Danny Westneat thinks thinks that despite a down economy and rising gas prices, our local elected officials are “as tax-crazy as an IRS agent on Ritalin.”
A $75 million Pike Place Market levy. A $146 million Seattle parks levy. A $17.6 billion, tri-county light-rail package. Roughly $300 a year, in total, for the average Seattleite
Oh, and don’t forget that 20-cents-per-grocery-bag Green Fee!
If this is proceeding with caution, what will “full-steam-ahead” look like?
And while Danny reassures us that “I like all these things,” he can’t help but wonder…
… where’s the restraint? There’s no hint that government has any sense of limits.
I’ll tell you where the “restraint” and the “sense of limits” comes from, Danny… from the voters, that’s where. See, nobody’s raising anybody’s taxes, at least not without our approval at the polls, so this familiar refrain of blaming politicians for putting tax measures on the ballot, well… it just plain pisses me off.
When voters approve measures that cut taxes, we’re told that’s “the will of the people,” their ballot a sacred text that is somehow inviolate. When Tim Eyman passes one of his stupid, selfish and ill conceived initiatives, we’re told that’s “the will of the people” too.
But apparently measures that raise our taxes are entirely different. Apparently, we voters simply can’t be trusted to resist the natural temptation to tax ourselves, especially for frivolous things like parks and transit. And if God forbid we voters are foolish enough to tax ourselves the equivalent of a single tank of gas a year to extend light rail south to Federal Way, north to Lynnwood and east to Redmond, well, apparently, it’s our elected officials who deserve the blame for their obvious lack of restraint in giving us the opportunity to decide these issues for ourselves.
I’m just sayin’.
I don’t mind levies going on the ballot. What irritates the crap out of me is when they put things like 911 service and parks on as a special levy rather than paying for what I consider basic services out of normal tax revenues. It is a matter of prioritization.
I wanna know why the fuck we borrow money to perform predicted maintainance? A good deal of these taxes will got to ultrawealthy folks as bonds!
Let me interpret Goldy’s post for everyone. It’s simple, yet clever. He avoids the question of where the government restraint is by shifting the conversation to the tired cliche of “The government ain’t doin’ nothin.’ WE are the goverment! We be taxing ourselves.”
Also, don’t be fooled by this post. It’s sand in the eyes. It’s a diversion. What ISN’T Goldy talking about? I’ll tell you. He isn’t talking about a very, very big story. A front-runner for Obama’s VP, John Edwards, is cheating on his wife who has cancer.
Yep, The Democratic Party. The party of ethics, honor, and integrity.
I am very ashamed at this moment to be a Democrat.
I am a liberal democratic government worker, and I do not think this is the time for additional levy votes.
Danny wrote a column recently expressing his awe for the Concord Coalition and David Walker and their doomsday scenarios based on absolutely incorrect assessments regarding future federal debt. Pointing out that the analysis was fundamentally flawed and backed by wingnuts like Pete Peterson went right over his head.
It’s really quite simple….the market economics these folks worship is based on individual choice (those indifference curves) under conditions of constraint. It works the same way in the aggregate. We can have big armies or small ones. We can have high taxes and forego other consumption or not. Instead, these simpltons attack politicians for their ceaseless need to aggrandize their power. This is fine, but when it comes to corporations these clueless fools cite the market “mechanism” that “restrains” corporate abuse. Howzzat again?
Haven’t these fuckers EVER voted? The preening egotism on display is overwhelming.
And cut the BS about Edwards cheating. First, the source seems to be the National Enquirer, not exactly a reliable source. And even if we accept Edwards allegations, I’ll see you with a Gingrich (confirmed) and raise you a McCaim (also confirmed) cheating story.
Let me interpret Troll’s post @3 above:
“I am an idiot who is trying to derail the conversation to a story from that fucking font of truth and wisdom, the National Enquirer. Please disregard any claims to insight I might make, since I really don’t know my ass from a hole in the ground.”
If Mr. Westneat likes all these things where’s the issue? If he likes them then aren’t the “politicians” not only doing his bidding, but doing it well?
I do see what he’s getting at, but the issue isn’t so much these “politicians” not exercising “restraint” as it is a product of decentralization. We have all these different governments and they all need to find their own funding.
So, the question becomes:
Would Mr. Westneat prefer higher state taxes and revenue sharing or lower state and bonds and levies that he can pick though and vote up or down as he sees fit.
@3
Marvin, is that you?
raise you a McCaim (also confirmed) cheating story.
If you can prove McCain cheated than I can prove Obama is a terrorist.
Actually there is more eveidence that Obama is a terrorist but hey, he is a liberal democrat which is just as bad.
Didn’t Goldy have some trouble with some Seattle school officials some years back? Something having to do with his daughter’s old school. But now if his theory is we are the government, and everything the government does to us, we are actually doing to ourselves, then when he was having trouble with those school officials, wasn’t he, if he’s consistent in his logic, having trouble with himself?
Geez, read the Westneat column again. True to form, Goldy obscured the point.
I’d say Ron Sims is making a similar point in his column today. Check out the contrast between the Nickels and Sims ST columns. Nickels comes off like a real ass. Whoever wrote that for him should be fired.
I am an admired commenter on this site. People respect my political analysis. I am wise. I have gravitas.
A single tank of gas a year, for an average household driving an average car, would come to roughly $68 (16 gallons x $4.25). Multiply that by 1.2 million households and you get $81.6 million a year. Multiply that by 20 years and you collect $1.6 billion in taxes … so where is the other $16 billion coming from?
So far, Seattle’s light rail has cost $179 million per mile, compared to a U.S. average of $35 million per mile. That’s more than 5 times the average cost — and if Phases 2 and 3 are built, the per mile costs will go up … way up. But let’s pretend the next stage of light rail will cost local taxpayers only 5 times the U.S. average.
If someone wanted you to sell you a $30,000 car for $150,000, would you think that was a good deal? Would you buy it?
If someone wanted to sell you a $15 toaster for $75, would you buy it, or walk out of the store in a huff feeling like the salesman tried to rip you off?
How would paying $2.5 million for a $500,000 house? If someone forced you to do that, would you be happy about it?
So why is light rail different? Why should we pay 5 times the going price for light rail? Because they’re lying to us about what it costs, or simply because it’s light rail and we’re all supposed to bow down and worship light rail?
Just askin’ …
What’s going on here, of course, is that folks who think light rail is the cure for everything from global warming to cancer want to buy it with your money … so they don’t give a damn what it costs, because you’ll be subsidizing them.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not against light rail per se. I’d willingly pay $68 a year in higher taxes to build Phase 2 and 3 even though it won’t be completed in my lifetime and I’ll never ride on it. At that price, it would be a good deal for our community — even though it won’t reduce traffic congestion or provide a viable alternative form of transportation for the vast majority of the region’s commuters.
But no one has ever explained to me how you build a $17.6 billion with $1.6 billion of taxes. So, naturally, I’ve concluded they’re lying to us about how much the tax increase really is.
Meanwhile, Sound Transit hasn’t doesn’t a damn thing to reduce costs or design a better system. They still intend to spend the same $17.6 billion they intended to spend when the voters rejected this turkey last year. It’s still the same design. It still has the same out-of-control, runaway costs. The only thing Sound Transit has done is hatch clever new schemes to get voters to buy the same old plan.
Why should I vote for that?
I can tell you where some of the money will come from. The light rail tax is indexed to inflation. If prices triple over the next 20 years — a not unreasonable assumption — so will the tax.
Oh, they’ll say wages will triple, too. That’s all well and good for people with jobs and bosses who give raises that keep up with inflation. But senior citizens on fixed pensions get zip in keep-up adjustments. Zero. Nada. If prices triple, their income is cut by two-thirds. And they will never ride on light rail.
If you light rail boosters seriously want me to vote for this hyperexpensive toy, then I have a suggestion for you: Exempt senior citizens from the light rail tax. If I don’t have to pay for it, then I don’t care what you spend on this hyperexpensive toy. But I’ll be damned if I’ll let you take basic necessities away from me to pay for your plaything.
I’m still a “no” vote.
@14 You forgot to mention you experience hallucinations and self-delusion.
@3 “I am very ashamed at this moment to be a Democrat.”
That’s a pretty good trick if you can pull it off, because if you’re a Democrat, I’m a goose.
Dog @ 10- skipped Newt, eh? So then tell me about McCain and his first wife.
@8 I like all those things too. And I wouldn’t mind riding around in a chauffered Rolls and dining on caviar. Unfortunately, I have to live on a budget and can’t have everything I want. So I downsized my wants to fit my means.
In turn, I wish politicians (and promoters of certain publicly-financed schemes) would downsize their wants to fit my means. Unfortunately, when other people get to spend your money, their appetites are insatiable, and their spending habits are profligate.
A good example of this is the GOP’s recreational war in Iraq. At the end of the day, it probably will end up costing north of $2 trillion. And it was brought to you by folks who think only wage earners should pay taxes, while owners of capital (i.e., themselves) should get a free ride on April 15.
See what I mean?
@21 The clear message to Republican wives is they had better not get old, fat, ugly, or ill if they want to be loved.
The bright side of the coin for Republican wives is there’s usually plenty of money to grab if hubby ditches them for a newer, fresher, trimmer model. And my divorce-lawyer pals appreciate getting the work (and fees).
One of the best laws ever invented is the one that gives judges discretion to make cheating husbands not only pay their own legal fees but their wives’ lawyers as well. My divorce-lawyer friends need have no qualms about charging their female clients $400 an hour, knowing as they do whose hides it’ll come out of.
I see Robert Novak got fined $50 for hitting a pedestrian in a crosswalk with his Corvette and then trying to flee the scene.
But as Novak didn’t escape and the victim ended up in the hospital, we can assume that some Democratic trial lawyer is going to make a nice fee at his insurance company’s expense.
That’s what they get for insuring an asshole like him.
Novak told a TV station he kept going because he “didn’t realize what happened” until a bicyclist stopped him and told him about the guy draped across his hood against his windshield.
From MSNBC:
“Novak told WJLA-TV … he didn’t realize what happened and continued driving until a bicyclist stopped him. David Bono, the bicyclist who witnessed the incident, told The Associated Press that the pedestrian was hit in a crosswalk and was splayed across Novak’s windshield.”
(Quoted under fair use.)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25819579/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: What an asshole! Plus, he’s a traitor, too. Are creeps like him what passes for “journalists” nowadays?
As for the John Edwards story, I won’t believe it until I see it in a credible source, meaning someone who is NOT a Republican.
Since 1997, the federal minimum wage has risen by an average of 1% a year. U.S. inflation currently is more than 1% a month. The majority of Republicans in Congress voted against any increase at all in the minimum wage after a 10-year freeze.
@22
Yeah, I’m with ya. But you missed my point.
Westneat is whining about how you can’t trust those dirty politico’s ’cause they’ll hit you with taxes from every side. The reason we get hit with taxes from every side is that no one trusted the politico’s down in Olympia so they set up tons of little governments and made them all raise their own funding.
We’re in a feed back loop
@30 I doubt trusting Olympia pols would work any better. But the more interesting question is whether a majority of voters should be allowed to impose taxes on a minority of voters who can’t afford them. I don’t have a simple, or even good, answer for that.
Goldy has frequently iterated how much he dislikes and distrusts the power of initiative, so I have to assume he’s emphasizing the right of voters to enact taxes to make a point about hypocrisy, and not because he necessarily believes majorities should determine taxation for all.
It’s not hard to find examples of unreasonable and even irrational majorities. For example, a majority of voters approved initiatives to raise teacher pay and reduce class sizes, but the exact same voters voted against the tax that would have paid for it. And Seattle voters happily approved the monorail project — four times — as long as they believed they could evade the tax. But the minute the Legislature closed the loophole, they demanded a revote and killed the project!
So, how do you reconcile the underlying principles of democracy and majority rule with Marx’s observation that “the masses are asses”? There’s certainly a lot of anecdotal evidence to back up Marx’s argument.
The debate in Goldy’s comment, and in this thread, has not centered around the question of whether Seattle can afford all of the new public spending that Westneat catalogued. I think it can. This is a rich town. Rather, it’s the age-old problem of who pays for it. In that respect, Seattle is no different than anywhere else: The tendency of majorities to not only use their power to impose their will, but also to shift costs to those least able to pay — and least able to object. This is a product of human nature, is universal, and raises legitimate questions about fairness for which democratic principles of governance seem unable to provide a satisfactory solution.
Simple.
Conservatives think the government is a “them vs. us”.
Real people know that it’s made up of us.
It’s a tough meme to shake, but we’ll win.
@31
Good post!
The way I see it, one of the ways you balance who pays for things is though revenue sharing. the bigger the project the bigger the crowd that pays for the project.
We’ve gone too far in decentralizing government and its funding in the state.
As for the John Edwards story, I won’t believe it until I see it in a credible source,
Keep in mind that in a libs eye a credible source is Newsweek and Rathergate which are proven liars. That is all you need to know.
The gist of the Edwards “scandal” story, as I understand it, is this:
1. Rielle Hunter and Mimi Hockman own a video production company that was hired by the Edwards campaign in 2006.
2. The National Enquirer says Edwards originally met Hunter in a bar.
3. The Enquirer says it caught Edwards secretly visiting Rielle Hunter at a Los Angeles hotel.
4. The Enquirer alleges that Edwards is the father of a baby born to Ms. Hunter last year.
5. The Enquirer says Edwards refused to talk to its reporter after he chased Edwards into a men’s room at the hotel.
6. The Enquirer has no other evidence of either an affair or that Edwards is the father of Hunter’s child.
7. Edwards and Hunter both denied they had an affair and that Edwards is the child’s father. Ms. Hunter, in particular, called the Enquirer’s allegations “innuendoes and lies.”
8. Another man claims to be the father of Hunter’s baby.
9. The Enquirer concedes this man was with Hunter and the baby in the hotel when Edwards visited the hotel.
From this, we’re supposed to conclude Edwards had an affair with Hunter and is the father of the child?
To believe that, you have to believe that if a candidate talks with a woman in private, it must mean he’s fucking her. And if she’s working for his campaign, it must mean he hired her so he could fuck her.
I’ve been a lawyer for over 30 years, and I spent 20 years as a judge, and I’ll tell you right now that the Enquirer’s “evidence” wouldn’t convince me under a preponderance of evidence standard of proof, or even under a “probable cause” standard. There’s not even enough there to order a paternity test — which, by the way, would definitely settle the argument.
By the way, did the Enquirer search public records for a birth certificate or paternity acknowledgement, and if not, why not?
Simple.
Conservatives think the government is a “them vs. us”.
Real people know that it’s made up of us.
It’s a tough meme to shake, but we’ll win.
No, it’s just repubs are smart enough know the track record of guvmint (war on poverty,public screwls, public transportation, social security ect) and know they are misable failures. Socialism fails everytime it is tried. That is all. Simple.
@34 We all know who your parents were: Two mongrels of untraceable lineage.
The only thing we can say for sure about them — and you — is that you’re dogs.
To believe that, you have to believe that if a candidate talks with a woman in private, it must mean he’s fucking her. And if she’s working for his campaign, it must mean he hired her so he could fuck her.
Hell McCain did way way less and you libs already convicted him (remember Vicki Iseman). Can you say “da chickens came home da roost” hehehehehehehehe
@34 In a rational person’s eye, in the absence of an admission by the putative father (technically known as a “statement against interest”), a credible source would be a birth certificate, paternity acknowledgement, paternity test, or judicial determination of paternity — none of which are present in this story.
Remember the rightwing allegations about an alleged affair between John Kerry and an intern named Alexandra Polier? Remember how that turned out? Matt Drudge is still scraping the egg off his face.
@38 It’s a matter of record that McCain divorced his first wife and married his present wife.
Furthermore, McCain doesn’t claim to still be married to his first wife, nor does he deny being married to his present wife.
And, in case you forgot, McCain came home from the POW camp to discover that his (first) wife had been disfigured in a car crash, and ditched her for a wealthy younger woman.
I can see it now. Edwards refusing to release the paternity test to the public (claiming privacy concerns) lets some egg head liberal patsy from the Chapel Hill Gazette report on the paternity test asserting that he not the father. Coming to a newstand near you soon. hehehehe
The question, stupid dog, is whether Edwards cheated on his wife. Unlike the Kerry “intern affair,” this story wasn’t concocted by a rightwing blogger; it was concocted by a supermarket tabloid of the sort that run pieces about aliens visiting Earth.
If someone like Drudge cooked up this story, he probably would know better than to assert Edwards has a “love child” — because that’s easy to prove or disprove.
The Enquirer isn’t Matt Drudge. They’re in it for circulation and dollars, not political gain. To them, a sensational story is money in the bank, and it doesn’t have to be true. It only has to be juicy, and involve a public figure so it’s hard to sue for libel. The Edwards story has all the necessary ingredients.
I repeat: How hard is it for the Enquirer to dig up the kid’s birth certificate, and did they try?
And I have a question for you, dog: If you believe this story because the Enquirer says it’s so, then do you also believe the stories the Enquirer has run insinuating that Bush is having an affair with Condi Rice?
It seems to me if the Enquirer’s tale about Edwards is believable, then the Enquirer’s tale about a Bush-Rice affair is equally believable.
Remember the rightwing allegations about an alleged affair between John Kerry and an intern named Alexandra Polier?
Nope, never. I do remember him not releasing his military medical records. The rest, as we all know, is history.
I don’t see how you can believe one and not believe the other, unless you’re a partisan hack like me. It goes without saying, of course, that I believe Bush is fucking Rice because the Enquirer says so. As a liberal propagandist and Democratic party hack, it’s my job to believe stuff like that.
@45 Did you acquire your selective memory before or after your lobotomy?
The Enquirer writes a lot of BS but this story may have some legs to it. It is too plausible. We will see how it ends up.
@45 Did you acquire your selective memory before or after your lobotomy?
No because it was a non story. No one in conservative radio was talking about it, they were to busy with the Swift boat Vets for Truth. The air time it got was miniscule and some talk show never even brought it up.
Do you have anything besides your spew to back up your assertion that it’s plausible?
@49 Bullshit. The rightwing milked the Polier story for all they were worth until it imploded on them. Then they all scurried back into their holes to hide from their public embarrassment.
As for the Swift Liars, their allegations have been thoroughly debunked.
In fact, you can pretty much assume that everything rightwingers say are lies.
I’m not going to waste any more time on Dufus The Dog until I have a balloon that needs to be filled with hot air, because that’s all he’s got.
Business Week Endorses Roger Rabbit’s Idea of a Minimum Oil Price
A few weeks ago, I posted on this blog that oil should be taxed to keep the price of gas from falling below $4 a gallon. Business Week, a conservative business newsmagazine, has just come out with an article agreeing with me in principle:
“Expensive energy, in many ways, is good. Why? When the price of oil goes up, people will use less, find substitutes, and develop new supplies. Those effects are just basic economics. Things are so painful now, many economists say, because of the past two decades of cheap oil. Prices stayed low in part because they didn’t reflect the full cost of extras such as pollution, so there was little incentive to use energy more wisely. If those extras had been counted, the country would be better prepared for both today’s soaring prices and the day that global oil production begins to decline.
“That’s why there is growing interest, from both the left and right, in a policy that uses taxes to put a floor under the price of oil. Above a certain level—say $90—there would be no tax. But if the world market price dropped below that, taxes would kick in to make U.S. users pay the target amount.”
http://tinyurl.com/6aoxek
(Quoted under fair use.)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The worst thing that could happen would be for oil prices to temporarily crash, and Americans to go back to their past gas-guzzling ways, because that would leave us totally unprepared for the production declines that inevitably will come with eventual oil depletion.
Business Week also called bullshit on Republican claims that opening coastal areas to drilling will reduce gasoline prices:
“Drilling in the now-restricted areas would require years of extensive seismic research before a single rig could operate. Even then, companies would not embark on such massive projects unless the profitability were clear. What’s more, the federal Energy Information Administration estimates that access to new U.S. deposits would not significantly affect overall domestic production for 22 years.”
http://tinyurl.com/5v6vmb
(Quoted under fair use.)
Business Week also reports that insurance companies are rifling through consumers’ prescription records to find excuses to deny them health coverage — yet another reason why we need to scrap our dependency on private health insurance and go to universal government-guaranteed health coverage.
“An untold number of people have been rejected for medical coverage for a reason they never could have guessed: Insurance companies are using huge, commercially available prescription databases to screen out applicants based on their drug purchases.”
http://tinyurl.com/5ptebm
(Quoted under fair use.)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This is abusive, period. Insurance companies are interested in only one thing: Maximizing profits. Consequently, they are failing to meet the health care needs of our citizens. The private insurance industry hasn’t done the job we hired them to do, wich is quite simply giving us affordable access to health care, therefore it’s time to fire them and do something else.
A major drug company has agreed to pay $389 million to settle a price-fixing lawsuit. Washington State will get $7 million of compensation for Medicaid program overcharges, on top of $55 million the state previously received from the same company for drug pricing fraud.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....nt23m.html
“Public Schools Are No Good” Dep’t
The principal of a local private Christian school has been arrested and jailed on child rape charges.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....pal23.html
Geez, the monorail was some stupid, pie-in-the-sky nonsense, while multiple sports palaces make for a world-class city. And if, like Mr. Westneat, your paycheck came from a firm which made money from printing stories about overpaid, emotionally-challenged steroid-users, you’d understand that difference immediately.
As for the Edwards rumor, obviously the Republicans are extremely upset. He’s accused of having sex with an (a) adult (b) member of the opposite sex (c) not in a bathroom. Typical fancy-pants liberal coastal elitist, engaging in such exotic sexual perversions! Now, if only there were drugs involved, then maybe they could forgive him. (And, his wife has cancer! If he abandoned her now, what a hero the R’s would make of him!)
Mayor Nickel and dime has absolutely no concept of fiscal discipline. Not surprising coming from someone who has spent his entire adult life collecting a paycheck from the public.
3 T
You gotta stop reading The National Enquirer.
4 K
You may think that, but if they pass, then I guess you were outvoted.
@61 If they pass, he’ll have to (a) buy less of something else (e.g., food, health care), (b) demand pay raises, or (c) both of the above. Sure, you can force people to pay higher taxes, but you can’t get blood from a rock.
i think westneat’s point is that city council is way way out of touch with what people can afford to fund at this point. maybe the high tech kids can afford to have their taxes raised to pay for parks and the market but i can’t. i’m blue collar. when was it that libs like goldy stopped being interested in blue collar folks? why does council think i have a mint in my basement? those guys and girls are overpaid and out of touch.