Despite their mutual hairlessness, tapeworms and George Washington have never had much in common. Not until Initiative 1609, that is.

The initiative, which Jim Vaughn of Orting filed in February, would replace Washington’s head on the state seal with a spiffily dressed tapeworm attached to a taxpayer’s rectum.

Vaughn, a former military officer and current owner of an executive-recruitment business, says he proposed the initiative to raise awareness about what he calls the negative impacts of Governor Gregoire’s tax policy, particularly the Business and Occupation Tax.

“If we haven’t created an environment that’s conducive to business, what’s going to happen?” he wonders. “We’re back to horse-and-buggy days.”

The tapeworm initiative was not the only one Vaughn filed this year. In June, he filed an initiative to tax pickpockets and panhandlers, which, to Vaughn, are synonymous with Democratic legislators. In the text of that initiative, he lists a slew of what he identifies as wasteful state expenditures, including $142,000 for animal-massage practitioners and $66,000 for Christmas-tree inspections.

The deadline for turning in signatures is this Friday, and Vaughn doesn’t actually expect I-1609 to make it onto the ballot. But he does hope to make residents think.

“After people quit chuckling, it gives me an opportunity to explain the tax situation in this state,” he says.