I’m sympathetic to the proposal by the Washington Association of School Administrators to cut 5 days the school year. They’re responding to the reality that the state almost certainly isn’t going to raise taxes significantly. If we’re not going to figure out how to fund education at the state level, we may as well figure out how to make it work as well as possible at the shitty funding level we’re going to get. And there are worse things than fewer days.
So, yeah, it may not be as bad for state children as some of the other godawful options. It may be that better education can happen in those 175 days than in 180 days spread thinner. And cutting levy equalization will hurt the most vulnerable children.
Still, if Seattle* voters support every district levy for decades, if they support the Families and Education Levy and doubled it last time, and still see their children get a week less of school, I don’t know how much they’ll be willing to support paying for education at the state level. I think we’re still willing to pay state taxes to improve education all over, but we’re not willing to see our children lose out when Seattle hasn’t done anything wrong.
For it’s one thing for Seattle to subsidize the rest of the state. But to hurt our children for that is something entirely new. We’re willing to let the state skim off the top, but I don’t know that we’ll be willing to lose school days to subsidize other districts.
* There are other property rich districts that pass their levies, but I think Seattle is the best example here.
There is so much stupidity in Austerity Now! it may seem impossible to pick a starting point, but Carl’s picked the right one.
It ain’t just about the childrens.
Look, education pays benefits to all. Yeah, our secondary education system is not perfect, and yeah it needs to be significantly improved.
Somewhere in Washington state there exists, right now, a student who will change the world for the better. Cripes, Washingtonians are lucky to have such an easily identifiable example, … Bill Gates. There have been many more!
But the thing is our schools produce tangible benefits for society. The no-brainer educational reform is to get away from 19th century school calendars to support the harvest and spend MORE days in school.
Taking days out of the school calendar to save money is cutting of one’s nose to spite one’s face.
So, wingnuts, the solution to our budget woes is to let our kids fall even farther behind the Chinese so rich people won’t have to pay taxes?
For those of you who have forgotten the Gates Commission report, here are the percentages of income that Washington residents pay in state and local taxes:
Richest 20%: 3%
Poorest 20%: 17%
Looks like someone isn’t paying their fair share.
To #3: Those numbers are kind of a joke though because they include money spent on sales tax. Somebody who makes $20000 a year is going to spend a much higher percentage of there income then somebody who makes $1000000 a year. So the person with the lower salary is going to spend a much higher percentage of there income on sales taxes.
Carl,
Someone from Seattle really needs to put forward an initiative ceding Seattle from Washington State and making it the 51st state in the union. This post lists many reasons why this should be done. The rest of Washington is being drug down to third world status, which is something that Seattle can’t afford and shouldn’t want to do.
It’s time for the rise of the city state!
@4 That’s the fucking point, jerkoff — our sales tax-based system is obscenely unfair to low-income households and needlessly coddles the rich. Additional reasons to replace the sales tax with an income tax:
1) The sales tax base is shrinking as more retail commerce moves online;
2) Sales tax revenues are volatile; and
3) Public services are increasingly underfunded for lack of a tax structure capable of meeting our state’s needs.
Washington’s hyper-regressive tax system doesn’t satisfy any test of a rationa taxation system. So why do we still have it? For no better reason than Republican obstructionism.
Meanwhile, congressional Rethuglicans have made it clear they’re not against all taxes, just taxing the rich. They’re perfectly willing to tax the poor and workers. The Republican Party is nothing but a lobbying group for selfish millionaires.
To #6: I would be much more likely to sympathy with your point of view if you made your points more respectfully. Instead you send a profanity laced message like that and all I see is anger, and not the point your trying to make. Up until that message I had found you to be one of the more reasonable people on this site and Ive actualy agreed with alot of the other things you have said. I’m not sure why I upset you so much. It wasnt my intention
@8 Go screw yourself. Liberals didn’t start the name-calling, wingers did. When your side stops, we’ll stop too. But righties have to stop first because they started it.
@5,
I don’t think the Federal government would let us even if such an initiative passed. And I’m not thrilled about the distinct possibility of 2 more Republican Senators.
yawn..yet another “i hate everywhere accept seattle” thread from carl.
carl, can we use your logic some more? I pay a hell of a lot of taxes – for sure more than you and the rest your cadre….WHY the fuck should I be subsidizing your lifestyle?
you know what carl? I like your logic. you assholes can fend for yourselves for now on.
@5
I support that Michael…..Seattle can keep its money and its nuttiness….we will do just fine.
To #9: I am a very nice person who hasn’t done a single thing to you or anyone else on this site. And yes, a lot of conservatives have started to act like total jerks in the last decade or two (I dont make any apologies for those people by the way). But if your so close minded that you cant seperate those people from somebody who is just trying to have have a civil debate with you over some issues they may disagree about, then your just part of the problem.
I look at the way the occupy folks are being treated. Or even something as seemingly small as the way people talk to each other on here. The fact that were all Americans used to mean something. People in this country used to be able disagree without each other without hating each other, but I just dont think thats the case anymore. You can all mock me all you want, but I worry about the kind of future were creating.
8. Partyin’ Hard spews:
To #6: I would be much more likely to sympathy with your point of view if you made your points more respectfully.
You sound like a petulant school spinster.
How about arguing the merits of what rabbit was talking about, instead of complaining about how he said it?
That’s like saying you won’t consider discussing the issues raised by the 99%s until they say them meekly and respectfully.
pay no attention to the senile rabbit – hell, he can barely see the computer screen anyway.
ask what his standing is with the Washington State BAR Association, and watch him squirm.
#13. Nobody paid the tea bagger movement much attention till they started screaming at town halls and toting guns and carrying racist misspelled signs.
Yet you all would declare martial law if the 99% did that.
Hey party, you going to criticized nutsack for HIS language or do you only chastise liberal voices?
I think we’re still willing to pay state taxes to improve education all over, but we’re not willing to see our children lose out when Seattle hasn’t done anything wrong. I don’t know how much they’ll be willing to support paying for education at the state level.
I agree. I feel this is a very conservative way to think. We are willing to send our money to the hinterlands, but if they are unwilling to tax themselves too, we have to let them go.
If a person was unwilling to work and yet kept asking for hand outs, eventually the other person is going to stop.
That’s what republicans chant all the time, I think we should do it.
I don’t see any reason not selfish and keep our money for OUR kids, if they won’t step up.
To #17: Absolutely I am. ANY person who is incapable of making a point without resorting to personal attacks and name calling is a person who is part of whats wrong with the country right now. His mocking of this Rabbit person because of his age is childish and idiotic. Furthermore, Rabbit is apparantly a veteran, and even though he obviously doesnt think much of me, I respect him very much for that.
So yes, to answer your question at #17, I have a problem with ANYONE who cant make a reasonable argument in a respectful manner. Even if that means losing the support of one of the only people on this damn site who has attacked me or called me names.
No, but it would send a hell of a statement!
I still think you all should go for it.
Plus, I’m starting to think that there’s going to be a rise of city states. Give it a 100 years or so and our “states” are going to be organized around our larger cities and it will be the cities with the real power.
Partyin’ (thank you for correcting the spellng of your handle),
Profanity is an accepted adjunct to argument around here – it conveys many aspect of emotion, emphasis, irony and other colors that simple prose does not.
Plus, as you’ve been repeatedly told, this is a pretty rough and tumble place, and a decidedly leftist one. We goddam LOVE our fucking profanity. If you really want to hang out here and be a part of the community (welcome, BTW), then get used to it. We’re here to lambast and excoriate precisely your positions and fellow righties. Your side of the argument has been so relentlessly wrong for so long, this wonderful Republic of ours is swirling into third-world status. Prove me wrong with your argument, with your persuasion. Just cut the whining, or head over to the glibertarian hang out, Stefan’s sucky little blog, soundpolitics.whatever.
Oh, and your post @4 was unacceptably, painfully obtuse. I was smacking my forehead and preparing a response when I read Roger’s, which in my view was right on.
R Rabbit is just pissed off because a squirl is stashing his nuts in Mrs. rabbit.
To #21: Last thing I’m going to say on the “profanity” subject and then I’ll move on… I could care less if you use profanity in your comments. For example, the way you used it didn’t bother me. If you want to say “f this” and “f that”, go for it. It’s when somebody say “f you” that I feel offended.
I realize this isn’t my blog and nobody is particularily concered about what I think, but I just wanted to let you know where I was coming from on that.
Regarding my comment at #4: I’m familar with the stat that Roger quoted at #3. I don’t like that stat because it gives the impression that the top 20% are being taxed at a higher rate than the lower 20%. I just wanted to point out the reason the lowest 20% pays a higher percentage of their income toward taxes is because they spend a larger portion of their income.
I wasn’t attempting to argue the stat itself or to say that Roger’s point was invalid.
The state should allow districts to have 7 hour, 30 minute school days (plus lunch) 4 days per week. It is the same as 6 hours (plus lunch) 5 days per week now, and it is a whole day there is no need for lighting, heating, bus service and other things that are not needed if school is closed and there is no instructional time lost for students or planning time lost for teachers, since they would have every friday off (or monday, but probably friday).
@24 Partyin’ Hard on 11/16/2011 at 10:23 pm
And why does a person who earns a small income spend so much more of it than a person who earns a large income?
Is it because small earners are too ignorant to save some money?
Or could there be some other reason?
And let’s just say for argument’s sake that there is some immutable law which says that as income declines that disposable income diminishes. What does that say about the wisdom of a sales tax to fund government? What does that say about the wisdom of a marginal income tax to fund government?
“I don’t know how much they’ll be willing to support paying for education at the state level.”
Ironic, eh?
It began with transpo policy. And now it is bleeding into education. Spend some time east of the mountains and in the rural areas of the wet side and it becomes very clear, very quickly. Thanks to the demise of “reality based” thinking, these people believe passionately that they “subsidize” Seattle. And they will not be dissuaded. For decades as the cities grew and prospered rural pols fed on this belief system. Then movement conservative populism gave them the straight razor to cut their own throats.
Thanks to Tim Eyman future funding will be more and more localized. That means that Seattle can go right on funding a 180 day school year (with the cooperation of the legislature). And ferry commuters had better get used to long lines.
The future of Washington is as a loose confederation of counties and cities with a shared commitment to incarcerating poor people.
Maybe it is time for an initiative to limit the transfer of wealth from one county to another.
Chris @ 25: Your proposal would save the state and local school districts money, but it would cost the working parents of elementary school students about $40.00 per day in day care for each day the kids are out of school. That’s $160.00 per month out of their budget.
Oh, and I think we should go to longer school days, as well. We are falling far behind the amount of class time put in by Japanese, Korean, and Chinese students.
# 27: The basic idea is to starve the public schools to the point where they can’t fullfill their mission, thereby giving the righties a chance to abolish them entirely and go to a private & church based school system which only the rich can afford. When Grover Norquist said he wanted to starve government to the point where it could be drowned in a bathtub, he was including education, as well.
The end result would be for state-run colleges and universities to only educate the rich who can afford the high tuition. Sure, a smattering of “scholarships” would be offered to keep up appearances, but without access to good K-12 education, the middle class and the poor could hardly compete for those scholarships on the same footing. We would be back to the 1920’s (and before), where only the rich went to college with their “equals”.
That’s the utopean society which forms the basis for the right-wing dreams. They manage to convince a good number of poor and middle-class voters that they will be among the favored class, that such a system will only apply to “black and brown” people. But they are being played like a violin.
Well, if the right wing can have states threaten to seceed from the union every time they lose an election, then I guess Seattle (or a confederation consisting of the Tacoma-Seattle-Everett I-5 corrider) can do the same. At the very least, they could assert the principle of nullification, and dust off the writings of John Calhoun to assert that Tim Eyman’s initiatives don’t apply to them.
Am I the only one who actually remembers school? 5 days off isn’t a “punishment”, it’s a blessing. Take those days out of the time they spend learning Pacific Northwest History or reading Watership Down — they’ll be better off.
Why is RR pissed off about Republicans when it comes to WA taxes? When was the last time Republcans were in charge here?
The people of WA – including liberal King County – voted against the income tax. The Democratic Party refuses to challenge the 2/3 rds requirement the people opted for. The Republicans aren’t doing a damn thing.
@13 “in the last decade or two”
You have a short memory. HUAC, for example, wasn’t a 1990s phenomenon, it was a 1950s phenomenon.
@33 Washington has so many Democrats who behave like Republicans that we don’t need any Republicans.
The reality is that WSRP is so wacko nobody (except wackos) want to be associated with it, so we really have two Democratic parties in our state now, consisting of Democrats and Dan Evans-type Republicans.
If we are going to toll roads, why not pay as you go schools?