Letters to the Editor

Sunshine act

Editor, the Journal,

In response to Ed Reiter "Vote on the clock."

I totally agree a vote of the people would have been a great way to find out the "will of the people" regarding staying Pacific Standard Time or switching the clocks to Daylight Saving Thief.

As it stands now, in 2019 a group of our legislators changed the RCWs and gave the decision to switch to Daylight Stealing Time permanently to Congress.

Thank goodness they took forever to select a speaker of the House and the Sunshine Protection Act was ignored.

However, Marco Rubio has blown air on the act and given it another chance to disrupt Washington state's morning sunrise in the winter.

What I see as a train wreck, leaders don't seem to have a clue.

The governor, some legislators, OSPI, WSSDA and WEA have not given any feedback to the consequences 9 a.m. sunrises will have on current school bell arrival times.

Good news! The train has not yet left the station. There is hope the 118th congressional session does not get around to "protecting" the daylight act.

With that hope, we will switch back the clocks in November and the Washington legislation can pick up the torch to reinstate SB 5795 to stay Pacific Standard Time year round and keep that thief from stealing our morning sunrises once and for all.

Sure seems like the long way to get it done. A vote to the people would have made a lot of sense.

Mary Ogg, Shelton

Sur taxing

Editor, the Journal,

Recent news articles by our three state representatives for Mason County offered their analysis on how much they did in our 90-day annual legislative session. Well, you expect those would be pretty much cherry-picked items, but there are some things that may not have happened with this session, still they bear some analysis as well.

Some time back we were told our state's revenues were very low, (COVID being a contributor), and emergency measures were required. Now our legislators know the state's primary source of revenue is our sales tax but they always take a hands-off approach to raise it. The mere talk of touching it is considered political suicide.  

Today's method is to circumvent sales tax revenues in favor of "sur taxing." Like increasing the gasoline tax, or the huge additional tax on liquor sales. Well, those taxes turned our deficit revenue around, but still those taxes linger. There isn't space enough here to list all the other sur taxes the Legislature has also added. Even though the state's spending levels have made sales tax revenue even stronger.

The troublesome part is that legislators always say those sur taxes have the effect of improving roads (gas tax), or adding programs to address alcoholic problems (alcohol tax) so they remain essential. What they don't say is none of those sur taxes for specific use are applied to specific use. Actually, our Legislature passed, several years ago, another act for putting all that sur tax revenue into the general fund for distribution control as only the Legislature determines. And as you can well imagine that means all those agencies must come on bent knee to curry enough favor for their piece of the pie.

I believe you heard in the news articles how well our legislators did in getting some pie thrown our county's way. It is the way of legislative action. Just thought you would like a little more transparency about how our government works for you.

G. Owen Ray, Allyn