Host Kris Halterman will discuss the 2019 Election Results with Vincet Buys and Charlie Crabtree.

Why did you vote to lower the car tab taxes?
1) You don't like car tab taxes, but you are OK with other kinds of taxes?
2) You don't like it when agencies pull shenanigans with how the determine car values?
3) You think our car tab taxes have been spent unwisely.
4) Of all the increases in taxes this year, this was the only one you could cut.

WOW!!! The tin ear of our elected officials is really something to behold.

It really takes a lot to get through to the Democrats who are running our state. They really do not believe that we have been taxed too much, that there is a limit to the taxes we will pay without concrete results. That we have had enough of taxes that only fund more red tape for the rest of us. It is not just the Car tabs, take a look at the advisory votes on the tax increases from the past Democratic controlled legislature. There is no confidence out here that we will get what we are paying for.

As much as the Democrats want to blame this passing of Initiative 976 on one person, Tim Eyman; it really was passed by 658,000 Individual voters across our state.

Our elected officials need to look closer to home. This lack of support is really about how our elected officials are spending our hard-earned tax dollars that they appropriate from us.

For decades the elected officials sitting on the Sound Transit Board have foisted bloated, over budget, late mass transit projects on the Seattle Metropolitan Areas. They have failed to deliver their promise of mass transit projects that will reduce traffic congestion in the Seattle area. Everyone in the state knows that this contributes to the ever-increasing transportation costs of the entire state.
Our elected officials submitted to the strong arming of Seattle for their fancy tunnel project solution to the Alaska Viaduct. The promise was it would ease traffic congestion in downtown Seattle and on the area’s highways. Once again, with the toll now being imposed, there will be no relief of traffic congestion, except for those drivers who add themselves to the list of "Never Going to Seattle Again." Seattle's current solution of a lawsuit which further wastes our taxpayer dollars, in order to establish that they do not have to listen to the electorate will not be well received.

As Seattle becomes more and more congested, with more and more dollars being spent on taxes, tolls, mass transit, those living in the rest of the state languish. A better solution to the traffic congestion through the Monroe area and a four-lane road from Monroe to Leavenworth has been needed for decades, but the dollars continue to be sucked into the Seattle Metropolitan area morass. We heard on ads that if the car tab reduction did not pass it would be the rest of the state that would suffer, no new bridges etc. The attitude out in the hinterlands was one of disbelief that higher taxes would bring them much relief, after all they elected to help build Seattle's tunnel rather than fix bridges before the Skagit bridge fell into the river.

So, what has been predicted to happen is now happening. Like responsible parents, taxpayers are cutting off the allowance until better behavior can be proven. This will not only happen with car tabs, already some school districts are seeing levy failures for building construction and maintenance. This is not because voters do not want to fund their schools, it is because they no longer believe the funds will be spent appropriately. Elected officials need to beware. Taxpayers will tolerate much in order to provide education to our children, but they will not tolerate the misspending of funds or barren results.

So, for those re-elected or newly elected, these state-wide votes on taxation are bellwethers -- Your ability to provide results, not just rhetoric is being assessed.

And if that does not work, our next job will be to throw out this bunch and elect someone else, over-and-over again until we finally get a government we can afford to live with.