[Robwin]

Most of the proposed tax-fee increases fall on the West Siders who richly deserve them. However (yet another) increase in gas taxes will affect us all. As always the Dim answer to budget shortfalls is to plunder the taxpayer more and more, but never to reduce spending.

[Robwin]

ping

[Secret Agent Man]

These liberal assholes can never cut anything. Never. Government must always get bigger.

Not anymore. Nobody can afford it thanks to them.

[rfp1234]

WA needs to prepare for a massive Japan-like quake. But any tax increase is unfair to the residents who choose to live away from the coast.

[ModelBreaker]

1. Stop current road construction, except where safety is a clear issue. Finish only to extent necessary to make safe.

2. Only maintain current roads with the highest traffic levels.

3. When you run out of current money, stop.

Repeat next year.

[NCDragon]

Take the Inland Boatmans Union OUT of the equation! The crew members of the ferrys need to have their wages reduced to something more sustainable. If I remember correctly, (when I was based out there years ago), the peeps who waved the cars on-board made something like $60K+ for an entry level job? Unbelievable!

[Prospero]

Ah, the old "Internal Improvements" debate, writ large. Can the Congress fund canals over the Blue Ridge paid for by tariffs collected in Charleston harbor?

Well, as long as we're all modern and everything, someone should ask how San Francisco managed to build the Golden Gate bridge during the height of the Great Depression...

[pnh102]

Of course, raising rates for users of the ferries, buses and other forms of mass transit was never a consideration.

Perhaps if the users of these facilities had to pay the actual cost of operating them, like how we drivers do with roads, then they would be more concerned about costly inefficiencies which exist in those systems.

[max americana]

The question begs, why the people west of the cascades have to put up with the idiots from the People’s Republik of Tacoma?

[proudpapa]

In Whatcom County, the local Lummi Tribe is holding the county hostage over a lease to run a small ferry to Lummi Island.

It’s extortion...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014428783_lummi08m.html