Archives for December 2009

I hadn’t realized it until I saw a link in the comment threads, but the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy recently updated its comprehensive survey, “Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States,” and Washington once again tops the list of the Ten Most Regressive State Tax Systems… and by far.

Hooray for us!

Let’s put this in perspective. If we were to totally eliminate our state and local sales tax, property tax, B&O tax and various excise taxes and fees (gasoline, alcohol, tobacco, etc.), and replace the revenue with a single graduated income tax that levied a 2.9% rate on our wealthiest households (those with an average income of $1.8 million), and a 17.3% rate on our poorest (those earning an average of $11,000), with those in the middle three quintiles paying between 9.5% and 12.7%, it would have the same exact impact on Washington families as our current tax system does now.

Can anybody reasonably argue that such a system would be fair? I don’t think so.

But that’s exactly what we have now.

Jon was too shy to name names, but the “well-known Republican personality” rumored to be weighing a run to replace Rep. Brian Baird in WA-03 is none other than crazy-conservative talk host Lars Larson.

That would certainly make the race, um, interesting.

UPDATE:
Did Larson just deny the rumor in the comment thread?

2. lars spews:

Hilarious. and flattering. and not the least bit valid. but kinda fun …

Anybody can spoof an email address and URL in a comment, so we can’t know that’s really Larson, but the IP resolves to Rose City Digital, the same outfit that does the KXL website. Hmm.

Who the hell goes to party meetings in December?

For the first time in a long, long time, I did Monday night, here in Vancouver.

Ken at NPI Advocate notes that activist Maria Rodriguez-Salazar has announced she is running for what will be an open seat in WA-03.

Rodriguez-Salazar came to the Clark County Democrats’ meeting Monday night and spoke briefly to the group. At one point she referred to herself as a “Blue Dog.”

And check out this bit from the KATU story linked above:

Being the mother of three children gives Rogriguez-Salazar the drive to choose “focus on the family” as her political platform.

Heh, I think that’s already copyrighted. Or maybe not, but it’s a hell of a catchy slogan. I don’t know quite what to make of a Blue Dogging, focusing on the family candidate.

Denny Heck, the former legislator and TVW founder, sent a representative in the person of attorney Jim Luce, who read a prepared statement. Heck is also pondering a run.

Rep. Deb Wallace, D-Vancouver (17th LD,) also spoke and compared the 17th District to the 3rd Congressional district as a whole, emphasizing the need to grow jobs. Wallace was very gracious about the fact that there are going to be lots of candidates.

An official from the 49th District Democrats confirmed that Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver (49th LD,) is definitely running.

The open seat at the Congressional level is opening up races further down-ticket, and there were several possible legislative candidates present. One to keep an eye on is Monica Stonier in the 17th LD, who has announced for Wallace’s seat. A middle school teacher, Stonier was an Obama delegate to the national convention last year. She also has a pretty decent speaking style and likely pretty extensive community connections, from both the education and the political worlds.

There are also strong rumors of a well-known Republican personality getting into the race as early as today.

Earlier today I argued that Democrats need to take advantage of our current short-term revenue crisis to fix our long-term revenue deficit, by taking the budget crisis as an opportunity to win voter approval of a high-earners income tax. But how do we do this at the same time we meet the very real need to raise additional revenues now?

It’s not all that complicated.

Gov. Gregoire supports a revenue package, and the Legislature will likely pass one, no doubt comprised of hikes in alcohol and tobacco taxes, elimination of some tax breaks, and perhaps extension of the sales tax to professional services and/or a small hike in the sales tax rate itself. None of this will be popular, and most of it will be regressive, and while an emergency clause would eliminate the possibility of the tax hikes being delayed by a referendum, we should expect an attempt to repeal the package by initiative. So my suggestion to legislators is, why not pass the package, and then just put a repeal measure on the ballot yourselves?

Sound crazy? Not really. Take this scenario for example.

Let’s say you pass a package that raises an additional $1 billion a year in new revenue, while at the same time putting on the ballot a referendum that would repeal the hikes and replace them with a tax on household income in excess of $300,000 a year. Voters are given a choice: they can keep the current taxes that hit just about everybody by voting No on the measure, or they can vote Yes and shift these taxes to a handful of our state’s wealthiest households… those same households that profit most from Washington’s most regressive tax structure in the nation.

But one could take this concept even further. Instead of a dollar for dollar offset, the high-earners income tax could be set at a rate that raises, say, $1.5 billion a year, with the extra $500 million coming back to voters in the form of a half cent reduction in the state sales tax below our current 6% rate, or maybe a similar sized reduction in the state property tax.

Vote Yes, and not only do you get rid of the new tax hikes, the vast majority of voters would actually lower their own taxes. That’s how Tim Eyman wins initiatives (when he wins them), by promising to put money back into voters’ pockets. And unlike an Eyman initiative, there’s no corresponding cut in popular state services.

This isn’t just smart policy, it’s smart politics, as it leverages the short-term crisis to help address a long-term problem, while providing an outlet for voters who might otherwise vote for a straight repeal initiative. In fact, the Legislature’s referred referendum could be written in such a way as to protect the short-term revenue against repeal by initiative, essentially by re-enacting the hikes in the not so unlikely circumstance that both ballot measures passed.

Step 1: enact the revenue package legislatively. Step 2: refer a referendum to the ballot that enacts the same revenue package, but replaces it with a high-earners income tax once implemented. (In the eventuality that an income tax is passed, but ruled unconstitutional, the existing revenue package would remain in effect.)

Simple really, and not all that confusing.

And a helluva lot more responsible than passing up the best opportunity we’ve had in decades to seriously debate an income tax.

State Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver(49th LD,) will announce his candidacy for Congress in WA-03 within the next 24 hours, sources close to Pridemore tell me.

The other announced Democrat is state Rep. Deb Wallace, D-Vancouver (17th LD,) who entered the race last week, after the decision by incumbent U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., not to seek another term.

Announced Republicans include former Bush administration official David Castillo, Washougal city council member Jon Russell, and “yelling town hall man” David Hedrick. Also reportedly interested is state Rep. Jaime Herrera, R-Ridgefield (18th LD.)

The third district stretches from its population center in Clark County at its south end (just across the river from Portland, Or.,) to parts of Thurston County, home of the state capital Olympia. Longview-Kelso in Cowlitz County and Centralia-Chehalis in Lewis County are less populated but still significant population areas.

And for the last time, the district is not as conservative as people from Seattle and the Clark County Republican Party seem to think. It’s a flat-out swing district, and Clark County’s media landscape is dominated by Portland television stations, who generally come across the river only for things that are bleeding or snowing.

There’s a lot riding on who puts together the best campaigns and articulates the rising discontent regular people have towards our government and the elite institutions that very nearly destroyed everything.

So there’s no reason not to state the obvious: I will be an early and enthusiastic supporter of Pridemore. He’s a smart, tough, seasoned politician who still knows who he is and why he is in public service. And I genuinely mean no disrespect for Wallace with that statement; she is a fine Democrat in her own right and will deservedly have many supporters. But Craig’s my guy, just so I’m clear about that.

I suppose this will set off a predictable flurry of talk about who can win, and that discussion has happened over the last few days in phone calls and emails all over the district anyhow. Personally I believe either of them could win a general election, so I’m not going to cast any stones in that regard.

Pridemore has won both county wide and in his admittedly more liberal legislative district. Nothing wrong with that, and if Pridemore is willing to put his neck out there and fight for what he believes in, then more power to him. He’s also very, very bright, articulate and good with numbers, so anyone facing him in a general election will need to be on their game. Don’t let anyone from down here play games with you about his chances, he’s the real deal.

Much attention was paid to the Nov. 5th shooting rampage at Fort Hood, and rightly so. It was a terrible tragedy in which 13 were killed and 30 others wounded by a deeply disturbed U.S. Army psychiatrist.

Yet news today that 12 more Army soldiers committed suicide in November, bringing the yearly total to a record high 147 suicides thus far in 2009, will likely pass with little national debate. And that’s just the suicides in the Army. As of last month 334 active members of the U.S. military services had committed suicide in 2009, also a record high.

By comparison, the U.S. military has so far suffered 304 fatalities in Afghanistan this year, and an additional 150 in Iraq.

Politicians in both parties like to talk about supporting the troops. I doubt the families of the service men and women who took their own lives believe we’ve supported them nearly enough.

I agree wholeheartedly with the headline, if not the text of a recent Seattle Times editorial: “Washington state’s finances require long-term solutions.”

Of course, the one long-term solution the Times doesn’t mention is tax restructuring… you know, reforming our tax system so that revenues actually keep pace with growth in the economy, while distributing the burden more efficiently and fairly. That’s to be expected from the Times ed board, which on revenue issues has pretty much become a mouthpiece of the state GOP.

But the editorial does make one argument that’s as applicable to the revenue side of the equation as it is to the spending, and which progressives should heed as we attempt to deal with this unprecedented budget crisis:

Opponents will say that such suggestions don’t produce that much money in this budget period, and they will be right. These are ideas for the long term — and now is a really good time to consider them.

This is, of course, exactly the argument I’ve been hearing from many of my fellow Democrats whenever I advocate for a high-earner’s income tax as part of the solution to the current fiscal crisis. It can’t produce revenue fast enough, I was told last year as legislators battled to put together a two-year budget in the face of record revenue shortfalls. It can’t produce revenue fast enough, I’m being told this year, as legislators prepare to fill an additional $2.6 billion gap. And no doubt the same argument will be used to brush aside the suggestion again in 2011 and 2012, as the state struggles to deal with what are becoming perennial revenue shortfalls.

An income tax is a distraction, I’m told, that only complicates the political machinations necessary to assure that some sort of tax increase be a part of the current budget negotiations.

Yeah, well, the problem with this line of reasoning is that while implementing an income tax can never be a short-term solution, it’s exactly the kind of long-term solution we need to make sure that more short-term solutions won’t be as necessary in the future. And with the budget crisis — and the unpopular cuts it necessitates — fresh in voters minds, now is the best opportunity we’ve had in decades to get some sort of income tax approved by voters.

Wait until we don’t have a short-term budget crisis, and there won’t be the popular will to swallow and accept an otherwise unpopular long-term reform.

The Times editors and their fellow Republicans are thinking long-term; they want to use this crisis to permanently shrink the size of state and local government and cripple its ability to provide the services people want. They may not be willing to come out and say it, but they are advocating for a paradigm shift, in which government plays a much smaller role in our local economy, and a much smaller role in funding health, welfare, education and public infrastructure.

We should be thinking long-term too.

Cherisse Luxa has passed away. I didn’t know Cherisse, but others did. Condolences to her family.

Andrew at NPI:

This morning, Washington’s netroots community lost one of its most wonderful and spirited activists when Cherisse Luxa, the founder of Burien Drinking Liberally, succumbed to stomach cancer. Cherisse was sixty two. She resided in the 34th LD, known for its strong and vibrant Democratic Party organization.

Cafecito at Daily Kos:

If you have ever attended Drinking Liberally, you almost certainly know of Cherisse’s incredible energy and her unstoppable drive to make our community a better place. From her decades as a King County Sheriff’s Deputy to her impressive track record as an activist an advocate, Cherisse made a huge difference, both for Burien and for the broader community.

Cherisse, like many of us, got religion with Howard Dean’s run.

Cherisse touched thousands of lives and was a role model for many of us. We will sorely miss her.

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was Kansas City, MO.

Here’s this week’s, good luck!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Beck – Not So Mellow Gold
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

– This looks like a potentially interesting discovery that could assist in combating climate change.

– Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio is a menace to society.

– U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway isn’t much better.

– Speaking of unhinged U.S. Attorneys, I neglected to say farewell to a true authoritarian nightmare, Mary Beth Buchanan.

– Washington Post reporter Ashley Halsey III gets caught passing along bogus statistics, yet when this is pointed out to him, instead of issuing a correction, he throws a fit.

– Eric Martin has a post on the secretive war we’re fighting inside Pakistan. With all of the focus on Afghanistan recently, I think we’re overlooking what has the potential to be a greater failure in our overall strategy there.

With Sarah Palin arguing that a handful of 13-year-old emails are enough to discredit and refute the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (WA-01) hits back with perhaps the best quote of the day:

“Before Sarah Palin writes a book, she should try reading a few,” said Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), who followed up with a series of peer-reviewed reports on rising sea levels, air temperatures and ocean acidity.

Ouch.

Just shows how desperate the climate change deniers are when Palin has become their most visible champion.

Here’s a free tip to those Seattle-haters in the rest of the state who just love to screw us big city folks:  pass a high-earners income tax.

Really. Pass it. I mean, honestly, let’s say we levy an income tax on household earnings in excess of $500,000 a year… who do think’s gonna pay most of it? You guessed it: folks right here in Seattle and the surrounding suburbs. This is the part of the state where most of the wealth is, and where most of the high paying jobs are, so the reluctance of voters elsewhere to tax us to pay for the things they need (you know, like levy-equalization) is, well, just plain stupid.

And you’re not stupid, are you?

I hate to make it “Dump on Joel Week,” and I’ve got no big quibbles with the rest of his column, but this is the sort of conventional wisdom that really ticks me off:

A tireless practitioner of town meetings, Baird had a grip on his southwest Washington district, which twice voted for President Bush. The political turf began to move beneath him last summer as tea baggers showed up at once-cordial sessions with voters.

Joel could easily have written that the political turf began to move beneath Baird in 2008 when he angered Democrats by providing political cover for President Bush’s policies in Iraq… but Joel didn’t. Why? Because protests and discontent from the left are generally dismissed by the legacy press, whereas the breadth and impact of right-wing hissy-fits like those from the tea baggers are generally exaggerated.

The implication is that a handful of angry tea baggers played a major role in driving a congressman out of office, while the growing disaffection for Baird from within the base of his own party had absolutely no impact on his decision.

It’s a double standard that distorts the public debate, and… well… just really sticks in my craw.

Barbara Coombs Lee has a follow-up diary at Daily Kos on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ directive that mandates that Catholic health care facilities employ feeding tubes and other life-prolonging measures even when an individual’s living will specifically prohibits it. When I last posted on this, I’d sent out an email to a number of Catholic hospitals and hospices across the state to see if any of them were planning to ignore the directive.

It’s been five days, and I haven’t heard any responses from any of the 10 contacts I was able to find. In the comments of the original post on this, Joel Connelly claimed to have spoken with an administrator who says her facility will ignore the directive. I got that person’s name from Connelly today and emailed her directly. I’m still waiting for a reply.

UPDATE: Joel Connelly is up to some more shenanigans in the comments. He writes:

After asking for my assistance today, you deliberately distort what I heard up at the Bellingham City Club forum.

Absolutely not. I’ve distorted nothing. Here’s what you said to me, with a link to the comment:

As one with a living will, I’ve been told several times by Catholic hospital administrators that my wish not to be kept alive by artificial means would be fully respected.

I emailed you today with the following request:

I emailed as many Catholic hospitals and hospices as I could find contact emails for and not a single one has emailed me back saying that they will ignore the end-of-life instructions given to them by the bishops. If you have contact info for the person or persons who told you so, please forward that on to me.

You wrote back with the name of the person I then emailed. Either you’re not following what you’re saying to me or you’re deliberately trying to lie. Which is it?