Initiative 1033 will be on the ballot in Washington State in November 2009. This Initiative may sound good on the surface, but truth is that I-1033 actually decreases the amount of money that will be spent on education, health care, and economic security. A similar initiative was passed in Colorado in 1992 and after seeing the damaging affects that have occurred there, no other state has approved this type of initiative. Since Colorado passed this initiative they have become one of the nation’s poorest funded and poorest performing states and currently rank at 47th in the nation’s K-12 education funding. Colorado’s teachers have the lowest pay in the nation and immunizations have also fallen to one of the lowest nationwide.
I-1033 limits the amount of revenue that the government is allotted to spend. This amount is calculated by the current inflation plus the population growth. Any revenue made above this amount is given back in property tax cuts. The problem with this is that the inflation costs are measured by the change in price of consumer products, not in the prices that government spends on services. Another problem is in the way that the population is measured. The population part of the equation looks at the general population ignoring key changes in population such as the increasing number of uninsured people and the increase of retirees due to the baby boomers. This equation also leaves no room for unanticipated costs such as natural disasters, unfunded mandates, and emerging public priorities. I-1033 fails to keep up with the costs of retirees, education, public safety, etc. During times of recession I-1033’s negative affects are even more detrimental. This is because the equation is so limiting that the government cannot spend enough money to work out of a recession leaving unemployment rates high and the economy turning slowly.
If I-1033 were to pass in November 2009 it would constrict the government’s ability to make essential public investments, worsen the effects of the economic downturn, and increase the current deficit by nearly half a billion dollars.
