Adele Ferguson 7/14/11

A review of the Inslee file

AS SOON as I heard that Jay Inslee was going to run for governor next year, I dug out his file so I could refresh my memory on why I thought his running the state was a lousy idea.

He happens to be my Democratic congressman in the First District, coming here as a carpetbagger after serving a freshman term in the Fourth District, and forced to find a new landing place by Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, in 1992.

He soon became a clone of our most liberal member of Congress, Jim McDermott of Seattle, and joined Baghdad Jim in voting against a resolution authorizing President Bush to use force to disarm Iraq with or without the cooperation of the United Nations. He did not, he said, want to give the president a “blank check to start a unilateral, ill-timed war on another nation.”

In 2005, he went to Iraq to help him decide whether to support an effort to pull U.S. troops out and on return said a reasonable timetable for that would be after the Iraqi elections in December. We must change course, he said.

He told the Puget Sound Naval Bases Association the U.S. made certain there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. “They were never there,” he said. We also are assured the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 were not in Iraq. “They were not there.”

I thought he took too much for granted when he says the WMD “were never there.” I think they were there but not when we finally got around to going in and looking for them. As I recall, the president waited months between warning of a search and going in and doing it.

BESIDES HIS interest in national security, Inslee was hooked on global warming and co-authored the New Apollo Energy Project, designed to expand the production of clean energy, create related jobs, decrease dependence on oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Companies that operate multiple gas stations could be required to sell biodiesel or ethanol at one of ten pumps.

Car manufacturers could be required to increase the average mileage of their vehicles and they could be offered help with employee health care costs in exchange for boosts in production of hybrid vehicles.

Inslee urged Democrats to push for federal incentives promoting wind, solar or biomass power plants. He was for cap and trade, an idea so unpopular with many in both parties it has virtually disappeared from the table of options.

When President Bush proposed to set up private accounts as part of the Social Security system, Inslee said he was “taking the security out of Social Security and I will do everything I can to stop that.” It got stopped, but I don’t know how much he did about it.

A BILL PASSED by the House, 243-182, that speeded up salvage logging and reforestation after fires, hurricanes or other disasters was denounced by Inslee as ignoring existing environmental laws. This guy is the greeniest of greens.

Inslee supported a bill giving native Hawaiians the same status as Indian tribes with funding, entitlements and the authority to have gambling casinos. A real rip-off.

The last hot idea of his I had a clipping on was a bill he introduced in 2009 providing grants for starting up and maintaining community gardens. Community organizations, schools, park districts and local governments could be compensated for 80 percent of the cost of projects including raised beds, sheds, irrigation and garden infrastructure. He also got authorization for airport security checking machines costing millions per airport which is why so few are in use.

He’s pure liberal. He knows how to spend. Now if he could just learn how to save.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)