WA Policy Center Raises fanciful issues?

Issues around lack of funding in initiative:
I-1351 provides no funding. Education money diverted to it would make it harder to pay good teachers more.

There are three issues here: 1) Is it wrong for an initiative not to contain a self-funding mechanism? 2) Is the only appropriate way to fund I-1351 is to cut other education programs & services? 3) Is the legislature would be likely to agree upon a mechanism to identify “good teachers” and then appropriate the money to pay them more?

Self-funding: This is a particularly ironic objection, as the history of legislative failure to fund programs it mandates is legendary. Nothing in the law that created initiatives requires them to be self-funding. Many initiatives, particularly those that have cut taxes, have passed with the support of WPC without containing any specifications as to how the state finds the funds to replace the lost revenue. Regardless of the lack of funding or the inclusion of funding, opponents will focus on objecting to the “funding”, as a means of opposing the initiative without having to deal with the actual content of the initiative.

Cutting other programs: This argument presumes there can be no additional tax revenue generated and that the only viable funding must come from within existing revenue. Yet, Rob McKenna campaigned for governor on a platform that included dedicating 80% of new state revenue to education. So, someone WPC likes doesn’t seem to think that’s a bad idea.

Paying “good teachers” more: Although there’s no research that suggests such a program can improve student learning and, although there’s no agreement in the state as to how one would go about identifying “good teachers; this argument presupposes that the legislature is in the process of passing legislation to pay “good teachers” more and that this legislation would be killed by the initiative. Such a supposition is absurd in the extreme and suggesting it is at risk of failing to pass because of I-1351 is fanciful, at best, and an outrageous and deliberate falsehood, at worst.

Conclusion:

Taken together, these three objections are mostly without merit and demonstrative of political polemics. Don’t let these objections confuse you. Support I-1351.