Election? Campaigning going on? Gee, how did you know? Our one daily and two weekly newspapers certainly are not telling you. I don’t recall such an absence of coverage just 4+ weeks to voting. I wait
We all have to quickly realize something. The primary election is only a month away. It starts August 1 - a Wednesday and exactly 5 weeks from now. The county Auditor’s web page continues to tell us;
We notice Rick Larsen is one of the members of Congress who refuse to release their earmark requests for the Federal Budget. Earmarks, pork or legislatively directed spending requests - he will not ev
Our Whatcom County Council this evening discussed taking long-range planning back from the Executive and putting it under the control of the Council. Barb Brenner and Carl Weimer brought the question
You know, I’m really trying to not pound on the Bellingham Herald. I’ve subscribed to it for over 20 years and read it every day. It is our daily newspaper and I want it to be good. We all do. But to
Am adding another link to international news - to ynetnews.com which is an Israeli site. The idea of keeping a list of suggested links here is you might try one once in a while and perhaps add to your
Smoking guns are fun to find. The Bush mob has been caught holding one. The White House claims Karl Rove and Bush did not direct the Department of Justice (DOJ) to fire U.S. Attorneys and replace the
All part of the US push for military control of the world. If you think our building 24 military forts in Africa is a good idea, then you should also be for us Americans knowing about it. And all the
Armed Service veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide as civilians. Just another intangible cost of the insane war in Iraq. (It applies to all male vets from all our recent wars.) Counting just
Have added a new link in the right side column to a local Whatcom County political blog - Washington Outsiders. This Liberal/Progressive/Populist site has been operating for three years and I didn’t k
Last-hour filings for political office on Friday afternoon are always fun to observe. Today, four candidates came in to file between 4:06 and 4:26 pm - with the cutoff time of 4:30. No commercial new
Evan will complete his week-long vigil at the old Federal Building in downtown Bellingham tomorrow afternoon at 4 pm - during the normal weekly peace vigil. During his week there, he has brought many
Check the website about his vigil. He is demonstrating while wearing his Army uniform - and he has every constitutional right to do so. But I predict the military will try and intimidate him. More and
The generals who can’t count straight are caught again. The top generals have been loose with the facts in their effort to justify the war but his interview on Memorial Day was sad because General Pa
This writer - living in a small town in Washington State - has no ability to add value above national writers who have covered the Iraq war and politics in Washington. Only on local issues - Bellingh
Rick Larsen voted for further war spending today - with no timelines. No surprise. He has been a war supporter all along. Let’s start now to find a true Democratic candidate or Independent or anti-war
Unpleasant material is messily whapping its way through the whirling blades in neighborhoods throughout town as the City attempts to patch together a fatally flawed beginning to their Comprehensive Pl
Good morning. Let us try and resume informing you of a few of the events and issues on our local front. Wish we could do more, but this is a hobby or spare-time exercise. And recently, personal family
The new annual report on The Lake Whatcom Reservoir confirms that the quality of the water supply for half of the county’s population is deteriorating. An article in today’s Bellingham Herald points t
Writer's notes: The candidates for State Representative in the 40th District Position 1 are: Dusty Gulleson (prefers Republican Party,) Chuck Carrell (prefers Republican Party,) Doug Revelle (prefers Happiness Party,) Mike Newman (prefers Republican Party,) Kristine Lytton (prefers Democratic Party,) Tom Pasma (prefers Democratic Party,) Thomas Boucher (prefers Democratic Party,) Justin Van Dyk (prefers Democratic Party,) and Donna R. Miller (prefers Republican Party.)
What follows are the two responses to questions I submitted to Chuck last Mon, Aug 2.
Why should I vote for you?
"I’m running this year because the Legislature and Governor continued their out of control spending habits despite our troubled economy, and we need to stop it.
The only way it will stop is to start electing strong leadership to the Legislature that can make the hard choices that will be needed.
I will not support any new taxes unless they will completely eliminate an existing tax and make the amount less overall to the people they affect.
I think people are taxed to their limit right now and the real long term solution is to have the state and local governments cut their spending and get back to the essential functions of what state government is supposed to do.
I will not accept money from, or be a representative for, any PAC or special interest group. That’s important when figuring out where to trim at least $3 billion dollars from our state’s budget next session.
When making cuts, these candidates will feel obligated to keep unnecessary programs due to the financial aid they received during their campaigns. The problem was highlighted this year, and electing those types of candidates will only bring the same issue to the next Legislative session."
What is important to you?
"The most important thing to me this next Legislative session is getting our fiscal house in order.
We need to simplify the tax structure and then get an accurate assessment of what the state budget will be.
Then we need to REALISTICALLY balance the budget. This means that we fund our most important things such as education and public safety first and then continue down until everything is funded or there is no more state money left.
When the state budget is down to zero then we stop funding programs. No matter how badly we want to fund a program, if the state budget is spent then they will have to get their funding someplace else besides state government.
Even within our top priorities we need to look at how to consolidate these agencies and programs to make them more efficient. We also need to look at reducing the middle management in these agencies and what I term “inner bureaucracies.”
Years of these types of hiring practices by state and local government has created an enormous drain on our resources and is not sustainable. Nor can we rely on Federal grants like we did this year to balance the budget."
