Oct. 17, 2018, 5:19 p.m. -  Dave Tolnai

I knew I'd take a bit of heat for writing such a simplistic defense of taxes.  Couple things: 1 - It's easier to point out "waste" on a Federal/Provincial/State level where things are a bit more intangible.  I was mostly speaking of municipal. 2 - Your navy example...I mean, sure.  This sounds like waste.  But the US Military Budget is one of the only things growing under Trump.  Just because the military is wasting it, doesn't mean it couldn't be spent productively somewhere else within government.  There should be a middle ground somewhere between throwing money at something and blindly cutting something. 3- I don't know much about Seattle or this issue, but this touches on what I'm talking about.  Cities are often left to deal with the big issues, and don't have mechanisms to deal with it.  Transit infrastructure, homelessness, etc.  I sort of feel like elections place too much emphasis on these big picture things, and not enough on the nuts and bolts of the City.  Maybe the Seattle plan was a bad one, maybe not.  It shouldn't be an argument against all municipal government spending. Edit - added "municipal" to the last sentence