Balderdash commented on an earlier post of mine:

You know, as much as I’m in favor of a progressive tax structure, if there’s one lesson I’ve learned in the time I’ve lived here, it’s that you can’t trust Washington’s government with money. I’ll happily vote for an income tax, but only if it is absolutely set in stone that the sales tax dies at the same time. I’m not going to give them an income tax and let them just give their word that they’ll kill the sales tax later at some unspecified time in the future.

I’ll vote for 1098 just because of the high minimum income affected, but if the income tax is ever proposed generally, well… fuck that. Not until sales tax is actually gone.

(Emphasis added by me.)

To everyone who is constantly telling me how terrible our elected government is at investing public resources I say: Prove it. Come up with one example of what you consider to be wasteful governmental spending. And then, show me the hard evidence that your notion is correct. Then try to convince your fellow citizens that this spending is truly wasteful—and not just spending that is for someone else that you don’t like.

Because, so far as I’ve been able to discover, Washington State (and particularly King County) have demonstrated a particularly prescient investment of our resources—generally saving the broader community costs that other places suffer under. I’m not claiming there is no wasteful spending. Just that on the scale of public spending, the percentage of wasted spending seems low—generally lower than most other (private, for profit) organizations I’ve had the misfortune of being under. The services we receive from our local governments are astonishingly valuable and reliable—on both a global and historical scale.

Want a data-backed example? I won’t go after the obvious (King County’s world-class public health department, for example. Or having firetrucks that respond to everyone’s houses). No, let’s go after something that would be easy for an anti-tax demagogue to pick on: Consider 1811 Eastlake:

A list of the region’s most expensive alcoholics (in medical costs, jail costs, and shelter costs for alcoholism) was compiled. Each was offered a free room in a dormlike building at 1811 Eastlake in Seattle; with the room came (cheap) preventative basic medical care and counseling. The first 95 selected for this program cost society over $8 million per year before being moved in. After the no-strings-attached housing, total annual costs (including for the rooms) for the 95 dropped to about $4 million—half. On average, those provided housing drank less; some stopped altogether.

Such a plan is ugly. It ignores questions of who deserves what. It worked. Sanctimony is objectively expensive.

What do you have?

Jonathan Golob is an actual doctor.

58 replies on “Wasted Tax Dollars? Prove It.”

  2. Each bike box costs about $15,000 to install. The paint is actually an aggregate of crushed rock set in epoxy and costs about $10,000. It requires special skills to put down correctly, which results in $5,000 for labor, according to SDOT.

    If they save one life it’s worth it in my opinion.

  3. Balderdash: sane criticism of government idiocy and waste is essential and it’s natural for people frustrated by government dumbness to resent paying taxes. But the result of tax-bashing is state governments with no money and the needed services they provide in crisis. If you’re in a high tax bracket you’re well-positioned to protect yourself against such problems. If you’re not, you’re fucked. It’s no good. People need to stop tax-bashing.

  4. Jonathan:

    Washington State Ferries. I believe there was a recent series on it put on by one of the local news affiliates. You might have heard a little something about it.

    Look for the record, I’m not some tax-hating libertarian wannabe: my opinion is that taxes are neither good nor bad, they’re just the way that government pays for the things we ask them to pay for. But we as citizens do need to insist on a bit of accountability now and again.

    If you think that WSF is the ONLY agency in the state that is inefficient, you’re deluding yourself. Here, I’ll give you another example. WSDOT has a bunch of marine structures that they have to inspect periodically (floating bridges and all that). In the past, they would hire private sector operators to complete these inspections – these operators would provide the boats, divers, etc. This is an efficient approach, as the state only needs these things for a small portion of the year in any given year. Recently, the DOT decided to buy their own boat and hire their own divers (full time employees, don’t you know). Now, we get to pay a team of divers FT wages and all that go with it (yay pension liabilities!) to do part time work. That is what is called wasted tax dollars.

    Refute it.

  5. Each bike box costs 1/10,000th of the amount we waste in tax subsidies for single-passenger cars using the same amount of roadway.

    In other words, bike boxes are a bargain.

  6. Jonathan:

    Still waiting.

    Here’s another one: leading up to 2007, WSDOT, which was already staffed beyond needs, began adding more engineers, planners, and such in anticipation of passage of the 2007 RTID measure. Oops, RTID failed. So, did WSDOT immediately begin cutting staff? Um, no.

    In fact, as we’re now approaching three years into the decline of the WSDOT program, the DOT has yet to reduce staff by one single position. Sure, they’ve allowed some empty positions to remain unfilled, but they’ve yet to actively reduce staff at all. By contrast, private sector companies have cut 25-30%. During this time, the state has cut teachers and social services, but apparently highway engineers are untouchable.

    At a recent industry event, the Secretary of Transportation, Paula Hammond, admitted that the DOT is overstaffed by about 400 people.

    400 people.

    Let it sink in.

    400 people.

    Does that qualify as waste to you?

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