SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
King County taxpayers are being played like fiddles
Apr 29, 2015, 5:58 PM | Updated: Apr 30, 2015, 8:56 am
KIRO Radio's Dori Monson didn't vote for a King County levy because the county has plenty of money already. (File photo)
(File photo)
Taken from Wednesday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show
King County is going to grant its 14,000 employees 12 weeks of paid parental leave when they choose to have a kid. The tax payers are going to give them almost three months salary for their choice to have a kid.
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If businesses in the private sector need to do that, good for them; if they need to attract people. But King County has no problem recruiting, attracting, and keeping people in those 14,000 jobs. This is just a massive transfer of wealth from private citizens to government employees.
How are they going to pay for it?
Well, they just have the money. They found the money for that.
The reason I bring this up is because there was a very, very little known levy on the ballot Tuesday. I voted. I don’t mind telling you I voted “no,” because King County has plenty of money.
I voted “no” knowing the lemmings in the majority vote yes for the King County property levy. It’s a property tax hike for an emergency public safety radio replacement project.
Here’s what I would ask our King County leaders and that I wish more voters would ask: Hey, King County leaders, why didn’t you take money that will be used for paid parental leave and use it to pay for something as essential as an emergency public safety radio project? If you have that money available for paid parental leave, why didn’t the county use it for something absolutely essential?
And then you know what the county could have done? It could have held a special levy and asked us if we wanted to raise our property taxes so we could provide funding for the most generous paid parental leave program in the country for government employees.
Why didn’t you do that? Because the voters would have said “no.” Don’t raise our taxes so your employees can get 12 weeks of paid leave for their decision to have a baby.
But the county plays this game. And the frustration for me is that the voters allow themselves to be played by this game.
This frees the county up to buy votes from their 14,000 employees.
It is frustrating when you see how ignorant the voters of this region are in allowing themselves to be played like fiddles.
Taken from Wednesday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show
