Latest Tim Eyman initiative would put time limit on tax hikes

If you’re angry at the number of taxes passed in the Washington State Legislature this session, you may be able to take action to stop to them. A new Tim Eyman move, Initiative 1648, would allow Washington voters to effectively veto every one of the new tax increases.

“This initiative says whenever they raise taxes without a vote of the people, we’re going to put it on a strict time limit … the ones they passed, we can’t stop them from taking effect, but if we pass the initiative, they will stop,” Eyman told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson.

He joked that it is like taking “an incredibly large club” to all 11 tax increases.

If Eyman’s initiative makes it onto November’s ballot and is passed by voters, it would ensure that all of this session’s tax increases end in December, and would limit all future tax increases to just one year. This means that each tax increase would have to be re-voted on by the Legislature each session.

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“They pass a tax and it lasts forever,” Eyman explained. “What this initiative does is, we want to have strict time limits on the ones they pass.”

According to Eyman’s initiative, tax increases could last longer than a single year if approved by voters after each session.

Rather than letting voters decide on each new tax individually, Initiative 1648 would bundle all 11 tax increases together.

“Everything they did this Legislative session was incredibly corrupt … these are all highly criticized tax increases,” Eyman said.

He said that with large tax increases passed in the last days of the session, without hearings, and even in some cases without legislators reading the bills, voters need to be able to take another look at these pieces of legislation.

Eyman added that the tax increases amount to over $25 billion in the next 10 years — more than the tax increases of the six prior Legislative sessions combined.

Initiative 1648 needs 320,000 signatures by July 5 to qualify for the ballot. To learn more about the initiative or to download petitions, visit www.givethemnothing.com.

“It’s really exciting, a really positive one … it’s just a really needed initiative,” Eyman said.

Eyman is currently facing a charge for misdemeanor theft.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.