Susan Hutchison, running for King County Executive, held her campaign kick-off this morning, as Erica reported. Considering the former KIRO anchor has been an elusive candidate—dodging forums, avoiding interviews, and very briefly outlining four positions on her website—everyone was eager to hear her elaborate on plans for the county. In a nutshell, she decried a government that “gets in the way with burdensome taxes,” she proposed pushing the state to restructure its business and occupation taxes, and she expressed support for “all” transportation.

But King County Council Member Dow Constantine, who is running against Hutchison, responded to her at a press conference on the corner of 1st Avenue and Battery Street this afternoon. He maintained a line of attack that she is a Republican candidate trying to dodge the issues.

“It is a bit of a gimmick. The county is not in charge of the B&O tax,” Constantine said after the news conference. She is “attempting to take attention away from the fact that she doesn’t know anything about the government or how to run it.”

The state sets such taxes, and while the county should lobby the legislature to overhaul taxes, Constantine said, cutting that revenue is only half the solution. Hutchison’s proposal would “cut $110 million from the state budget that is already almost $9 billion in the hole,” he said. (He noted his work on the county council lobbying the state legislature to study alternative taxing structures, which would be kinder to small businesses.) “The problem with the business tax is for real. Our state’s business tax system is horribly regressive,“ he added.

I was especially interested in Constantine’s take on transportation—as I got to the press conference late because I was stuck in traffic. Hutchison this morning said she was "a supporter of the entire transportation system. I'm always asked, what [transportation] mode do you support? I support all of them." (Which is concerning because elected officials can’t support all things, especially those who, like Hutchison, want to trim the government’s budget.)

“She doesn’t now what [the transportation modes] all are is the problem,” Constantine said. He said the county needs to prioritize “high-capacity transit,” such as buses and rail to connecting to Seattle’s older neighborhoods and suburbs building dense urban centers. Specifically he wants to extend light rail to Everett, Tacoma, Burien, West Seattle, and Issaquah. We need a county executive focused on “providing services needed for the county to survive, not tired Republican anti-government bashing,” he said.