taxes. After solemn meditation I believe that it is government spending, not taxes that brings us so much grief on April the 15th.

Most of the time politicians get it backwards. They ask, "How much money do we need to accomplish what we want to do?" Their approach is to create the wish list first, then round up enough taxes to pay for it. This is the wrong approach. The question should be "What can we do with the money we have to meet the needs of our citizens?" The answer is for government to prioritize spending and then live within its means.

This seems so simple in theory and yet it never seems to work in practice. I am sick and tired of watching a bunch of seemingly normal people run for office, cheat, win, and then whine about how tough their jobs are because "we the people" are not paying enough taxes.

We have proposals on the table now by our temporary Governor for the additional sin tax, gas tax, and death tax. She is trying to round up more for her wish list. She would not have to squeeze every nickel out of the sinners, drivers and the dearly departed if she didn't spend so much.

Politicians tax everything so they don't have to face the difficult decisions and just say NO to spending. It is difficult to tell people that the things they want cannot be funded. But that is precisely the job we elected them to do in the first place.

Politicians will try any creative trick to get around taxpayer initiatives in order to impose some new tax. The spending limits imposed by the voters are eroding with each new day and the $30 dollar license tab initiative is coming around for the third time. Why don't they listen?

The taxes in our State seem to be rising fast. Here are some recent quotes from the Seattle area media:

The Seattle Times: "Senate Democrats have fecklessly added $200 million in extra spending and taxes to Gov. Christine Gregoire's budget, which was already pushing the limit of what people of this state can afford."

And this: "Like the governor's budget, the Senate proposal does not solve the problem of state expenses growing faster than money collected from taxes."

And: "The total of their proposals is up 12 percent. There is the problem. The people's ability to pay is not up 12 percent in two years. Not even close."

The News Tribune: "The (Senate) budget would do little to right the basic fiscal imbalance that stems from Washington not generating enough taxes to support the growth in demand on existing state services. Indeed, it would appear that the state should not expect anything revolutionary out of Olympia this year."

King County Journal: "Like last week's proposal from Gov. Christine Gregoire, (the Senate budget) doesn't do a good job of prioritizing what government should do."

And this: "Neither Gregoire nor the Senate Democrats show much inclination to cut."

Some kids learned the lesson of candy store early in life. Others became career politicians. The fact is if you have dreams of buying everything that looks good you'd better have the money to pay for it. Then you buy the best candy you can afford. No more.