We put out the paper on Tuesdays, so I don't have time to dig into details here (sorry). But Scott Gutierrez at Seattlepi.com has the story on the King County Council's second failed attempt to cover public safety costs. Here's more info on last week's failed vote to raise the sales tax 2/10ths of a percent. It lost because four members (all Republicans) of the (nonpartisan) council don't want any taxes—even if it means firings scores of sheriff's deputies and prosecutors:

The King County Council's second attempt at finding money for criminal justice services failed Tuesday as a proposal to ask voters to increase their property taxes didn't garner enough votes.

Like the sales-tax vote one day earlier, the council voted 5-4, along partisan lines, in favor of putting the measure before voters in August. Because it was considered an emergency measure, it required six votes to pass.

The proposal would have asked voters for a new levy to fund criminal justice. ... The net increase would have been about $38 more per year for the owner of a $400,000 home.

The four council members voting against both proposals—Kathy Lambert, Reagan Dunn, Jane Hague, Pete von Reichbauer—do they have a plan? The county is running $60 million in the hole next year. They're $47 million short on police, prosecutors, and firefighters. Nobody wants to push a regressive tax, of course. But time is nearly gone to get a revenue measure on the August ballot (in time for planning next year's budget). Nobody wants to call 911 and have zero response or have violent criminals released from jail because we don't have the resources to charge them with a crime quickly, either. So do these four teabaggers have any ideas about how to fund those services—or are they just petulantly screaming, "No," and voting against any tax increase?

UPDATE: Council member Jane Hague, who voted against putting proposals before voters, says in a statement: "I’m eager to work on a broad bipartisan solution in which we seriously address King County’s structural budget gap. If this entire process were about ‘voter choice’ as some of my colleagues have suggested, we should at least present them with something we are all committed to.” But Hague doesn't present any plan, a proposal, or a bi-partisan solution.

UPDATE 2: I'm not the only one who notices that the teabaggers on the council have zilch for solutions—no plans for cuts, for revenue, etc. "There's no specifics, there's no proposal up here. There's nothing," says council member Julia Patterson.