John Barnes

Sound Transit Wants to Spend $22 Billion to Reduce Congestion by 1%

By John Barnes | 09/23/08

Now that's a bargain. This fall many voters in King, Snohomish, and Pierce Counties will be deciding on a ballot measure to expand Sound Transit regional transit system.  Michael Ennis, Washington Policy Center's transportation research director, has just released a new study on the measure.  According to the study, the plan (ST2) "would add 36 miles of light rail, expand the Sounder commuter rail by four daily round trips between... read more »

Good News: State Will Have $2.4 Billion More for Next Budget

By John Barnes | 09/20/08

That's the headline you should have seen after the latest revenue forecast.  But you didn't see it because it's less of an increase that what the legislature and governor wanted to spend.  Hence the state spending deficit has grown to $3.2 billion for the next budget. $2.4 billion more in revenue is a good thing, right?  That's about 8% more revenue than state had for the previous budget.  If my household saw 8%... read more »

Gregoire's Creative and Bold Steps to Save Money

By John Barnes | 09/17/08

On August 4 Governor Gregoire called for agencies under her control to freeze the purchase of "non-emergency personal service contracts," in addition to a hiring freeze and reduction in fuel consumption.  These were part of what she called "creative and bold steps" to achieve the goal of budget savings. Apparently some agencies didn't get the memo. A look through the state Office of Financial Management report for personal service contracts... read more »

Joe Biden's Toasters

By John Barnes | 09/16/08

Democrats mock John McCain for not knowing how many houses he has, but Joe Biden's remarks make it difficult to believe that this "scrapper from Scranton" really understands the plight of the average American family.   On NBC's Today Show Biden had this to say about toasters:   "Our tax plan would take that tax cut of another $130 billion that John [McCain] wants to give to people making over $250,000 next year, not let it go forward... read more »

Machine-Generated Charisma

By John Barnes | 09/16/08

Looks like Barack Obama is taking his teleprompter with him on the campaign stump. Scroll through the comments on CNN's blog post and even Obama supporters are laughing at this one. It's true that when he has a teleprompter in front of him he sounds like Churchill, but without it he can stumble worse than President Bush. read more »

Obama Trying to Manipulate Iraq War for Political Purposes?

By John Barnes | 09/15/08

The New York Post writes that Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama has quietly tried to stall the withdrawal of American GI's from Iraq. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July. "He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,"... read more »

Initiative 985: The "Reduce Traffic Congestion Initiative" of 2008

By John Barnes | 09/14/08

Among the ballot measures Washington voters face this year is Initiative 985, sponsored by Tim Eyman and his group "Voters Want More Choices." Washington Policy Center, a non-partisan public policy think-tank in Seattle, analyzed Initiative 985 and found the following: • I-985 would not raise taxes and would generate about $1.7 billion for transportation infrastructure every ten years. • I-985 would increase the projected... read more »

What They Didn't Say about Barack Obama at the Dem Convention

By John Barnes | 09/13/08

Sometimes what's not said is just as revealing as what is said.A couple weeks ago columnist Charles Krauthammer made some interesting observations about Barack Obama.  An except: The air of unease at the Democratic convention this week was not just a result of the Clinton psychodrama. The deeper anxiety was that the party was nominating a man of many gifts but precious few accomplishments -- bearing even fewer witnesses.When John Kerry was... read more »

And the "You've Got to be Kidding Me" Award Goes to...

By John Barnes | 09/12/08

Radical environmentalists are a strange lot.  The major media outlets try to subtly mainstream them from time to time to time, but scenes like this don't help.I'd be curious to poll these sad souls as to whether or not they weep so over the murder of unborn children.  I doubt it. read more »

Middle of the Road

By John Barnes | 09/11/08

Joe Turner at The News Tribune blogged yesterday about conservative stalwarts "mainstream" Republicans Dan Evans and Ralph Munro supporting Initiative 1000, which would legalize physician-assisted suicide.  This just strengthens my faith in the nostrum that the only things in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead animals.Turner, who basically copied and pasted the yes on I-1000 campaign's press release into his blog post, could... read more »