Confused about all the initiatives on this year’s Wash. state ballot?

You’re not alone.

Fortunately, there’s a handy dandy “Living Voters Guide” now online, to help you match the number to the proposal.

I’m relisting the measures here, with my own endorsements (which are based around the concept that we do need public services, and we need ways to pay for them in-this-economic-blah-blah-blah):

• Referendum 52: The Legislature should have simply passed this instead of referring it to voters. Schools need energy efficiency retrofitting. Bottled water might was well have the same taxation as pop. YEP.
• Initiative 1053: Tim Eyman’s latest sounds-good-on-talk-radio, is-disastrous-in-real-life measure. No, we’re not stupid. No, we don’t want Calif.-style legislative gridlock. Yes, the state needs to plug budget holes, even with spit and hairpins and bailing wire if need be, and without regard to arbitrary “caps.” NOPE.
• Initiative 1082: The Building Industry Association of Washington’s attempt to gut worker’s compensation by turning it over to the private insurance industry (not exactly my favorite group O’ guys these days). NOPE.
• Initiative 1098: The new state income tax, only on the rich. Endorsed by Bill Gates Sr. (who used to call himself Bill Gates Jr., but that’s beside the point). By itself, it won’t cure Washington’s status as the most regressive tax system (or at least close to the most regressive) in the nation. But it’s a start. YEP.
• Initiative 1100: Two very different schemes to privatize liquor sales made the ballot. This is the one that has TV spots with bar owners Linda Dershang and Tom Douglas endorsing it. It’s also the Costco-funded initiative. It’s the one that would get the state out of both the wholesale and the retail liquor biz, and would allow outfits like Costco to buy beer and wine as well as spirits direct from their makers, instead of through wholesale intermediaries. It would lower liquor prices but at a too-high cost to state coffers. NOPE.
• Initiative 1105: The less radical liquor privatization scheme. This is the one promoted by alcohol wholesalers, whose existence is threatened by the rival I-1100. If you really insist on putting hard booze into the supermarkets, pick this one instead. Otherwise, NOPE.
• Initiative 1107: The Coca-Cola initiative, to end the temporary sales tax on pop and junk food. The tax itself is a cumbersome mess of inclusions and exclusions, but this would just gut the whole thing. NOPE.