In the May 6 paper, letter writer Wendy Moon questioned Reps. Barbara Bailey and Norma Smith’s vote on the voluntary tax (fee) for state parks. Her letter led to the opinion that the two Republican representatives acted and voted in a partisan way. What she either failed to notice or mention was, the entire legislative session has been one of extreme partisan politics.

In an old Democratic Party trick, they start whining about not having money for essential government projects and so they would have to cut them, i.e. state parks, education or correction facilities. Rather than cut new and unnecessary programs, which would make most of the almost $10 billion increase in the government go away, the partisan Democrats decided to try and come up with a new way to tax us and call it a voluntary fee, or in the case of oil refineries, just another fee they have to pay Reps. Bailey and Smith voted no not because they don’t want to fund state parks but because the partisan Democrats refused to face the real issue, excessive spending and their ever-increasing of the size of state government.

The big problem will be the next legislative session where the problem will be even greater. We will have all the new programs they voted to fund this time and the ones they did not again fund looking for new revenue. When you look at the per capita budget deficit of Washington state and California, you find we have a higher deficit than California. All this is brought to the citizens of Washington state by the extreme partisan politics of the Democrat Party.

Joe Moreland

Oak Harbor