Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We meet at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E—some of us show up a little early to enjoy the cuisine.

Tonight’s theme song is inspired by rumors of a Condi VP running-mate for McCain (please, oh please?): Winlar’s Condoleezza.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

Seattle’s Winlar asks “Which one is next?”:

Darcy Burner addresses the Take America Back Conference:

(This along with some seventy other media clips from the past week in politics are now posted at Hominid Views.)

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We meet at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E—some of us show up a little early to sample from the terrific menu.

Tonight’s theme song is from The Clash’s album Cut the Crap….“Dirty Punk”.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally . Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

Seattle’s Winlar shares his mother’s advice (and you can sing along):

(There are some 60 other clips from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We meet at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E—some of us show up a little early to sample from the terrific menu.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally . Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

Seattle’s Winlar sings about all those Bush scandals (Hell…you can even sing along):

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We meet at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E—some of us show up a little early to sample from the terrific menu.

For tonight’s theme song, we’ll all shuffle up to the roof, look up to the stars and hum Also sprach Zarathustra.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally . Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA-01) addresses the House on freedom, liberty, the rule of law, and a lawless executive:

(There are some seventy other media clips from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)

Put a little musical political comedy in your life this weekend. Seattle-based comedian Winlar will be performing Love, Politics, and Love this Friday and Saturday evening (14 and 15 Mar). The show starts at 8:00 pm at the Jewel Box Theater in the Rendezvous Bar and Restaurant (21 and older), 2322 2nd Ave, Belltown (441-5823).

Here’s a snippet from the show:

The show is also the long awaited DVD release party for the long-awaited DVD of Winlar’s last show Nothing Controversial: Just Religion, Politics and How to Raise Your Children—A steal at just $10!

Here are a few of my favorite Winlar videos:

• The Terrorist Win.
• The Ann Coulter song.
• If Jesus were here.
• Condoleezza.

Winlar is a former writer for Almost Live!, NPR’s Rewind with Bill Radke and theater’s Kazoo! sketch comedy group.

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We meet at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E—some of us show up a little early to sample from the terrific menu.

Tonight’s theme song? What else could it be but Missy ‘Misdemeanor’ Elliott’s One Minute Man:

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally . Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

“We Wuz Robbed” seems like an incredibly bankrupt campaign strategy to me. But bankruptcy hasn’t stopped Dino Rossi, who is still perpetuating the idea that he was cheated out of being Governor:

Residents heard from Attorney General Rob McKenna, who’s seeking re-election, and Dino Rossi, who’s back on the campaign trail as a candidate for governor, jokingly telling people he’s seeking re-election as well, after an extremely close vote the last time he ran.

The Sore Loser Express™ is currently steaming through Eastern Washington saying things like this:

“It’s a different campaign, completely different,” said Rossi. “Last time when I decided I was going to run for governor, I only had 12 percent name ID statewide. Almost everybody in this county thought Dino Rossi was some sort of wine.”

Of course, another difference is that, recently, Washington state has been rated one of the best managed states, and as having one of the best business climates in the country. He continues:

“If people want to, they can control every single election,” said Rossi. “If they get their aunt, who doesn’t think their vote counts anymore to vote, get their 18-year-olds registered to vote. Just get everybody out to vote. If you exercise the vote that you’re given, you can control every election.”

Yeah…that’s it, Dino. Get Aunt Matilda to go out and vote. You’d better just hope that Aunt Millie doesn’t remember the cries of election fraud that were found to be without merit by a Judge in one of the most conservative county in Washington. And hope that she doesn’t remember your un-statesmanlike slamming the Washington state Supreme Court when you begrudgingly ended the contest:

“With today’s decision, and because of the political makeup of the Washington state Supreme Court, which makes it almost impossible to overturn this ruling, I am ending the election contest

Because, even Aunt Millie knows a sore loser when she sees one!

Rep. Steve King (R-Cowardstowne) is fucking insane! (via Crooks and Liars):

(Other media clips from the past week in politics are posted at Hominid Views.)

I moved to Washington state in the summer of 1999. My first impressions of the state were largely positive. I liked almost everything about the area—except the traffic and transportation infrastructure. That fall, as I followed the debate over Initiative 695, my reaction was one of astonishment. “Why, the hell, would anyone want to gut funding for the state’s one serious weakness?”

But I-695 wasn’t about making the state a better place in any real sense. It was an appeal to individual greed and selfishness—a “free ice cream cones for everyone!” gimmick— that didn’t fully disclose the consequences for local government services, the ferry system, and other transportation infrastructure. My conclusion that autumn was that Washingtonians had no freaking idea how good they really have it. Subsequent observations have largely confirmed this.

In February, 2005 we learned just how good we have it government-wise. The Pew-sponsored Government Performance Project (GPP) graded Washington state a B+. From the individual scores, Washington ranked as the third best state government, with only Utah and Virginia doing better. When the report came out, we were in the midst of a contested gubernatorial election. The report seemed largely overlooked.

Last year we learned just how good we have it business-wise, when Forbes’ annual survey ranked Washington state number five in the nation for business climate. And Fortune magazine rated Washington the fourth best state in which to start a business—specifically citing our “low taxes”.

And earlier this week we learned how consistently good we have it government-wise when the 2008 GPP report was released. The 2005 results were not a fluke. Once again, Washington state ranks third behind Utah and Virginia. Our grade improved slightly to an A- overall. Individual grades were A- for money, A- for people, B+ for infrastructure, and A for information (see the full report for what these categories mean and how the grading was done).

Together these four reports strongly suggest that Washington’s government and business climate are near the top in the nation. The idea contradicts two of the three major right-wing talking points. Here’s the list:

1. The Washington state government performs poorly
2. The state government hurts the business climate
3. We are overtaxed for what we get out of our government

The third talking point can be decomposed into two parts. First, are Washingtonians overtaxed? And second, are tax revenues efficiently utilized by the state? The first part can be evaluated objectively by looking at the per capita tax burden for state and local taxes. Information for 2005 tax revenue (the most recent available) and state population sizes can be found at the U.S. Census Bureau. (The per capita tax burdens for all states can also be found at the Washington state Department of Revenue–either source yields the same results.)

In 2005, Washington’s state and local tax “burden” ranked at number 21, or about $3,651/person. The U.S. average was $3,447. In other words, we fell slightly on high side of average, but some $2000 below first ranked New York’s cost of $5,752/person and about $1,000 above last ranked Alabama at $2,569 per person. These figures make it difficult to argue that Washingtonians are taxed outrageously. (As a percentage income—the figure most widely cited in state by state comparisons—Washington ranks 37th, well below the national average.)

What about value? Do Washingtonians get good value for their tax dollar? Consider two hypotheses. (A) Conceivably, we could all be paying a huge premium for our state government’s third-best performance. (Sort of like the lousy fuel efficiency that high-performance cars get.) (B) Alternatively, perhaps great performing governments are also highly efficient governments.

If hypothesis (A) is correct, we might use the information to find a parsimonious set of trade-offs between government performance and per capita cost. If hypothesis (B) turns out to be correct, we can rejoice in our double dose of success—a high-performance and efficient government. And then we can strike out that third right-wing talking point.

A natural way to test between these two hypotheses is by looking at the per capita costs to achieve the grade in the GPP. Since the GPP grade is a proxy for performance, we can use state tax rates to estimate the per capita cost of that performance. Here is how I’ve done this.

For all 50 states, I took the letter grades for all four categories (one each for money, people, infrastructure, and information) and converted them into numerical scores from A = 4, A- = 3.67, B+ = 3.33, …, F = 0. I then averaged the grades to get a number between 0 and 4. This gives Washington state a grade of 3.67, which is the third best score among all states.

Next, I divided the per capita tax by the numerical grade for an estimate of the efficiency—that is, we compute the cost for each unit of grade. The resulting price per grade point is akin to the price per pound when comparison shopping among, say, different brands of apples. We can directly use the numbers to find the best value around in state government.

The results are summarized in this table:

State	2005 per capita tax	Tax rank	Grade	Efficiency ($/grade)	Efficiency rank
Alabama	$2,569	50	2.17	1185	17
Alaska	$4,443	6	1.92	2314	46
Arizona	$3,079	34	2.59	1191	19
Arkansas	$2,902	44	2.09	1392	31
California	$4,055	12	2.00	2028	42
Colorado	$3,363	27	2.17	1553	36
Connecticut	$5,398	2	2.59	2088	43
Delaware	$3,894	14	3.17	1229	22
Florida	$3,369	26	2.67	1262	24
Georgia	$3,010	38	3.33	903	3
Hawaii	$4,338	7	2.17	2001	40
Idaho	$2,926	42	2.92	1004	7
Illinois	$3,849	16	1.92	2007	41
Indiana	$3,405	25	3.08	1105	14
Iowa	$3,273	30	2.83	1157	16
Kansas	$3,415	24	2.58	1322	27
Kentucky	$2,939	40	2.83	1038	9
Louisiana	$3,173	31	2.92	1089	13
Maine	$3,960	13	2.00	1980	39
Maryland	$4,276	8	2.92	1467	34
Massachusetts	$4,470	5	1.92	2334	47
Michigan	$3,494	23	3.33	1048	11
Minnesota	$4,088	11	2.83	1443	33
Mississippi	$2,575	49	2.17	1189	18
Missouri	$2,997	39	3.33	899	2
Montana	$2,913	43	2.42	1206	20
Nebraska	$3,746	18	3.09	1214	21
Nevada	$3,749	17	2.34	1606	37
New Hampshire	$3,306	29	1.33	2481	49
New Jersey	$4,890	4	2.09	2345	48
New Mexico	$3,151	32	2.50	1260	23
New York	$5,752	1	2.50	2301	45
North Carolina	$3,149	33	2.75	1144	15
North Dakota	$3,343	28	2.50	1337	28
Ohio	$3,637	22	2.67	1363	30
Oklahoma	$2,843	45	2.17	1312	26
Oregon	$3,052	36	2.42	1264	25
Pennsylvania	$3,710	19	2.75	1349	29
Rhode Island	$4,191	9	1.67	2517	50
South Carolina	$2,779	46	2.67	1041	10
South Dakota	$2,715	47	2.50	1087	12
Tennessee	$2,685	48	2.67	1007	8
Texas	$3,015	37	3.17	952	4
Utah	$2,933	41	3.83	765	1
Vermont	$4,137	10	2.50	1655	38
Virginia	$3,657	20	3.75	975	5
Washington	$3,651	21	3.67	996	6
West Virginia	$3,060	35	2.17	1412	32
Wisconsin	$3,872	15	2.50	1549	35
Wyoming	$5,251	3	2.50	2100	44
U.S.	$3,447	—	2.59	1333	—

The “efficiency” column shows how many dollars per grade point taxpayers pay in each state. The “Efficiency rank” goes from most efficient to least efficient. The best value in state government is found in Utah, where taxpayers paid $765 per grade point.

Washington state is the 6th best value (i.e. sixth most efficient government) by this measure. It cost taxpayers just under $1,000 per grade point, compared to a national average of $1,333.

The worst? Rhode Island, where taxpayers spent $4,191 for each grade point in their score.

In the individual sub-categories, Washington state does well (results not shown in the table). We are ranked 7th most efficient for money, 7th most efficient for people, 12th most efficient for infrastructure, and 7th most efficient for information. Not too shabby!

The analysis rejects hypothesis (A) in favor of hypothesis (B). We really can rejoice in our government that is both high-performance and efficient. Right-wing talking point number three would seem to be well off the mark.

One potential criticism of this analysis is that the GPP might be strongly related to efficiency—that is, higher state scores may already reflect lower per capita taxes. If so, we should see a high correlation between per capita tax and the GPP score. We don’t. The squared correlation between the two measures is r² = 0.034. In other words, there is only the weakest relationship between per capita tax and GPP score. Here is a scatter plot for visual confirmation:

I feel vindicated. My early impressions were right. The perpetual whiners in this state who claim that our government is broken, inefficient, poorly performing, bloated, ineffective, incompetent, and expensive are wrong—they don’t know how good they have it. They’ve hunkered down so tightly on the compound that they’ve lost touch with reality.

The facts are plain and can be evaluated objectively…Washington state is one of the greatest values around in state government. And, judging by the recent increases in both the GPP scores and the Forbes rankings, Washington is not only a great value, but has been improving.

(Cross posted at Hominid Views)

John McCain’s new chart-topping single:

(And about ninety more media clips from the past week in politics can be found at Hominid Views.)