Musings on the Common Good
Tim Eyman, John Kenneth Galbraith and the Newark Public Library

Alan Rhodes lives in Bellingham, and can be reached at: writealan@aol.com.

Why is Tim Eyman the most dangerous man in Washington state? I’ll come back to that question, so please stay with me for some preliminaries.

From its beginnings, philosophy has tried to define the notion of “the common good,” and ascertain how it might be achieved. Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Locke, Hume, Spinoza, Marx—they’ve all wrestled with it. While most of us probably have not devoted rigorous systematic thought to the common good, we still have a sense of it as a desirable goal. We seem to know instinctively that the best society is one that cares about the well-being of its individual members, protects the most vulnerable among us and condemns personal gain derived from the exploitation and abuse of others.

Years ago novelist Philip Roth eloquently articulated one aspect of the common good in a 1969 article titled “The Newark Public Library.” Facing budget problems, the Newark, New Jersey, City Council was considering closing the public library. In an opinion piece for The New York Times, Roth wrote about what that library had meant to him as child from a family of modest means where few books were available. The library opened up a world of otherwise inaccessible knowledge.

Something else very significant happened to Roth because the public library was there: he got what he regards as the most important civics lesson of his life, a lesson in public ownership and civic responsibility. Roth reflected on “the idea of communal ownership, property held in common for the common good.” He wrote “Why I had to care for the books I borrowed, return them unscarred and on time, was because they weren’t mine alone, they were everybody’s. That idea had as much to do with civilizing me as any I was ever to come upon in the books themselves.”

I use the Bellingham Public Library almost weekly, and am glad it’s there, supported by tax dollars for everyone’s use. But even if I never entered the library, I would want it to be there, serving citizens who depend upon it: students doing research, or readers on limited incomes who can’t afford to purchase books. Similarly, I have no children in public school, but willingly pay taxes that support our schools, knowing that democracy is dependent upon an educated populace, and that the teenager sitting in a high school chemistry class may be my future doctor.

I rarely ride the bus, but am happy that there are subsidies to support a system that is the only transportation available to many, and knowing that some of those riders are on their way to work in businesses that fuel our local economy. There are many distant hiking trails and state parks that I may never get around to visiting, but it’s important that they are there, preserving wilderness and offering recreation and spiritual renewal to all.

Without this fundamental concept of public ownership and the common good, we simply can’t function as a society. We lose part of our humanity. And this is why “tax crusader” Tim Eyman is the most dangerous man in Washington. Eyman’s relentless assault on government funding is not a crusade for working people. To the contrary, it does its worst harm to middle and lower income families.

But it is more than just selfishness and economic irresponsibility on Eyman’s part. It’s an attack on the way we care for our state, for our communities and for future generations. Eyman seems unable to recognize something that Philip Roth realized as a child—the library books are important, and they belong to everyone. And so do our parks, roads, transit systems, public schools, ferries, trails, arts programs and universities. We have to care for these shared benefits, and that means we have to share the costs. The problems of society belong to us all as well. We have a collective responsibility to see to it that the poor are fed and the sick are treated. It is part of being civilized. It is part of being human.

Eyman’s dismantling of the social structure began in 1999, when he sponsored I-695, an initiative to reduce the car license tab tax to a flat rate of $30. While I-695 passed, it was later ruled unconstitutional because it bundled more than one issue into the initiative. Unfortunately the state legislature, in a show of cowardice and irresponsibility, bowed to the hysteria of the moment and took it upon itself to pass the $30 flat rate.

Eyman, possessing the demagogue’s talent for distorting issues and appealing emotionally to people’s worst instincts, had so enflamed public opinion on I-695 that the legislature hadn’t the political will to hold firm to the fairness and fiscal soundness of the system in use.

The new flat rate fee was an especially sweet perk for affluent owners of expensive cars. The driver pulling his new Mercedes up to his 8,000 square foot megahome had just paid the same license fee as the single mom driving a twenty-year-old car.

While the poor were subsidizing the wealthy in this manner, local governments began the scramble to cope with the impact. Many raised sales taxes, a regressive form of taxation that most negatively impacts middle and lower income families. When the single mom needs a new hot water heater, she pays the same sales tax as the Mercedes driver in the megahome, and the subsidization of the haves by the have-nots continues.

Eyman was back in 2000 with I-722, designed to put a 2 percent cap on property tax increases. It qualified for the ballot, won, but was also declared unconstitutional for covering more than one issue.

In this same year Eyman succeeded in qualifying I-745 for the ballot. Fortunately voters overwhelmingly rejected this initiative, which would have required that ninety percent of transportation taxes be spent on roads—a potential death blow to public transportation.

In 2001 Eyman successfully crusaded for I-747, which restricted property tax increases to 1 percent, a rate so low that local governments would not be able to keep up with inflation. Municipalities were doomed to a steady downhill slide.

The year 2002 saw another Eyman success, the passage of I-776, which wiped out local car tab fees. The measure was declared unconstitutional, but that decision was reversed by the state supreme court.

This year Eyman floated two initiatives. The first, I-864, called for a 25 percent reduction in state property taxes. Elected officials, already struggling to make ends meet, despaired over this looming disaster. Fortunately, there is a reprieve, as I-864 fell short of the number of signatures required to place it on the November ballot.

The underlying deception in Eyman’s previous rhetoric is apparent in companion initiative I-892, which will appear on November’s ballot. In the past, Eyman has always asserted that there would be no negative effects from his revenue slashing, that government simply needs to prioritize, live within its means and cut the fat.

Given the financial crisis besieging state and local government, Eyman’s arguments have become increasingly difficult to justify. He now seems to be admitting indirectly that there is a problem, so I-892 would legalize slot machines in local business establishments as a way of making up lost revenues. The gambling industry poured money into this initiative campaign, paying for signature gatherers, ensuring that it would be on the ballot.

We are asked to finance society’s needs with quarters fed into slot machines in coffee shops, with all the attendant social problems that widespread legalized gambling brings. The cynicism and irresponsibility of this proposal has left public officials, and much of the public, shaking their heads in dismay.

Beyond the socially destructive revenue-slashing objectives of Eyman’s crusade lurks an equally serious danger. The second target in Eyman’s sights is representative government. The initiative process, originally intended as a somewhat drastic last step, is used by Eyman and his disciples in place of the legislative process.

This legislative process, clumsy and frustrating as it often is, provides certain safeguards. Ideas must be debated, proposals modified and amended, and compromises reached as elected representatives work toward solutions. It’s the very slowness of the proceedings that forces reality and balance into the system.

Voter initiatives, on the other hand, easily reduce everything to bumper sticker simplicity. Media blitzes and sound bites replace deliberation; emotional arguments that appeal to popular prejudices can carry the day. While there is certainly an essential place for voter initiatives when all else has failed, Eyman’s use is a distortion of the original concept, and an aggressive attack on how we have successfully governed ourselves through our nation’s history.

Recently some political observers have expressed optimism that Eyman’s reign is coming to an end, noting his failure to gather enough signatures to put I-864 on the ballot. Their feeling is that people are beginning to see through Eyman, and are becoming increasingly aware of the problems his initiatives create.

Following the announcement that I-864 had fallen short of needed signatures, Democratic campaign consultant Christian Sinderman commented that “We’ve seen so much damage and so many lies from Eyman initiatives, so it’s nice to see his base eroding and seeing voters saying ‘no’ to these destructive initiatives that are sponsored purely for profit.”

Eyman, however, is undeterred in his relentless onslaught on the common good. Many said he was washed up at the end of 2003, when he failed to get any initiatives on the ballot. As we have already seen this year, he roared back with two new initiatives. Others rang the death knell for Eyman when his criminal activities came to light, and he paid heavy fines for siphoning off large sums of money from campaign accounts for his own personal use. Shaking off the negative publicity, he forged ahead, as if nothing were amiss.

It is both instructive and refreshing to contrast Eyman’s myopic views to the thesis advanced by economist John Kenneth Galbraith in his 1996 book “The Good Society.” Viewed from the perspective that Galbraith provides, while Eyman is certainly dangerous and irresponsible, in the larger picture he is merely an ephemeral aberration in the historical process.

Galbraith proposes the thesis that certain institutions and ideas come into fruition in the course of history, not because advocates on one side of an issue were more powerful or convincing than the other side, but because of historical inevitability. Before looking at Galbraith’s reasoning and some of his examples, let me give a rather simple and obvious example by way of illustration.

Opposition to slavery is not merely one point of view, with the other side holding a perfectly valid opposing viewpoint. No rational person today would argue that slavery is an acceptable institution. This has not always been the case, as slavery has had its educated and articulate spokespersons in earlier times. What has happened to these voices? They have been washed away in the natural flow of history. Pro-slavery advocates were a species that did not survive history’s evolutionary process. We could no more turn back to that era than we could physically evolve back into simpler life forms.

Likewise, contends Galbraith, such reforms as worker compensation, minimum wage, social security, and Medicare have come into being, and remain a fixture in modern life, not because liberals have been more persuasive in the past than conservatives, but because they are natural components of the evolving “good society.”

Entering the 20th century we were still a rural, agricultural nation. Retirement was usually brief, and each generation looked after the previous one. Social security and Medicare would have been generally unnecessary. Urban development, industrialization, changes in family structure and increasing life spans altered everything. Worker compensation, social security and Medicare became necessities of life.

The great error of both liberals and conservatives, argues Galbraith, is that each side thinks that its actions are the driving forces behind social change. This, in Galbraith’s analysis, misses the mark. He says:

This is to ignore a far deeper truth—to fail to appreciate the more fundamental thrust of history, which is greater than current action and reaction and has a controlling influence of its own. It is the pride of liberals and the political conviction of conservatives that they shape the social agenda; in fact, it is shaped by the deeper trends of history. To these there must be accommodation, and liberals, social democrats and those called socialists in the advanced countries have traditionally made or guided this accommodation. In consequence, to them has been attributed the larger change; some, indeed many, have taken credit therefor, and conservatives have all but universally awarded them responsibility and blame. But, in reality, it is history that is in control.

The current call for the abolishment or scaling back of fundamental social programs, or for the privatizing of these institutions is, in Galbraith’s view, a anomaly, a momentary disturbance in the flow of events. It is a misguided and stubborn refusal to accept the nature of historical development, and is ultimately doomed to fail.

There is something grandly Hegelian in Galbraith’s compelling thesis. In this view, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, is not just a piece of legislation that liberals supported and conservatives opposed (The 1964 Republican party platform featured a plank opposing federal civil rights legislation); it is an inevitable step in an evolutionary process. Returning to a system of legalized segregation is impossible, is unthinkable. History has left that far behind.

Viewed from this larger perspective, not only are Eyman and his ilk failing to present valid alternatives, but they are destined to be swept away by the currents of history. While they may make small gains here and there, ultimately they will not succeed. In the short run, however, Eyman is causing terrible damage, and he has many more targets in sight.

There are people sitting in prison cells who are far less dangerous than Eyman. Some have committed violent acts in moments of rage or despair, acts they are unlikely to repeat. Others are in prison for crimes that are relatively petty and, in some cases, victimless. Even the most heinous of criminals impact relatively few people, and are usually caught and prosecuted. Tim Eyman’s victim, on the other hand, is the very foundation of society.

This is a man who would shred the social fabric for a $30 license plate. §