We must always stay on offense: our next initiative will be announced this week

This week we’re announcing our next initiative. 

        We must always stay on offense.  The voters approval of Initiative 1366 is obviously a great victory for the taxpayers.  But its’ passage hasn’t ended the tug-of-war over taxes — that fight continues.

       But the momentum is clearly in our direction.  And we want that positive momentum to continue.  That won’t happen by resting on our laurels.  That can’t happen by relying on and counting on the last vote to convince Olympia to listen.

        The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. 

        The tug-of-war over taxes continues. 

        We’ve been doing initiatives for many years.  In that time, we made a serious attempt to qualify 25 initiatives for the ballot.  We succeeded at getting 21 of those 25 on the ballot for a public debate and a public vote.  Voters have approved 15 of them (I-1366 is the 15th).  Those initiatives have saved taxpayers billions of dollars, both directly and indirectly.  Directly, lower car tab taxes and limits on property tax growth have saved taxpayers over $32 billion (http://www.voterswantmorechoices.com/SavTax.html).  Indirectly, whenever our initiatives making it tougher to raise taxes were approved by voters, for two years the Legislature was on a short leash and scores of tax increases were never proposed and never passed, saving taxpayers billions more.  Those billions in savings can’t be calculated but they also can’t be denied.  You just know the political establishment would’ve radically increased taxes if not for the passage of our initiatives.   

        All of us want to make a difference during our short time on this planet.  The three of us have chosen to make a difference by letting the people have a greater voice in their government.  By letting the voters vote on reforms and proposals that put reasonable limits on governments’ power.  By allowing the citizenry to learn more about the process and do more to make our state a better place.  For government to work, it takes an active, engaged citizenry — our initiatives assist in that worthy endeavor.   

       The three of us firmly subscribe to Theodore Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena”:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

          Our next initiative will be announced this week — so stay tuned.  We think you’re gonna love it (which means the political establishment is gonna hate it).