Archives for April 2005

Hey… remember that controversial memo that made the rounds of Republican lawmakers, touting the Schiavo controversy as “a great political issue” that would excite “the pro-life base”…? And remember how right-wing bloggers immediately went about “proving” that it was a forgery, claiming that it was Democratic dirty trick? And remember how the usual suspects and their unblinking followers were so quick to take the bloggers’ debunking as gospel, with the American Spectator going so far as to call it “Rathergate all over again,” and Rush Limbaugh accusing Democrats of politicizing Terri Schiavo?

Yeah, well… eat me, Rush!

Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, said Wednesday that a senior member of his staff had written an unsigned memorandum about the partisan political advantages of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo that became a controversial footnote to the debate over the wisdom and motives of Congress’s actions.

In a statement on Wednesday night, Mr. Martinez said that he had just learned that the memorandum originated in his office and that its author had resigned. He did not name the author, but aides said it was Brian Darling, his counsel.

So reports the New York Times.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say again: us bloggers… we have an agenda. And anybody who naively relies on the blogosphere for their news, because they somehow believe we are more accurate, honest and unbiased… is fucking idiot. We’re not better than the mainstream media… we’re just different.

Caveat emptor.

I am unapologetic for expending so many pixels on the admittedly tedious topic of taxation, but in doing so I am afraid that I may have given short shrift to the other hobgoblin of conservative politics: regulation. It might be fair to say that right-wing apparatchiks from the EFF and BIAW are even more anti-regulatory than they are anti-tax.

And so I would like to call your attention to a news item that illustrates both the need for regulation, and the fine work of individual regulators. Evergreen International, one of the world’s largest shipping lines, has pleaded guilty to more than two dozen criminal counts of illegally dumping oil, altering records and obstructing Coast Guard investigations, and has been fined $25 million. The plot was uncovered by the keen eye of a regulator from the Washington Department of Ecology.

Amid the crazy-quilt tangle of pipes and machinery in the cargo ship’s engine room, the inspector’s attention was drawn to two bolts — two bolts among hundreds.

The paint was missing.

That sharp-eyed scrutiny by a Washington Department of Ecology inspector triggered a chain of events that culminated yesterday in one of the largest fines ever imposed on a company that deliberately polluted the ocean.

The investigation followed a 500 gallon oil spill in the Columbia River; a nationwide inquiry revealed falsified logbooks, and a three year, company-wide practice of illegally discharging waste oil into local and international waters. And it would still be going on today, if not for the work of WA Dept. of Ecology inspector Dodge Kenyon.

That’s right, this was the work of a state government employee, regulating private industry. You know… the kind of employee right-wingers usually denounce as a bloated leach, and the kind of regulations commonly railed against as an unreasonable economic hardship. (This was also a fine example of your tax dollars at work.)

There is a world view perpetrated by some on the right, where captains of industry should always be trusted and honored, while our elected officials should not… where regulatory agencies spring fully formed from the cunning minds of labor unions, eager to create cushy, make-work jobs for their members, while simultaneously harassing businesses owners and screwing the taxpayers, if only for sport.

But this libertarian fantasy is just that. In the real world, the competitive pressures of the market place often tempt businesses to choose profit or convenience over ethics, with such transgressions quickly becoming industry practice as competitors struggle to adapt or die. An unregulated market is thus a surefire path towards the tragedy of the commons.

And so when right-wingers decry overbearing regulations and wasteful public employees, as if all regulatory agencies are overbearing and wasteful, it is important to remember that there is no such thing as a free market, and that the costs of maintaining our regulations are often far less than the costs of the chaos that would occur without them. It is fashionable to balk at the expense of the kind of modern government our modern economy demands, but this neo-con chic purposely ignores the myriad of government regulations and workers who invisibly labor to keep our waters clean, our food safe, and our homes, offices and bridges from falling down around us… not to mention the many other public services on which our economy and civil society depend.

$12 billion a year is a lot of money, and surely the state could raise it fairer and spend it wiser. But the anti-tax/anti-regulatory forces are not proponents of incremental change; their goal is to starve the beast, as Grover Nordquist says, to the point were government is small enough to “drown it in a bathtub.”

One of the fundamental differences between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats like me genuinely believe in government. And when I see public employees like Dodge Kenyon preventing a multinational corporation from clogging the Columbia River with oily sludge, my faith in government is rewarded.

As I’m sure you have now all been made aware by the 24/7 media coverage, Prince Rainier of Monaco tragically died yesterday at the age of 81. Flipping through the channels this morning, it seemed every network had preempted their regular programming to cover the death of this much beloved monarch — except, ironically, for FCDN (the Fox Celebrity Death Network) which for some reason was showing a documentary on Vince Foster. Even PBS Kids got into the act by rerunning a classic episode of Arthur, in which Prince Ranier helps Muffy set up a charity casino night at Elwood Elementary School.

World leaders are rearranging their schedules to attend the fallen monarch’s funeral this Friday. I think President Bush summed up our national grief best when he said, “Who could not help touch the man, or be touched by him? It’s sad… sad work.” With public sentiment like this, we should expect wall-to-wall media coverage to continue for days to come, pushing all other news off the air, and out of the newspapers.

FYI, I’ve heard a rumor that the Pope died. Great man with a complicated legacy. If anybody has any further details on his death, please forward me a link.

I don’t generally read Liz Taylor’s “Growing Older” column in the Seattle Times, which she describes as intended for middle-aged and older people who are concerned about the needs of their aging parents, and themselves. I guess I should read it, because a) I am growing older, and b) this week’s column puts a human dimension on the tax debate, in a way our typically more wonkish discussions never can. [State’s broken tax system means society is worse off]

Liz starts by saying that nobody likes to pay taxes, but…

Growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, I remember my mom saying we did it for the common good: good schools, police and fire protection, clean water and decent roads. Even people without children pay taxes for schools, she said

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Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges has set a May 23 trial date for Dino Rossi’s challenge of the 2004 gubernatorial election. The trial will last two weeks.

He denied the Democrats request to wait six months. Well… you can’t blame their lawyers for trying.

UPDATE:
I had a brief email chat with Lawyer X, who filled me in on some of the details. Rossi’s attorneys must “lock their claims” and disclose all their witnesses by April 15; the Democrats have until May 6. On May 2, the judge will rule on whether the Republicans can use their proportional analysis method to prove their case.

Lawyer X also points out that Judge Bridges set a two week trial time, so as to reserve time for the Republicans to prove how each voter voted. That would suggest that he certainly hasn’t accepted proportional analysis, at least as of the moment.

Drinking Liberally meets again tonight (and every Tuesday) at 8pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Ave. E., and author David Neiwert of the blog Orcinus will be there to discuss his books, old and new. David has written about hate-crime policy, the roots of the Northwest’s “Patriot” movement, and most recently, Bellevue’s Japanese-American community that was destroyed by WWII interment.

I may be a little late, but I definitely plan to attend.

UPDATE:
Great turnout last night, and even greater conversation of with Dave Neiwert. As I emailed him afterwards, I’m going to have to start reading his books, instead of just reading about them.

I also had the opportunity to meet prolific HA commentator Dubyasux, and a couple unknown lurkers. Good beer, good conversation.

We spend an awful lot of time in the comment threads here on HA arguing about taxes. And at the heart of most of the antitax sentiment is the unchallenged assumption that taxes are bad for the economy.

There’s just one problem, though. Despite the widespread notion that taxes harm the economy, no one has actually been able to back that up. It’s not that taxes have no effect; they are a major part of the American economic system and affect planning and behavior in many ways. Taxes influence who wins and who loses in a competitive society. But over all, there is surprisingly little evidence that tax rates are an important factor in determining the nation’s economic prosperity.

Anna Bernasek writing in the New York Times explores the notion that taxes are bad for the economy, and discovers that it is exactly that: “a notion not backed by strong evidence.” The economic theory is that taxes have a negative effect on behavior by reducing the incentive to do whatever is taxed.

That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, how many Americans will work less if their taxes rise? With mortgage bills, college tuition and car payments looming, who can afford to work less? Relatively few have the option of cutting back without risking the loss of their jobs.

So just because taxes can discourage productive behavior doesn’t mean that they do. Too many other factors are involved – like social pressures, financial needs and a job market that isn’t entirely flexible.

And then there’s the evidence. Over the last 30 years, economists have undertaken hundreds of studies to determine whether taxes hurt the economy. So far, they’ve turned up little to convict taxes of the charge. After reviewing the literature on the topic in 1993, two economists, William Easterly of New York University and Sergio Rebelo of Northwestern, concluded in a joint paper that “the evidence that tax rates matter for growth is disturbingly fragile.”

As it turns out, history shows that throughout the 20th century, in the U.S. and other developed nations, a rising tax burden goes hand in hand with rising prosperity. In fact, between 1950 and 2002, the strongest productivity growth actually occurred when the top tax rates were the highest. And on average, the highest taxed countries are also the most affluent.

Nobody is making the case that high tax rates are a recipe for growth, although certainly the things taxes pay for — public investment in education, research, health and infrastructure — are essential to a prosperous and stable economy.

But as we continue to discuss tax reform in Washington state it is important to do so without being hindered by unscientific assumptions… no matter how intuitive they might at first appear. Taxes are not antithetical to prosperity. And we shouldn’t structure our tax system or our government based on a notion that experience simply doesn’t back up.

King County Councilmember Raymond Shaw Reagan Dunn (R-Manchuria) sent a letter yesterday to Elections Director Dean Logan:

I am asking that you resign your post and give over the operation of your department to someone who will be better able to manage it, who will be more forthright in admitting mistakes, and who will have the trust and confidence of the people.

Hmmm. I nominate Shaw Dunn for the job. After all, his qualifications to be Elections Director are at least as impressive as his qualifications to sit on the county council, which last I checked consisted of the following extensive resume:

“Mommy.”

Shaw Dunn accuses Logan of mismanagement, but really… how the fuck would he know? As far as I can see, the only thing Shaw Dunn has ever managed, is to get appointed to a series of federal jobs on the strength of his mother’s political connections and reputation.

Yeah, I know… I know… I should show more respect for our elected officials… but oh wait… his mommy had him appointed to the King County Council too!

So Shaw Dunn, who has never run anything in his life (not even a campaign for the office he’s held for little more than a month,) is suddenly an expert at running county elections… you know, the way Daniel Snyder is an expert at running football teams. And like Snyder, Shaw’s Dunn’s first and only solution is to fire the coach, turning King County Elections into the bureaucratic equivalent of the Washington Redskins.

As Adams County Auditor Nancy McBroom told me, “it’s hard to wave your wand or twitch your nose and fix everything at one time.” But I guess it’s even harder to show a little patience when you’re accustomed to mommy giving you everything you want.

(Deep breath.)

I apologize for getting so personal (well… sort of) but I really find Shaw’s Dunn’s letter to be downright offensive, accusing Logan of a “cover-up” without ever alleging what exactly it is that Logan is trying to cover up. Shaw Dunn attacks Logan for not informing the council sooner about the “87” additional absentee ballots found by staff during a seven-day search through approximately 375 archival boxes of over 565,000 absentee envelopes, ignoring Logan’s explanation that he was waiting to release the information until after the search was completed.

“Otherwise, experience has shown that the story will indicate a number, and a follow-up story will claim the county was incomplete in its process and disclosure,” [Logan] said in an e-mail. “The public interest is best served by assuring an open, thorough and complete accounting. That will be done.”

As it turns out, there were 93 unopened absentee envelopes, not the 87 that Shaw Dunn prematurely alleged. And as predicted, the predictable folks over at (un)Sound Politics quickly ridiculed the changing numbers.

I’d say this is all the worst sort of political grandstanding, but that honor probably belongs to the other letter Dunn sent out yesterday… this one to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, requesting a federal investigation of the 2004 election.

Whatever.

You can be sure he’ll get his investigation (you don’t think he’d have made the request public if mommy hadn’t already arranged it,) and I say bring it on. And when its all over, and the feds don’t find a scrap of evidence suggesting corruption, I’ll be the first one demanding that Shaw Dunn send another letter to Logan. An apology.

SPECIAL BONUS: Separated at birth?

I’ve been meaning to blog for almost a week on last Tuesday’s Social Security “town hall” held by Congressman Dave Reichert at Bellevue High. According to MSM and blog reports, the meeting didn’t go quite as smoothly as the Republican organizers intended, and I highly recommend Andrew’s excellent personal account and analysis posted over on NPI’s official blog. The Seattle Times’ James Vesely, who moderated the discussion, also describes the scene quite nicely:

If what I saw last week at Bellevue High is any indication, the reform plan to add private accounts to Social Security is a goner.

The school’s auditorium was packed, and not even three panelists urging private accounts

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Okay, let me see now… an estate tax has been on Washington’s books since 1901, but just two months ago, the State Supreme Court tossed it due to the phasing out of the federal estate tax to which ours was linked by a 1981 initiative. The Legislature is now prepared to reinstate the estate tax, that has been off the books for only two months, while more than doubling the exemption to $2 million. And according to opponents… this is going to drive businesses out of state?

“I would support a higher sales tax, even an income tax in this state, rather than having a death tax installed,” said Don Root, who wants his sons to carry on his Seattle-based manufacturing and design company after he dies.

Reinstating an estate tax at the same time the federal government is poised to abolish it would cause successful Washington businesses to leave the state, taking a lot of good jobs with them, said Root, whose company employs roughly 450 people in Washington.

I appreciate Don Root’s endorsement of a state income tax, and I urge him to evangelize the rest of the business community. But somebody please explain to me how his logic on the negative impact of an estate tax is not a total load of crap?

Washington heirs have been paying an estate tax for 104 years — and on much smaller estates than proposed in the new budget — but now suddenly, because the tax lapsed for two months, a new-found class consciousness is going to drive the wealthy out of state? Was Root planning to move his business out of state before the February ruling? If not, why, and if so, has anything really changed? Is anybody actually suggesting that our estate tax has been driving jobs out of state since 1901?

This is not a new tax. It is a tax that we have been levying for over a century, and as William Gates Sr. points out, it is an extremely fair tax.

“The question is, why are people wealthy?” Gates said at a news conference last week. “They worked hard, they’re smart, and they are American … (with) a police force that works, a court system that works, a market system that makes it possible to dispose of what you own. Economists tell us that having a stable market adds 30 percent to the value of everything you own.”

I’m not going to argue that an estate tax will never force heirs to sell off a family business… perhaps it occasionally does. But when our highly regressive tax structure is so cruelly unfair to middle- and lower-income households, I find it incredible to think that we should shift even more tax burden onto working families because a handful of multi-millionaires think an estate tax is unfair.

I’m not sure what’s more offensive: the selfish efforts to secure yet another tax break for the wealthy, or the bogus and insulting economic threats with which they are trying to sell it.

UPDATE:
The Seattle P-I editorializes in support of retaining our state estate tax:

Gov. Christine Gregoire’s proposed revised estate tax would only apply to about 250 people per year yet would generate $129 million for essential government programs. This is a tax that makes sense.

Michael Hood at blatherWatch has been blathering about the need for Seattle’s Air America affiliate, KPTK-1090 to hire some local hosts to challenge the reigning righties, like KVI’s Kirby Wilbur and John Carlson. He offers some nominees to play the role of local, liberal “blabberjockey,” and I’m quite intrigued with the name at the top of the list.

We’ ve already had some nominees for the new blabberjockeys. The irrepressible, brilliant and blognacious Goldy (really David Goldstein) of Horsesass.org has been nominated and already agreed to take the 6-9a shift.

Um… actually, I’d much prefer afternoon drive time (I’m not much of a morning person,) but I doubt 1090 would want to mess with their popular afternoon schedule. Besides, beggars can’t be choosers, and I’d jump at the chance to audition my chops on talk-radio, whatever the time slot. I like to talk. Occasionally, I even listen.

But regardless of who eventually gets on the air, I agree 100 percent with Michael that we need to start developing some local liberal talent to compete with the right-wing howlers. I love and respect Dave Ross, but we need more than just his “common sense” approach to balance the calculated propaganda propagated by John Carlson. We don’t need another journalist like Dave… we need a political partisan like John.

We also need liberal hosts who are willing to shamelessly promote the Northwest liberal blogosphere the way Air America’s Majority Report has done for national bloggers (and the way KVI and KTTH have done for (un)Sound Politics.)

So I’d be curious to hear your nominees for liberal blabberjockey (please… pick me, pick me!) And if you think I’m totally deluded in imagining myself in the role… well… okay, I suppose I should welcome some constructive criticism too.

Thomas Shapley has a very informative column in today’s Seattle P-I, giving a brief history of our antiquated 60 percent super-majority requirement for voter approval of local school levies, and the politics behind stalled efforts to get a constitutional amendment eliminating it, through the Legislature. [What, you thought it was about the schools?]

Democrats lack the two-thirds majority needed to pass the bill through the Senate, and so far have been unwilling to accept an amendment that would allow simple-majority votes only when school measures are run in November general elections. Shapley suggests that the impasse may be due more to politics than policy.

Does the Democratic leadership really want to pass the legislation this session? It’s an issue that can cut both ways in some suburban swing districts, where broad support for schools tussles with deep opposition to tax increases. Which do Democrats judge more valuable — passing the measure, at a potential political price or retaining the political hammer of blaming Republicans for yet again blocking its passage?

Now contrary to what some of you may think, I’m no Democratic insider with a direct line to the party leadership, or wide-eyed radical, defiantly belting out The Internationale in the shower. So without having the opportunity to have those who know better convince me otherwise, the Hargrove amendment sounds like a compromise I can live with.

Apart from promoting the agenda of the knee-jerk anti-tax faction, there is really no good rationale for singling out school levies to be subject to an anti-majoritarian system. If the best the Democrats can get is the Hargrove compromise, than I say use the political hammer to nail this one home.

Education funding is too important to be dictated by 40 percent of the voters… or a game of legislative Stratego. This is one issue where legislators should be encouraged to let pragmatism trump politics.

I felt a little bad about poking fun at Adams County Auditor Nancy McBroom’s quote in the Seattle P-I, so I thought I’d give her a call and chat about the election. As one might expect, she turned out to be articulate, friendly and informative.

The election has already been hashed out ad infinitum, so there wasn’t any breaking news she could add to the discussion. But she did elaborate on the circumstances behind Adams County’s failure to match signatures on provisional ballots. In the past, provisional voters have always been treated like regular polling place voters, with the exception that their ballots weren’t counted until voter eligibility could later be verified. That means provisional voters sign into the poll books like everybody else; and since poll book signatures are never matched before counting the ballot, neither were provisional signatures.

According to Nancy, with passage of legislation bringing Washington into compliance with the Help Americans Vote Act (HAVA), this was supposed to change, and starting with the November 2004 election provisional signatures were to be matched just like those on absentee ballots. Nancy confirmed that this was not done in Adams County. (Nor, apparently, in Stevens, Walla Walla, and Whitman counties.)

Nancy didn’t explain why Adams County failed to comply with the new statute, but she assured me it would never happen again… since all future elections in Adams County will be conducted entirely by mail. In any case, Nancy didn’t seem particularly concerned that her staff’s failure to comply with the new statute created much opportunity for fraud. Adams is a small county, and according to Nancy, everybody knows everybody, what they’re up to, who’s getting married, who’s getting divorced, and all the other usual gossip. When you sign into the poll book at Adams County’s single polling place, chances are the old lady behind the table knows you.

That’s right, for 6,477 registered voters Adams County has a lone polling place in Othello, serving four precincts; the other 27 precincts were already vote-by-mail. And Nancy says that Adams is moving to an all vote-by-mail system because they are finding it too expensive and too difficult to find and train enough people to staff their single polling place. The old ladies are getting older, and just don’t have the stamina to last those 12-hour shifts.

Compare that to King County, with over 3000 poll workers operating 540 polling places and 2,616 precincts for 1,082,406 registered voters. And so I asked Nancy to do exactly that, and comment on the controversy surrounding the performance of King County Elections. After a brief pause and a nervous laugh, Nancy described it as “unfortunate, but not surprising” given the large number of voters. She went on to say that King County Elections had problems before Dean Logan came in, and that “it’s hard to wave your wand or twitch your nose and fix everything at one time,” but she expressed confidence that given the necessary time, they would.

Many Republicans have called for Dean Logan to be fired, and some — like EFF President Bob Williams — have even said that he should be “jailed.” But at least on the subject of provisional ballots, it’s hard to scapegoat Logan in light of the problems in other counties. King County’s procedures regarding the handling of provisional ballots fully complied with state and federal law, and they instructed their staff accordingly; unfortunately poll workers did not always follow or enforce the procedures, resulting in a relatively small number of provisional ballots being improperly canvassed (compared to percentages in Adams, Stevens, Walla Walla and Whitman.)

Nancy, on the other hand, issued procedures and instructions that clearly failed to comply with the law, and yet nobody is asking for her to be imprisoned or forced to resign. Nor should they.

In both Adams and King, mistakes were made… mistakes that should be fixed, but which had little if any impact on the election considering the fact that the vast majority of these provisional ballots would have been counted anyway had they been properly canvassed.

If anything, the news about mishandled provisional ballots in pro-Rossi, Eastern Washington counties merely reinforces my impression that the only thing extraordinary about this election was its extraordinary closeness. None of this is evidence of fraud or corruption or gross incompetence, but rather the normal and random distribution of human errors to which human beings are prone. Of course we can and should do a better job, but until somebody proves to me that any of these errors likely changed the outcome of this election, I’ll remain comfortable with the results.

Time for the weekly free-for-all. Or perhaps maybe some thoughtful discussion. It’s up to you.

I’ve got the news, and I’ve got it first: Dino Rossi is pulling the plug on his hopeless court challenge of Washington’s gubernatorial election!

According to a very reliable GOP source, campaign staff are preparing to call a press conference for later this afternoon, at which time Rossi will also announce that he intends to start immediately campaigning for a rematch against Gov. Christine Gregoire in 2008.

The decision came after a sometimes raucous late-night meeting at Rossi’s Bellevue headquarters, in which the normally soft-spoken Rossi repeatedly castigated state GOP Chair Chris Vance and several top members of his legal team, for misleading him about his prospects of winning in court.

According to my source, when Rossi asked if the recent revelation of nearly 1800 improperly handled provisional ballots in heavily Republican Eastern Washington would hurt his chances of prevailing in court, attorney Harry Korrell bluntly replied “No. You didn’t have much of a chance to start with.” A heated exchange followed, in which Rossi complained of being “lied to” and Vance accused Rossi of not being a “team player.”

Rossi, who continues to maintain a full campaign staff months after the official campaign ended, has asked key staffers to stay on for another three years. He will not run for Maria Cantwell’s U.S. Senate seat in 2006, having no desire to move his family to the other Washington. When asked if he would support a Vance candidacy for the Senate, Rossi reportedly quipped “I’d rather see that lying, cock-sucking, sack-of-shit roast in Hell than represent my party.”