Tim Eyman has a new radio ad up—"our first ever advertisement," he says—and guess what? It's aimed at sinking Initiative 1098, Bill Gates Sr.'s plan to tax the filthy rich, but a lot of the ad's information is misleading or just plain false. Let's take a listen:
Eyman's ad begins:
Gregoire and the Democrat party in Olympia really screwed us this year. First, they overturned voter-approved tax limits. Then they raised taxes $6.7 billion...
What they did, says Washington Office of Financial Management spokesman Glenn Kuper, is cut about $5 billion over the current two-year budgeting period while also raising taxes by roughly $670 million a year. Over 10 years, sure, that's about $6.7 billion in taxes. But the ad talks about "this year," and this year taxes are only going up by $670 million.
The ad goes on:
Now Gregoire's Big Labor backers are spending millions of dollars to trick voters into establishing a new state income tax. Voters don't want an income tax imposed on everyone, especially an income tax that's in addition to the other taxes we already pay.
You hear this and you think that not only did Gregoire and the Democrats impose $6.7 billion in new taxes this year, but they also want to impose a new income tax on everyone via I-1098. False. I-1098 would only apply to Washingtonians earning over $200,000 a year as individuals or over $400,000 a year as couples.
More from Eyman's ad:
Washington's already the 5th highest taxed state in the nation—if we don't keep politicians on a short leash, they'll take us to number one.
Says Sandeep Kaushik, spokesman for I-1098: "Actually, in terms of state and local taxes we are around 30th."
All of which is somewhat separate from whether this ad will be effective. Listen to it again and pretend you're a voter who knows none of the above. Are you outraged? Do you plan on voting against I-1098? The answer is probably yes and yes.
