Myths about Eastern Washington--Myth Three. People in eastern Washington hate government (Seattle: transplants, transfer)

[509]

The third myth is that people in eastern Washington hate government yet benefit from government spending.

The truth is that people in eastern Washington hate STATE GOVERNMENT. That is the focus of the outrage.

The truth is it was the residents of eastern Washington that finally convinced President Roosevelt to build Grand Coulee and the Columbia Irrigation project. Folks in western Washington did not care until the cheap electricity started following west after completion. Read the history of eastern Washington and it is closely related to FEDERAL issues.

State government is pretty much absent, except when they opposed Federal plans such as the N-Reactor and continuation of I-90 past Moses Lake.

The residents of eastern Washington condemned Puget Power dams on the Columbia transferring them from private ownership to public ownership. They then went ahead and built MORE local government owned dams. Do you really think they would do that if they HATED government??

They built their government owned fiber optic system over the objections of state government. Is this an action of people that HATE government??

Local government bond issues for libraries and schools tend to pass in eastern Washington. Many transplants from western Washington have expressed shock at the support for local government.

Previously I posted a brief list of why eastern Washington is mad at western Washington and state government.

Here is it again:

It was Gary Locke that tried to stop eastern Washington governments from providing broadband services to their citizens.

Help stopped the conversion of the N-Reactor to produce medical isotopes.

REQUIRED that their garbage be dumped in eastern Washington. Were surprised to learn to people actually lived in eastern Washington. Bribed a Adams County county commissiioner to try and make it happen.

Lobbied to remove the Snake River Dams while at the same time talking about the environmental benefits of THEIR dam in eastern Washington.

Tried to stop creation of a heart transplant center at Spokane. The Premier's of BC and Alberta and the Governor's of Idaho and Montana helped overturn that!!

Governor Gregoire overturning Kittitas County zoning baning wind turbines and REQUIRING them to permit them in Kittitas County.

Paying for stadiums in Seattle while Spokane, Yakima, Tri-Cities and Wenatchee paid for theirs with local taxes since the state government refused help in the case of Wenatchee.

And the Granddaddy of them all......Tried to stop funding for I-90 east of Moses Lake!!! Yeah, that was a long time ago, but it shows some things never change.

So the outrage is directed towards state government. So that is Myth THREE.

[M3 Mitch]

Not sure Gary Locke had much to do with N-Reactor, which shut down a long time before he was govornor. N would not have been very well suited to medical isotope production - I think you are thinking about FFTF, the fast flux liquid sodium cooled reactor - it was considered for medical isotope production, but that never happened.

But you are right, we in the 509 hate the wet side idiots.

[rick8603]

Don't assume that everyone thinks like the liberals in Seattle. Seattle gives Washington a bad name. Tacoma is more conservative than Seattle generally but that may be changing. I have lived in Eastern Washington for about 4 years.

The other counties of Western Washington don't liked be taxed for projects in Seattle. The whole of Western Washington doesn't think like Seattle. It depends on where you are.

Rick

[PS90]

Originally Posted by rick8603

Don't assume that everyone thinks like the liberals in Seattle. Seattle gives Washington a bad name. Tacoma is more conservative than Seattle generally but that may be changing. I have lived in Eastern Washington for about 4 years.

The other counties of Western Washington don't liked be taxed for projects in Seattle. The whole of Western Washington doesn't think like Seattle. It depends on where you are.

Rick

I agree with you. As a guy from Eastern WA that lived in Lewis County for 4 years, I noticed first-hand the difference between the Seattle metro area (including Everett, Tacoma, etc.) and pretty much everywhere else in the state.

An ongoing theme of this Washington State forum is the idealism/political views/government views/way of life/etc. of Western WA vs. Eastern WA, but it should more accurately be Seattle metro vs. The Rest of the State.

[Haakon]

The Seattle area is definitely the tail that wags the dog, for example the last governor election:

[wutitiz]

There is a saying among state politicos that if you stand on top of the Space needle, the voters within eyesight range are all you need to get your way in this state. The stadium vote was a good example, IIRC it only passed in 4 or 5 of the 39 counties, yet passed overall by 51%. Same thing with Slade Gorton when he lost to Cantwell. He won 35 of 39 counties yet lost the race.

File:00WASenateCounties.PNG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And there were questionable votes in King County, but Slade Gorton decided to take the high road and not challenge the result.

[P0g0p0P3]

As a former resident of Pierce county and a former business owner in King county...I know that Seattle pretty much runs the politics of the state. I know some people i eastern WA who always complain about the politics on the west side of the mountain but the fact is, a LOT of towns in western WA are very conservative. Yelm, Roy, Milton, Graham...are just a few. The problem I found living in Milton and having a lot of co-workers from Yelm and Graham...no one votes! I was shocked to learn that so many of my former co-workers never voted at all. And I'm not talking just about young people (20's) I'm talking people in their 40's and 50's who've never voted for anything!
I know a lot of self described "rednecks" in Yelm, Graham, Roy and Milton who don't bother to vote for anything. If everyone in WA would vote in every election, I guarantee the business of Seattle dictating everything would come to a screeching halt.

[Transmition]

There is a lot of implication here that it is unfair, but it comes down to population. Should the 150,000 in one county (which is more than the combined population of the four reddest counties in the pic above) have equal say as the 2,000,000 in another? Votes aren't based on the area of land.

[Seacove]

Originally Posted by Transmition

There is a lot of implication here that it is unfair, but it comes down to population. Should the 150,000 in one county (which is more than the combined population of the four reddest counties in the pic above) have equal say as the 2,000,000 in another? Votes aren't based on the area of land.

True. Here is a series of maps by proportion that can be helpful

Election maps

[Minneconjou]

"Don't assume that everyone else thinks like the liberals in Seattle. Seattle gives Washington a bad name."

I think you'd have to go to North Korea to find anyplace comparable to Seattle. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to find people in Seattle who think that Kim Jong-Il is too much of a 'moderate'.

I've been on the site about a week now looking for a future place to relocate and escape this urban Gulag Archipelago once and for all. After the last elections, quite a few of you outlying communities are going to be picking up a lot of refugees. (The bonus though is that we're the kinds of people you want, while the thugs, deadbeats, bums, and dope-heads are going to be leaving for Seattle, who will welcome them with open arms, free pot, and a welfare check LOL)