Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has got to be joking, but I fear he is not. McGinn actually argues that if only the failed $60 car tab request to voters had been bigger -- $80, if only -- the poorly hatched plan would have been approved.

Yipes. McGinn needs to get out a little bit more and talk to people. Not just his pals on bikes. Or the greenies who elected him. Real people who have to pay the cost of living in an increasingly unaffordable city.

Voters slammed the $60 car tab request advocated by McGinn and the council by a decisive 60 percent vote. It wasn't because public officials weren't asking for enough money for a bigger, bolder vision, as the mayor fantasizes. It was because the city had already imposed a new $20 car tab fee for transportation. King County had slapped $20 on top of that to preserve Metro bus service.

McGinn is off base for attempting to blame his second gut punch from voters in three months on the council. He suggests council members should have thought bigger. Oy vey.