The trickiest part about hearing our elected officials say “we need new taxes for public safety” is that sometimes it’s said just to cover up mistakes from the past. It’s easier to ask for taxes to pay for more police officers than it is to ask for money to expand the park system or pay for public art displays.

Of course we like parks (forget about art; I just can’t defend that), but with high unemployment and home foreclosure rates, it’s hard to ask for money for things that seem a lot less important. King County has 180 parks to serve 1.8 million people, and no one is up in arms over us not having 190 parks.

So, the politicians have to appeal to our sense of security to get some traction with voters. Proposition No. 1 requests a 0.2 percent increase in the sales tax, and a minimum of one-third of that has to be used for public safety. That is the surprising part; the county isn’t required to use even half of that money for police and criminal justice.

The voter’s guide is sometimes informative, but this year both sides are using political speak, and are covering up the parts of their arguments they don’t want you to hear. But that’s OK, after digging through the county’s gold-lined Dumpsters and the trash cans at the oppositions’ beach houses, I found all of the leftovers from their rough drafts. Let’s read what they really wanted to say…

Statement For Proposition No. 1(What they really wanted to say)

Oh (bleep). We’re really screwed here. Our whole system of collecting taxes is based on people spending money, and you people aren’t spending enough money.

You aren’t able to sell your house, so we can’t collect money on that. You insisted on voting for that stupid Initiative 747 which limits property tax increases to 1 percent per year, so now we can only collect 1 percent more each year, even back when your house values were skyrocketing back in 2006 and 2007.

Well, we probably could have tried a property tax increase instead, but you probably wouldn’t have been fooled. If you pay your property taxes directly, you can already see that number as $1,500 or so every six months. But, if we try this sales tax measure, you only notice that at the cash register, and that’s only a few dollars at most. Plus, we’ve still got a little ways to go before the sales tax hits 10 percent, so we’d better get this increase in before the state legislature does.

OK, the only way we can get this through is to call it a “public safety” problem. Even though only a third of it has to go to criminal justice, we’ll still call it the chief reason for the increase. Let’s not talk about the other two-thirds just yet. I know, I know, we could just increase it 0.1 percent and dedicate 100 percent of it to public safety, but let’s just try this anyway.

Statement Against Proposition No. 1(What they really wanted to say)

I can’t believe these tax-and-spendocrats are still trying to take more of my money. I thought that I made it clear that I got mine, and everybody else is on their own. Besides, didn’t we just see in the paper that 1-in-10 county employees makes over $100,000 a year? What could they possibly be doing to earn that? Oh right, make decisions that affect almost 2 million people. Well, let’s not talk about that. Let’s stick with the money-grubbing angle.

Plus, I don’t know why they are wasting the money we gave them on mental health services; just lock the crazies up in the attic the way we used to do it. We don’t tolerate those kinds of people in Bellevue anyway, and the police will simply escort them out of town, so I just saved the county $164 million. You’re welcome.

Increased bus routes? I don’t even ride the bus, so who needs that? I once saw a bus with only 3 people on it, so they’re clearly wasting money there. Besides, if my car breaks down, I’ll just use my wife’s car, or my son’s car. Bus riders should do the same.

I know, let’s go with the “we’re cutting back at home, so King County should, too” argument. Don’t mention the $140 million they’ve already cut; let’s talk like they just haven’t done anything except raise taxes, and people will believe it. Are we done here? ‘Cause I’ve got a flight to Hawaii in a few hours.

Rebuttal of Statement Against

Yeah, uhhh, let’s just keep saying public safety stuff. If they bring up spending, just say “Police.” If they bring up high salaries, just say “Prosecutors.”

Rebuttal of Statement For

Are we still doing this? OK, let’s go with taxed to death, struggling families, and reckless spending. Now who wants to give me a ride to the airport. Take the bus there? No way; it’s full of criminals. You know, somebody should really do something about that.