It might shock you to learn that an editorial in The Seattle Times pissed me off. But here we go:

PROTEST is a venerable American right. Sleep in the state Capitol building. Camp out on the Capitol grass. Carry signs. Chant, march, yell, make your point.

It is all part of the political process.

Here are a list of things that The Settle Times Editorial Board finds acceptable: Sleep, camp, carry signs, march, yell, and make a point. You may do these. Yes, the people who you want to persuade will probably ignore you. So will the Seattle Times.

But a protest becomes something else when a group of rowdy people storm or try to force their way into the relatively small foyer in the governor’s office in Olympia, which creates a safety hazard.

OH NO LOUD PEOPLE IN A FOYER! Save us from the Rowdy Foyer People!

So it was last week when a large group of protesters from the Service Employees International Union, upset about looming budget cuts, gathered outside Gov. Chris Gregoire’s office. They had earlier marched around the Capitol campus and demonstrated inside the legislative building.

Thank God less than 1% of them were a bit rowdy (and one probably more serious). Otherwise we might have to spend this prime editorial space talking about the issues they protested. Now we can harrumph.

These protesters wanted to talk to the governor. A lot of people do. A pushing match ensued with State Patrol officers who closed the governor’s door and stood guard outside her office to ensure her safety.

Look, they should be an editorial board. Governors call you up if you’re an editorial board. Senators. Legislators. Business leaders. If you were more polite like our editorial page, then more people would call you up.

Anyway, it goes on like this for a while. And it mentions that one of the people was charged with assault and are accused of elbowing and kicking State Patrol officers. Of course, don’t do that. If the entire editorial was, “hey please don’t kick police officers” it would have been fine. And left them space to debate what the actual budget maybe should look like.

– Dennis G’s posts at Balloon Juice on the Confederate Party are consistently excellent, but this one is his best yet.

– The images from the Olympia rally are really inspiring.

– There are other states with even more fucked up nonsense.

– Well played, Rational Wiki. (h/t)

In the debate about how the legislature should balance the budget* one of the main liberal arguments is that we should close the loopholes that have accumulated in the tax system over the years. At least have a look at what ones are and aren’t working any more. It makes sense, after all that what the legislature passed 10, 20, 30 years ago or more in better economic times may not make sense today when put against the tough budget reality. But don’t worry, Representative Ed Orcutt knows better. Not how to balance the budget, silly: what to call the loopholes.

As the Legislature contemplates how to deal with a multi-billion dollar budget shortfall, one of the more common phrases heard around the Capitol is “closing tax loopholes.” While this may seem admirable on the surface, a closer look reveals a complex economic system that can’t be oversimplified by catchy special interest sound bites.

Special interest = struggling families who have lost medical and dental care, and or schools.
Special interest ≠ out of state banks that pay millions of dollars less because of these loopholes.

For most, the term “loophole” conjures up images of shady characters in smoke-filled back rooms scheming for ways to buck the system. But here in Washington state, we don’t have “tax loopholes” we have tax incentives.

If you use a different word, it makes it OK.

Why is this clarification important? Because these tax incentives have been enacted via very deliberate legislative action.

No lobbyist has ever influenced any tax cut bill, you see. And any tax break that ever once made sense will forever make sense again.

In order to be passed into law, a tax incentive must be subjected to: a public hearing; amendment; a majority vote of committee members; and then subjected again to amendment and a 50-vote requirement to pass from the House floor. It then has to go through the same rigorous process in the Senate (with a 25-person vote requirement). If it passes both the House and Senate, it still must be signed into law by the governor. Often, these proposals receive far more than the 50 and 25 votes needed. So, it is a rigorous and difficult task for a bill to be passed and enacted.

The same process will also apply to any repeal (except it may also go to the voters or have to be 2/3 of the legislature). So, problem solved.

Furthermore, this process is done publicly with bill hearings announced in advance and testimony taken in public meetings. Anyone can now access any hearing via TVW webcast. There is no hiding. And lobbyists for the groups who are now calling for the repeal of these policies had every opportunity to testify against the proposals. Did they? Weren’t the bills still passed – and these incentives enacted – because of their benefit to our economy?

Well, our economy looks very different than it did when those loopholes passed. So it makes sense that we would see if they still make sense. We also enacted the social safety net to benefit our economy, not to mention to keep the most vulnerable safe. By the logic of the previous paragraph, we can’t dismantle that, since it had hearings and passed the legislature, etc.? And our schools have been funded by previous legislatures, and there’s even a clause about a paramount duty.

The fact is these incentives have been beneficial to workers, employers and communities throughout the state. Thousands of jobs with high wages and benefits have been created and many jobs in manufacturing have been saved. They worked because a lower tax rate brought businesses to Washington that would not have come otherwise.

Instead of actual facts to back this up, could you please give me an example you pulled out of your ass?

Which would you choose, a tax rate of 0.5 percent on $10 million or a 1.5 percent rate applied to $0? I choose the 0.5 percent rate as it creates jobs and generates revenue. The higher rate does not because many of those economic activities would gravitate toward more competitive states. That means the lower rate has actually protected or enhanced the funding for many of the programs that special interest groups are now trying to protect. Repeal of these incentives would leave employers with little option but to lay off more workers. Can we really afford that? Our efforts should be to create jobs, not destroy them.

If we rescind the loophole for banks, THERE WILL BE NO BANKS TO TAX IN WASHINGTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!

Over the last few years, true loopholes have been examined and eliminated. The improper use of reseller certificates to get building materials tax free for personal use, and tax avoidance have both been thoughtfully – and rightfully – repealed.

It’s only a loophole if I don’t support it.

Proposals to end our current tax incentives are by definition tax increases. Voters clearly said ‘No!’ to that last fall, and with good reason. Any tax increase would lead to job losses in our state and further delay the rehiring of workers by any employer affected by such a tax increase.

Well to the extent that you can divine anything about closing loopholes from that, they said they wanted either 2/3 of the legislature to vote on it or to put it to the people. So, if enough of your colleagues support it, then it can pass. So vote to close loopholes and problem solved.

A repeal of these incentives would further hamper our economy’s recovery and devastate our state and household budgets. We need to get past the misleading rhetoric of impropriety and look for better ways to get our budget balanced and to get Washington working again.

By cutting Basic Health and education. QED!

[Read more…]

Goldy has the goods on the protest of the budget down in Olympia. This is a fast moving story, so you could do worse than to check out the We Are Washington blog. Their latest piece links to these videos. If anyone has other info, please leave it in the comments.

…Follow hashtag #wearewashington on Twitter for the latest

I just adored this photo essay by McGinn on Seattle’s values. Of course a lot of them are universal values, not unique to Seattle or to cities in general, but all in all wonderful.

As Goldy points out, we don’t actually need to save GET. But, much like Social Security, its solvency doesn’t stop critics from worrying about it. I don’t know, perhaps this is just concern trolling, but perhaps it’s legit. Better safe than sorry, so, here’s my plan to save GET for ever:

Free tuition. If a student has the qualifications to get into any of our institutions of higher learning, from the UW to our Community Colleges, they can get in. The state picks up everything up to a bachelor’s degree. We should make sure that money isn’t the thing that keeps people out of college. Ideally I’d say do it for everyone, but at the very least, free tuition for in state students.

Now, I realize that college tuition isn’t cheap for parents, so it won’t be cheap for the state. As much as dedicating a source of funding is usually the worse policy, I think that’s the way to go. You figure out how much it’ll cost to make college free across the state, and then figure out the source of money. That way if there’s a referendum to oppose the taxes, you can say that it is a vote against free college.

I know, I know, lots of people push for a high tuition and high financial aid model that many schools (public and private) have. Still our public schools ought to be that, public. And just as we don’t expect the wealthy to pay for public K-12, we shouldn’t expect them to pay a for public college education (outside of taxes). Surely just like the PTSA for K-12, there will be opportunities for wealthy people to pay more, but it shouldn’t be a requirement. There are some things that the market works great for, but education isn’t one of them.

Getting back to GET, the ostensible point of this post: there will be some people in the program who are out of luck. Parents sending their children to out of state schools who have this as part of their plan to pay tuition. We can figure out a way to accommodate them, at least partially. But for anyone in state, this is just as good of a deal as they would have got anyway.

Winners and losers aside, there is then a pot of money that people paid in. I recommend not spending it. I know, I know, in this economy and with my proposal of a major new spending increase, it’s hard to imagine the legislature not spending it down. But I recommend keeping it in place so that if and when future legislatures decide to increase tuition again, that we can revamp GET with that money.

WordPress ate my last post so here’s an abbreviated version before I head out: Even though House Republicans hate Obama, and might well not pass an authorization of force against Libya, he shouldn’t have taken military action there without one. The War Powers Act is more wide ranging than I’d like, but it still probably doesn’t allow this. Also, even if he could get authorization, I’m not sure he should have anyway. I do think the humanitarian mission has value, but I don’t know what the US and its allies have done to prevent a bloodbath by the rebels if they take Tripoli, and I can’t imagine a partition (especially one enforced by Western air power) working out well in the long term. That said, this conservative anti war case is embarrassingly stupid, even by Federal Way Conservative’s low, low standards.

Bush’s Unilateral Action Had More Partner’s Than Obama’s Multinational Effort

The Libya mission has the UN, and NATO, and sort of the Arab League? Well Iraq had the UK, Spain for a while, and Poland.

It’s all here, in black and white: When President Bush went to war against Iraq, he had 4 times as many nations supporting him than Obama doing his “Kinetic Military Action” in Libya.

This isn’t an apples to apples comparison. The link includes military action by every country that just supplied a few troops in Iraq at any time in the last decade. So most of them came on (and in small numbers) after the invasion. You can’t compare that to just an air offensive. Hell, the fact that Eritrea said they supported the invasion to try to gain favor with the Bush administration made them part of the Coalition of the Willing. We had to put those together because the Iraq war didn’t have the backing of NATO, the UN or other international organizations that might give it international legitimacy.

Of course, now that Obama’s little crusade against Libya is turning out far worse than Bush’s romp in Iraq, maybe even democrats will admit Bush was the greatest president ever.

Did a we lose several thousand troops and billions of dollars in Libya? Because if not, it’s not as bad.

Is it on large corporations? Is it on private jets? On cosmetic surgery? No, silly. The Republican Senate Whip and House floor leader have put out a press release demanding that the tribes pay more taxes. Now ignore tribal sovereignty and the other logical reasons why this is not the right place to start.

We’re in a terrible budget hole and fixing it can take on a logic of its own. So according to the press release, if you force tribes to pay more state taxes on cigarettes, gas and tribal property on non-trust land, the state could make $110 Million extra. And in this budget hole, that’s real money. But compare that to the $142 Million we’d get back if we closed just the loophole for software developers. Seriously, as long as private jets and out of town banks have loopholes, we shouldn’t try to balance the budget on the backs of the tribes.

Recently, my favorite sports writer, Joe Posnanski wrote a piece about the meanings of advanced baseball statistics. He started quoting this piece from Louis CK:

“And then I was looking at the little Chinese lady. There was a beauty to her — she was just a tiny little Chinese lady, I was staring at her because I was fascinated by her. I don’t know anybody like her, and I am SO not a little old Chinese lady.

“Then I look and I think, ‘What are her thoughts?’ That’s what I was burning inside with. ‘What is she thinking right now?’ I can never know. And my dumb brain is telling me she’s just thinking: ‘Ching chung cheeng, chung cheeng chaing.’ That’s how dumb I am, that I think Chinese jibberish* that I made up is in her actually Chinese mind.”

Posnanski then went on to explain that a lot of people who oppose the use of advanced statistics are arguing with the Chinese jibberish in their head.

Baseball people really don’t get at all what people like Bill James and Tom Tango and Pete Palmer and the like are doing at all. They might THINK they know. But in the end, they are just assuming that the Chinese jibberish that they make up is what is actually happening in the minds of the most brilliant sabermetric minds.

This is a long way of saying that whenever I mention car culture or Washington State imposing car culture on its city folk, that I feel like the arguments I get into are with people assuming the Chinese jibberish in their head is my argument. If this was confined to the Internet, I’d just chalk it up to trollery and use this post to write about something else (more metacommentary, probably), but I hear it in conversation elsewhere, so I thought I should clarify what I mean, and hopefully we can get away from that and onto an actual conversation.

To address the jibberish: Opposing car culture doesn’t mean that nobody will ever be allowed to drive anywhere. It doesn’t mean that we’ll turn all the roads into bike paths. It doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to drive. While I can’t speak to anyone else who uses the term, for me it certainly doesn’t mean I think you’re a bad person if you drive or if you enjoy driving. It doesn’t mean that you are a bad person for feeling unsafe on a bike, or thinking it’s important to have a car if you have children.

Car culture is the myriad ways we privilege driving over other ways to get around as a society. It’s the fact that you need a car for so many jobs, even jobs unrelated to driving. It’s the fact that our bicycle infrastructure even in Seattle is pretty inadequate, and worse further out. It’s the fact that so many parents have such a need for cars. It’s all the roads without a shoulder let alone a decent bike lane. It’s the sidewalks that neighborhoods have been promised for decades but that never quite seem to materialize. It’s the underfunded public transit. It’s the fact that when we discuss the viaduct replacement that many people are more concerned about how to move cars than how to move people. It’s our refusal to deal with the externalities of driving from pollution, to global warming gases, to the big holes in cities where we have to park, to the fact that streets aren’t safe for pedestrians in the way they were before cars.

And car culture is treating all these things as inevitable instead of the result of choices we make. When I say the legislature imposes car culture (especially, but not exclusively) on Seattle, I’m saying that consciously or not, the policies that the state pushes make those things in the above paragraph, and more, worse. So when, for example, a state legislator from Yakima tries to impose a maximum parking tax on Seattle that’s a choice for that legislator, and possibly the entire state. They’re saying we should have cheaper parking. Not we should figure out what’s reasonable given the budget deficit and the things that extra parking does to a city, but that they know best. When the legislature wants to build a replacement for the Viaduct, instead of looking at how to move people around, they’re looking at how to move cars. Until they recognize that cars are one way people and goods move around, but aren’t the only way, they’ll still push cars on us when there are better alternatives. Not just with the Viaduct replacement but with all sorts of policies.

[Read more…]

There’s a proposal before the Redistricting Commission to draw a map that would make one of the Congressional districts 50.1% non white. Basically South Seattle and the suburbs would form a district. A few quick thoughts:

• I’m not thrilled about splitting Seattle into multiple districts. Presumably this would weaken McDermott but I don’t know how much. I don’t know where in the district he lives, but presumably he could win a West Seattle – Vashon to North King County district. It would (obviously) make the 7th district whiter.
• 50.1% and the fact that minorities don’t vote as frequently as white people probably means that the district’s voters will still be majority white. Still things like service academy opportunities and constituent services might be different in a majority nonwhite district.
• Majority minority and majority any one race are two very different things. The district would still be whiter than any other race.
• Race is obviously not the only factor in how people vote.
• Other than splitting Seattle, the proposed map doesn’t set off any alarms by being oddly shaped or on both sides of a geographic boundary. In fact, it’s not as screwy as some of the districts we have now. (Special note to The Seattle Times: When I click on your button that says “enlarge” a smaller map probably shouldn’t pop up)

Will (who you may remember used to write here, and could theoretically once again) has a piece on Slog where he argues that Seattle needs to be afraid of what the Olympia might do if we reject the tunnel. Bold mine because bolding on Slog seems mostly random.

If we reject the tunnel, the money will go away, and will be turned in to a north-south freeway in Spokane, or added lanes on I-405. Or part could be used to widen I-5 under the convention center, which might be the best-case scenario. Or it could be moved to the 520 bridge replacement project, which is short of funds. Or, just to spite us, they could give us a brand new viaduct, a wider, bigger, quieter replacement of the current structure complete with downtown exits and grand views of the harbor.

First off, the cost of a gallon of gas is rising just as quickly in the Eastside and Spokane as it is anywhere else. It’ll probably come down a bit off this high, but the trend is in the wrong direction. If they want to continue to tether themselves to foreign oil it’s not Seattle’s business, but good luck attracting skilled workers to the 21st century economy. Second, and more important, it’s past time Seattle (and frankly the rest of the urban-suburban Puget Sound, since the rest of the state hates them almost as much as Seattle) starts fighting spiteful bullshit with spiteful bullshit.

In 2009 when a few Tacoma legislators decided that they wanted to make sure that Tacoma Power could pollute more, they were able to gum up the works of the whole state. There’s no reason that the Seattle legislators who oppose the cost overrun provision couldn’t start demanding cost overrun provisions in any project (not just any road project) outside the net donor counties until the tunnel cost overrun provisions are repealed. And if they don’t get that to gum up the works. Seattle gives away our hard earned tax money to those counties and doesn’t see much of a return on their investment.

Partly this plan is out of spite for the state trying to saddle us with a freeway we don’t want, and then trying to make us pay for it. But you’re never going to get good policy until you’re willing to put your foot down against bad policy; while putting cost overrun provisions on counties that don’t pay their fair share is bad policy, it’s better policy than putting those provisions on a city that does.

And yes, the plan relies to some extent on the Seattle delegation asserting themselves. Relying on Seattle legislators to have any backbone is like relying on jelly fish to have any backbone. Still, if the tunnel loses an election in August and a few City Council members lose their jobs in November, it might put some steel in the legislature’s resolve.

***

Also, just as a side note, I supported Roads and Transit. Given how easily the Transit portion passed the following year, it’s probably fair to say that I’m more pro having the Seattle area pay extra for car infrastructure than the average urban King County resident. So call me a dirty hippie or whatever but if the state antagonizes Seattle enough, you can look forward to mayor for life Mike McGinn.

Now that we’re in the middle (or, probably at the beginning) of our third war, can we maybe do the things we’re supposed to do during a war? Start with a tax increase. After all, those cruise missiles and fighter jets aren’t free. If this war is worth it, (and I have my doubts) then it’s worth paying for.

Of course the people risking their lives, not to mention their health and their relations back home, are the men and women in the air and at sea, and possibly in the future on the ground. We need to make sure that when they come home, the VA is in as tip top shape as possible, and that when people come back, they have the physical health, mental health, and family support they’ve earned. We need to make sure they have jobs to come back to. Especially since so many of the people deployed are in the National Guard and Reserves, it means we need to do everything we can to make sure they can return to the lives they’ve left, sometimes two and three times. It means their jobs have to still be there for them government agencies like ESGR need support and private businesses need to be willing to hire and to go above the bare minimum required by law in retaining and supporting their service member employees.

But those of us who don’t ever suit up ought to sacrifice in other ways. We need a renewed push away from oil in the short term because that’s where Gadhafi gets his money and in the longer term because we’ve been in a hot war in the Middle East for a decade, and it doesn’t show signs of stopping. We ought to consider rationing, to force us to use less oil.

Finally, it’s not the time for business to make profit. They can return to that when our 3 wars are over. Now is not the time, as FDR said for, “that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests.” We need to tell all military contractors (including Boeing) that they’ll be delivering quality products, and doing it at cost. If they don’t like it, we’ll have to nationalize the factories at least until our wars are over. Same with the extraction industries. We really ought to nationalize oil drilling. At least enough that the operations in our 3 wars aren’t dependent on corporations. If the oil companies don’t like it, well there are wars on.

Here’s an amazing story mixed into the hell in Japan.

The life-long rice farmer lived alone in a house, now flooded, when the earthquake and tsunami hit. She told CNN:

“After the tsunami warning, I got on my bicycle, by myself, and rode away.”

Last year I put up my favorite poem by William Butler Yeats. I think a yearly Yeats is appropriate.

Hound Voice

Because we love bare hills and stunted trees
And were the last to choose the settled ground,
Its boredom of the desk or of the spade, because
So many years companioned by a hound,
Our voices carry; and though slumber-bound,
Some few half wake and half renew their choice,
Give tongue, proclaim their hidden name — ‘hound voice.’

The women that I picked spoke sweet and low
And yet gave tongue. ‘Hound voices’ were they all.
We picked each other from afar and knew
What hour of terror comes to test the soul,
And in that terror’s name obeyed the call,
And understood, what none have understood,
Those images that waken in the blood.

Some day we shall get up before the dawn
And find our ancient hounds before the door,
And wide awake know that the hunt is on;
Stumbling upon the blood-dark track once more,
Then stumbling to the kill beside the shore;
Then cleaning out and bandaging of wounds,
And chants of victory amid the encircling hounds.

After reading The Stranger’s coverage of the police department recently, I can’t help but think that beat cops shouldn’t have guns under normal circumstances.

I don’t mean to suggest that all, or most, of the Seattle Police can’t handle a firearm. They’ve all had psychological screening and extensive training. Uniformly, I’ve only had good experiences with Seattle police. But all it took was one bad day for one officer to put a wood carver in the ground. The day would have been better for Williams and for Birk if Birk hadn’t been armed that day. We’re told that these sorts of incidents of police shooting people are inevitable, but if we disarm the sort of people who think “Ian Birk is a good young man” we’ll probably have fewer of those sorts of incidents.

And I know the region has had a spate of police officers murdered recently. There are people gunning for our officers, sadly literally. Still their weapons didn’t save them from those premeditated murders. And in the case of Clemmons, since he took an officer’s gun, he was more dangerous because the police were armed. Shootings of officers in Britain where the police on the street don’t carry weapons is fairly infrequent (obviously there are other reasons).

I’m not arguing there is no place for any police officer in any circumstance to have a weapon. But it should be the exceptional case, not the norm.