Goldy

dec⋅i⋅mate [des–uh-meyt]
-verb (used with object), -mat⋅ed, -mat⋅ing.
1. to destroy a great number or proportion of: The population was decimated by a plague.
2. to select by lot and kill every tenth person of.
3. Obsolete. to take a tenth of or from.

I’ve heard a lot of talk around Olympia and throughout the rest of the state about how proposed budget cuts are going to “decimate” crucial state services.

Huh.  On the one hand, that’s an incorrect use of the word.

“Decimate,” in the modern sense of the word—referring to destroying a nonspecific but great proportion of—really only applies to the killing of people.  Of course, one could apply it to any object in the more technical and archaic form of the word, but in that sense, “decimation” only means to reduce by 10-percent, whereas in reality many state services will be cut by much more than that.

But on the other hand, “decimation” is perhaps the perfect word to describe our impending budget cuts, at least in terms of its Latin origin:

Decimation (Latin: decimatio; decem = “ten”) was a form of military discipline used by officers in the Roman Army to punish mutinous or cowardly soldiers. The word decimation is derived from Latin meaning “removal of a tenth.”

A cohort selected for punishment by decimation was divided into groups of ten; each group drew lots (Sortition), and the soldier on whom the lot fell was executed by his nine comrades, often by stoning or clubbing. The remaining soldiers were given rations of barley instead of wheat and forced to sleep outside of the Roman encampment.

Later today the new revenue forecast will be released, and the budget gap is only expected to widen.  Unless they also consider the revenue side of the equation, legislators will soon embark in earnest on the process of decimation:  determining who gets stoned to death and who merely loses their food and their tent.

As Jon already reported, Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen was down in Olympia yesterday asking legislators for a 40-percent cut in the newspaper industry’s B&O tax to help them through these tough economic times.  (You know, on top of the sales tax exemption the industry already enjoys.)  Still…

“Some of us, like The Seattle Times, are literally holding on by our fingertips today,” Blethen said.

No doubt.  And as a former small business owner myself preparing to dive headlong into a new and even riskier venture in the flailing news industry, I know first hand that paying a B&O tax while losing money makes survival all the more difficult for any struggling business.

But rather than handing out business tax breaks based on one’s ability to exert political pressure, wouldn’t the more rational solution to Frank’s very real problem be to move from our antiquated B&O tax on gross receipts to a fairer and simpler corporate income tax on net profits?  You know… like nearly every other state in the union?

For those of you who’ve never paid the B&O tax it is bizarrely byzantine with 17 tax classifications and 25 different credits that has some industries paying more than ten times the effective rate of others, and which, despite DOR’s best efforts, can be an absolute bitch to figure out.  For example, as a small software developer and publisher, our income was taxed at three different rates under four different tax classifications:  retailing, wholesaling, royalties and services.  (Perhaps five different tax classifications… I could never quite figure out whether some of our “wholesaling” business was actually “manufacturing”, though it didn’t really matter as both activities are taxed at the same rate.)

Much simpler would have been a corporate income tax, as we were already figuring out our profit/loss for the IRS, and while the B&O tax was never onerous (we never grossed more than a few hundred thousand dollars in a year), paying a tax on our losses didn’t make it any easier to start up a new business.

So it is more than a little disappointing to see our newspaper publishers, struggling under the weight of heavy losses, selfishly lobbying for a narrow tax break for themselves rather than using their unique position as opinion leaders to advocate for a more rational and fairer tax system that would address the needs of other struggling businesses while promoting entrepreneurialism and new business creation.

But then, that’s the sort of knee-jerk opposition to even debating an income tax that we’ve come to expect from our state’s opinion leaders.

Via Slog…

The senate’s judiciary committee just voted seven to one for a bill that would provide legal immunity to those who call medics for someone overdosing on drugs. The bill is designed to encourage folks, who are afraid of getting busted, to call for help instead of abandoning an overdosing person to die. Drug overdoses killed 700 people in Washington in 2006. […] Only state senator Pam Roach (R-31) voted against the bill.

Which is ironic, considering that Roach is also the only state senator on the committee with a child who has been caught on videotape snorting oxycontin, and subsequently convicted on a felony drug offense.  Go figure.

Here’s a great money-saving tip for travelers planning to fly on US Airways (you know, other than the obvious tip, which is don’t):  an easy way to get around the failing airline’s self-defeating checked baggage charge ($15 for the first bag, $25 for the second, and an insulting $100 for each bag thereafter).

Just bring your luggage to the gate and make them force you to check your bags there during boarding.  This works great with any item you can squeeze through the scanner at security, as US Airways is simply unequipped to charge you at the gate or on the plane for something you’ve managed to carry that far.

Screw you, US Airways!

Coming soon, a full review of my flight yesterday from Fort Lauderdale to Seattle, which was far from the worst flying experience I’ve ever endured, but certainly the most intentionally humiliating, and the final straw that has turned my former first choice in flying into my last.

I’m sitting in the Fort Lauderdale airport watching my flight for Seattle via Charlotte board without me.  It was scheduled to depart at 2:55PM ET, it is now 3:45, and there are still about 25 people waiting to board.  There’s no way this flight leaves the gate less than an hour late, which makes it highly unlikely we could catch our 6:10PM connection… the last flight from Charlotte to Seattle tonight.  So we’ve rebooked through Phoenix, scheduled to arrive in Seattle a couple hours late, after having spent an extra couple hours in the airport at FLL.

Flying sucks.  It totally sucks.

Last year it took us a whole extra day to make it home from our annual pilgrimage to visit grandma in Florida, while this October a nonstop flight to Philadelphia turned into an all day ordeal as our plane turned back to Seattle an hour into the flight due to leaky toilets, only to have us reboard the same plane with the same leaky toilets hours later.

And talking to my fellow travelers, my experiences are far from the worst, let alone unique.

Of course, mechanical failures and bad weather happen, but back when I was my daughter’s age—you know, back in the good old days of regulation—the airlines would respond by booking you on the next available flight out, regardless of carrier.

It’s time for a passenger bill of rights that guarantees the same.

The Seattle Times wants to change the deadline for mail-in ballots:

WASHINGTON voters are no strangers to suspenseful elections — but our state has a habit of dragging the suspense out for way too long.

Secretary of State Sam Reed wants to bring elections to more decisive ends sooner. His proposal would require ballots be received in election offices by Election Day. Now, the ballots need only be postmarked by Election Day. That means ballots straggle in throughout election week, often putting off the decisive conclusion for days — given Washington’s propensity for razor-thin margins.

This, of course, is a huge problem for newspaper headline writers who require definitive results by midnight, but for the rest of us… eh, not so much.  In fact, you’d think especially with our state’s “propensity for razor-thin margins” the emphasis should be on counting the ballot of every single registered voter, rather than finishing the counting on election night.

On Election Night in November, Democratic challenger Darcy Burner was leading in her bid to unseat incumbent Republican Dave Reichert for the 8th Congressional District seat. But Reichert pulled comfortably ahead over several King County and Pierce County ballot counts by Friday to win re-election.

Again, apart from the anxiety it caused the candidates and their most fervent supporters, I don’t really see what the problem is.  Speedy results would be nice, but voter participation and tabulation accuracy are what we really should be shooting for when it comes to running an election.  So I just don’t see why we have to make voting more difficult, and inevitably disenfranchise pathological procrastinators like me, just to get things over and done with by Tuesday night.

Think about it.  Right now the deadline is clear, precise and uniform:  postmarked by election day.  That means in the recent special election I dropped my ballot off at the Columbia City post office by about 4PM, a good hour or so under the wire.  But under the new, stricter law Sam Reed and the Times are proposing, the deadline would have been Saturday, or if you’re  lucky, Monday, or maybe Friday or Thursday or even earlier, depending on where you live.  Different voters would effectively have different deadlines, and they would change for every election.

That totally sucks.

No doubt Reed’s “reforms” would make things easier for election officials and the news media, but at the inevitable cost of disenfranchising voters.  The Times looks at Oregon and argues the change would likely invalidate “only” a few hundred ballots… which I guess doesn’t sound like all that many unless one of those ballots is yours.

The Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly asks “Is there no one to challenge Mayor Nickels?” — to which I answer:  why not you, Joel?

Really… why not?

Of course, you likely wouldn’t win, but there’s no shame in losing, and while you may not qualify as a “front-rank foe,” you’d certainly provide a better rhetorical challenge than your run of the mill also-ran.  And if you did win, well, you could probably use the job…  and wouldn’t you prefer being the mayor rather than working for the mayor like nearly every other ex-journalist in Seattle?

But seriously, Joel’s got a point:  why is there no one to challenge Mayor Nickels?  I don’t dislike Mayor Nickels, and considering Seattle’s endemic indecisiveness, a little Chicago-style politics isn’t always such a bad thing, but come on folks, it’s not like he’s Richard Friggin’ Daley.  Third terms are never an easy win for executives out here, where even our political establishment easily tires of itself, and a serious challenge would be good for both the city and Nickels.  (Unless, of course, he loses.  Then it’s not so good for Nickels after all.  But you get the point.)

So with Burgess and Smith out, and Licata and Steinbrueck dithering, I say run, Joel, run.  At the very least it would give your friends on the Seattle Times editorial board conniptions come endorsement season.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwOfAuuDrqY[/youtube]

I’m guessing there are a lot of folks who had expected to support Larry Phillips, who now don’t know what they’re going to do.

Larry is a good, reliable progressive who’s done a good, reliable job letting us know how good and reliable he is.  I don’t think there’s a single, substantive issue on which we disagree.

Dow’s pretty progressive too, I think, but he’s less of a politician than Larry, so I’m not quite as sure.  In fact, a lot of Dow’s appeal comes from the fact that he comes across as less of your typical politician and more of an ordinary guy.  (If only he hadn’t declared for the office, he’d have the Seattle Times endorsement all sewn up.)

Me… I don’t know who I’m going to support, and there are still more candidates to come.  (Rep. Ross Hunter has gotten his name in the news a lot recently.  Hmm.) It’s gonna be an interesting race.

The Seattle Times editorial board urges the King County Council to appoint a “noncandidate” to serve out the end of Ron Sims’ term as Executive:

The best plan is to name an individual who is a noncandidate for the job in November. A candidate likely will be too distracted by the coming primary and general elections to really hunker down and fix the county’s undeniable budget problems.

Nonpartisan noncandidates.  Because, you know… the last person you’d ever want to fill a political office is a… um… politician.

Reading the Times’ editors write about politics is kinda like reading a movie reviewer who hates going to the movies.

A local pol, via email, rightly rants about our media’s googly-eyed infatuation with bipartisanship:

What the stupid media don’t realize is that it’s a tactic, not a goal. The goal is to get something accomplished. If that something requires bipartisanship to do it, so be it. If it doesn’t, who cares. They’ve made the classic mistake of not caring what the goal is, as long as it’s bipartisan. It’s not a surprising conclusion, really, as long as you frame in the media’s so-called “objectivity” frame. That frame forces themselves to gravitate to the holy grail of bipartisanship, because they are too lame to call some actual goals bullshit, or praise some as actually being worthy. Thus their choices comes down to partisan=bad, bi-partisan=good. No wonder why people have stopped reading their drivel.

And in my opinion, it’s even worse than that, because good or bad, the very notion of “bipartisanship” is usually as illusory as that whole “objectivity” crap.

For example… Obama goes to the Hill.  He meets with Republicans on their turf.  The Dems compromise, making the stimulus package smaller, less progressive, and less effective.  And then House Republicans still vote unanimously against it, including our own local, conscience-driven independent, Dave Reichert.  Bipartisanship my ass.

See, the problem is, even as a tactic, bipartisanship is pointless if not counterproductive if you don’t have an honest, trustworthy partner across the aisle.  And currently, the Dems don’t.

I’m reading Jared Diamond’s latest book, Collapse:  How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, and I was struck by this passage regarding forest fires in Montana:

Many homeowners sue the Forest Service if their house burns in a forest fire, or if it burns in a backfire lit by the Forest Service to control a much bigger fire, or if it doesn’t burn but if a forest providing a pretty view from the deck of their house does burn.  Yet some Montana homeowners are afflicted with such a rabidly anti-government attitude that they don’t want to pay taxes towards the costs of firefighting, nor to allow government employees onto their land to carry out fire prevention measures.

And I couldn’t help but think of our current public debate over raising taxes to help offset our state’s expanding revenue deficit, or rather, the complete and utter lack of such a debate at all.  Nobody likes taxes, but we sure do like the services they buy, and it is simply irresponsible for the governor and the legislature to attempt to balance this budget without even considering targeted tax increases, because, you know… they’re unpopular.

What the P-I said:

If a government utility discovers it has been underbilling a resident for electricity, the homeowner can expect to pay, perhaps with a bit of extra time. Everyone sympathizes with the homeowner, but no one expects the government to give away something valuable without payment.

The state constitution forbids it, in fact.

A Building Industry Association of Washington program apparently has been receiving state overpayments of millions of dollars. The state’s course should be to get the money back.

Due to a programming error, the BIAW has been reaping retro-rebate overpayments since 1994, and then using the money to back right-wing causes and candidates.  And now they argue they should be allowed to keep most of those overpayments because, you know, it wasn’t their fault.

Well fuck that.

BIAW and other retro programs should pay back the entire amount—the first few years worth immediately, and then the remainder deducted from future retro payments over a reasonable term… say, the next five years.  This isn’t their money, and they have no right to keep.

Which of course raises a broader issue:  this isn’t their money.  And particularly now, during this economic crisis, it is time for the legislature to consider reforms that put more of the money back into the pockets of workers and small business owners, where it belongs, rather than into the coffers of partisan political organizations like BIAW.

Is Gov. Gregoire being coy?

Asked to list the top impediments to business in the state, Gregoire said she would like to overhaul the business and occupation tax, the state’s main tax on businesses. Calling the tax “ill-conceived” and harmful to small businesses, she invited business leaders to develop a plan for changing the system.

“If you want to come forward with an alternative to the B&O tax system in the state of Washington, the welcome mat is out from me,” Gregoire said.

I suppose there might be a number of B&O alternatives, including a Value Added Tax, or perhaps no business tax at all, but in inviting business leaders to develop their own plan, it certainly sounds like Gov. Gregoire is inviting them to propose a corporate income tax… a surprising invitation from a governor who has repeatedly dismissed even the notion of starting a conversation on such reforms. Encouraging, sure, though considering the longstanding split in our business community over this issue, if she really wants to overhaul the B&O tax, our negotiator-in-chief is going to have to do a helluva lot more than just put out the welcome mat.

The B&O tax is not only “ill-conceived,” it is an historical anomaly. In 1932 Washington voters overwhelmingly approved a personal and corporate income tax, overhauling a tax system that had previously over-relied on property taxes, but when the Supreme Court controversially ruled the new income tax unconstitutional while leaving the new property tax limits in place, the state was thrown into a budgetary crisis. The B&O tax was created as part of a hasty, and presumably temporary, political compromise.

75 years later, Washington’s B&O tax—a tax on gross receipts, rather than profits—remains just as ill-conceived as the day it was implemented, especially during this economic downturn when many businesses are forced to pay taxes on their losses. But while business leaders love to bitch about the B&O’s complexity and burden, they’ve thus far been unwilling to work together to propose a reasonable replacement.

Washington remains one of only five states without an income tax, and while Gov. Gregoire is right that there is currently little public support for a personal income tax, I doubt there would be much public opposition to the corporate variety, if that’s what the business community chooses for itself. And while such a revenue neutral reform would do little to address our long term structural revenue deficit, it would at least be a first step toward that conversation that Gov. Gregoire insists voters have no interest in starting.

According to both local and White House sources, President Barack Obama will nominate Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy—a cabinet-level position commonly referred to as the Drug Czar—an appointment that could signal a substantive departure from our nation’s current marijuana-focused, interdiction-heavy drug policy, and a more realistic and progressive approach toward the issue of drug abuse in general.

Within the context of career law enforcement professionals, I think it safe to label Kerlikowske a “progressive.”  During his ten-years at the helm of the Seattle Police Department and his current term as president of the Major Chiefs Association, Kerlikowske has been a vocal advocate for gun control and community policing, while serving as a prominent critic of the use of intrusive data mining techniques as a tool for combating domestic terrorism.  But while he hasn’t been particularly outspoken on drug control policy, Kerlikowske’s relative silence is encouraging in itself, considering the progressive mores and statutes of the city whose laws he has enforced for the past decade.

While Kerlikowske opposed a  2003 citizens initiative making marijuana in Seattle a “low priority crime,” calling the measure vague and confusing (and… well… most initiatives are), he emphasized to local reporters at the time that marijuana possession and use already was a low priority, and in fact, Seattle’s already low marijuana prosecution rate has dropped even further since the measure’s passage, indicating a responsiveness to the will of the voters.  Indeed, local drug reform advocates seem downright ecstatic about Kerlikowske’s appointment:

“Oh God bless us,” said Joanna McKee, co-founder and director of Green Cross Patient Co-Op, a medical-marijuana patient-advocacy group. “What a blessing — the karma gods are smiling on the whole country, man.”

McKee said Kerlikowske knows the difference between cracking down on the illegal abuse of drugs and allowing the responsible use of marijuana.

Kerlikowske’s laissez faire approach toward low-level possession fits well with our region’s libertarian streak and its progressive attitudes toward medical marijuana, needle exchanges and other drug issues.  Seattle has long been home to one of the largest Hempfests in the nation, where otherwise law abiding participants routinely light up in front of police officers without fear of arrest.  Meanwhile, Kerlikowske’s predecessor, Chief Norm Stamper, has established himself since leaving office as one of the nation’s most outspoken advocates for comprehensive drug policy liberalization and reform.  Yet despite the dire warnings of drug war hard liners, Seattle’s crime rate has dropped to a 40-year low during Kerlikowske’s tenure.

Kerlikowske’s office has not avoided controversy, particularly over accusations of lax discipline of officers, but he is widely admired.  Speaking on our Podcasting Liberally podcast last night, Seattle City Councilmember Tim Burgess, a former police officer, and current chair of the committee that oversees the police department, agrees that Kerlikowske is “no Bill Bennett,” and credits him for a “progressive” approach toward drug control issues:

Clearly the drug war as it has been waged traditionally in our country over the last 20, 30 years is not working, and there is a lot of collateral damage that’s unintended but is real, that is not helping us in that regard.  Chief Kerlikowske himself has been advocating some diversion programs, pre-arrest strategies, that are quite progressive.

Of course, Kerlikowske is no Norm Stamper either, but given the history of the Drug Czar office, his appointment should hearten those advocating for a more humane, rational and effective national drug control policy.