| Since Dino is running for office so I knew reading his column (My Turn, November, 2007, KPBJ) would be a campaign ad rather then any pertinent argument. “Gregoire is failing and plotting to raise your taxes, of course while I was in charge I didn’t raise taxes.”
Did Dino have to pay for this newspaper space? Will Gregoire get equal time?
Anyway on to his comments; I guess Dino can crow about not raising taxes when he wrote the budget, but you have to remember that the next year after he was out of office we had a whole state of infrastructure repairs that needed to be funded so our bridges wouldn’t collapse on us, and we had roads that weren’t safe to drive. Saying you didn’t raise taxes is great until something happens, and hopefully nobody dies, but you have to spend more to replace the damaged infrastructure rather then maintaining it.
Infrastructure isn’t a sexy issue unless the bridge falls down, and when you have good governance and the bridges and roads are maintained you don’t have the luxury of saying I cut taxes, but if you run the government the ways Dino says he would, you can say for several years I didn’t raise your taxes until the day the bridge falls down. And that’s bad for business. Good infrastructure isn’t sexy but it makes good business. Unfortunately you have to pay for it.
Whether Dino likes it or not, he has to admit that our state’s economy is doing great — especially compared to other states — and it happened on Chris Gregoire’s watch.
Graham Skelly
Bremerton
(Editor’s Note: We accepted and published that column prior to Rossi’s official announcement that he would seek the governorship again, so there is no obligation to offer “equal time.” Had we known in advance of the timing of Rossi’s announcement, we would not have run the column. However, we did contact the Governor’s office offering that space as well. We received no acknowledgement from Gregoire’s office — even after two follow-up contacts.)
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