Last year’s budget fiasco will be nothing compared to 2010 if Tim Eyman has his way. Anyone who enjoyed the raised tuition and decreased funding at WSU is bound to love Eyman’s latest ill-conceived initiative: I-1033.

Eyman is an initiative-writing robot. For the last 12 years, Eyman has not written a single initiative worth voting for. He also spews out his talking points like a robot. Eyman pastes his arguments on every online article about him regardless of what the claims against his initiatives say.

I-1033 limits spending for state, county and local governments to the previous year’s revenue plus local population growth and the national inflation index. Any excess taxes collected would be returned as property tax rebates.

During the middle of an economic recession, state revenue is going to be at an all-time low. The spending limit would start in 2010, setting those very low revenues as the bar for further state spending. Government spending is one of the best ways to move out of a recession. Huge numbers of state and city jobs would be lost because of this spending freeze. This could permanently cripple our state’s economy and have a ripple effect.

Colorado is the only other state that passed a similar law. Its law was known as TABOR, which provides an outline for what Washington would do. Their result – Colorado fell from rank 35 to 49 among the 50 states in state and local spending for K-12 education as a share of personal income. The proportion of low-income children who lack health insurance in Colorado doubled. Colorado voters eventually suspended TABOR for five years.

This initiative has very little support. Some notable opponents include Washington State Council of Firefighters, Washington state Children’s Alliance and Microsoft. If Microsoft, a business, thinks that tax cuts are a bad idea, clearly something is wrong.

The property tax rebates are also an awful idea. In a press release on his Web site, Eyman said, “Struggling working families and fixed-income senior citizens desperately need relief from our state’s crushing property tax burden. Washington shouldn’t be a state where only rich people can afford a home.” This is just absurd. Washington property tax rates are hardly “crushing.” The state ranked 29th in the nation in property taxes per $1,000 of income in 2006, according to the state Department of Revenue’s latest calculation. Those who would benefit the most are people who already have the most. Renters and dorm residents will not see one dime of the so called savings, yet dorm rates will increase to cancel out the funding cuts – no wonder Voters for Affordable Housing opposes I-1033.

I-1033 is also bad for Pullman. In an interview with the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Whitman County Commissioner Michael Largent said I-1033 would force local governments to prioritize services.

“There are services we offer now that we couldn’t under the I-1033 situation,” he said. “Will we grade your roads less? Will our doors be open less? We’ll have to consider anything, but there will be drastic changes.” Pullman City Council has already passed resolutions against two other Eyman initiatives, and 1033 is likely to be the third.

I-1033 is bad for Washington, bad for Pullman and bad for WSU.