Speaking of being out of touch with the will of the people, my occasional KOMO colleague John Carlson has proposed solving our state budget crisis by legalizing slot machines and taxing the profits at 20 percent.
Um… been there, done that, John. As recently as 2004, Washington state voters broadly rejected I-892’s slot machine measure by a landslide 62 to 38 percent margin, with the initiative failing in 34 of 39 counties. Under the late Norm Maleng’s leadership, the opposition brought together a coalition so diverse that it found me sitting next to Jeff Kemp at a strategy session, and when you have a tent that big, it’s hard to imagine John effectively working this issue from the outside.
Voters just don’t want slot machines in their neighborhoods.
But there’s one other interesting, if unintentional, point in John’s column, for in talking up casino gambling as an alternative to a sales tax increase or even (gasp) a high-earners income tax, our state’s leading conservative pundit, and one time Republican gubernatorial nominee, appears to all but concede on the question of whether additional revenues are needed.
I opposed casinos and gambling a decade ago but the tribes have made most of my arguments obsolete. The question on the table now is whether the state allows private competition and thereby creates a new revenue source to help our schools and keep down taxes and tuition…
Huh. That sure sounds to me like John is arguing that we actually need a “new revenue source to help our schools and keep down taxes and tuition,” which is a huge departure from Tim Eyman’s I-892, which promised voters a substantial tax cut in exchange for legalizing slot machines.
Welcome to the reality based community, John. Now if only you’d join me in supporting a new revenue source that has a realistic chance of being approved by voters.
Need more revenue? Tax legalized marijuana.
I think John put that out there instead of his real idea – he’d like to see gay sex clubs legalized and taxed – and of course he’d have a place to hang out. Maybe Larry Craig and Ted Haggard would drop by too?
2 John’s wife and kids might find that implication a bit of a surprise…but then again that pink Harley he used to ride kinda makes you wonder.
Granted, in our present situation a lot of Washington voters might view the slot-machine idea a little differently, but it remains that it’s another way to try to capitalize on sin, and depends on lots of people sinning. For such to be heralded by conservatives who then turn around and claim to champion “morality” is hypocritical.
Worse yet, the sin being promoted here involves coercing people to lay down their money where the odds are they’re going to lose it, and it’s an activity that tends to attract the less than affluent. This is also the case with the lottery–I’ve known a lot of people who regularly played the lottery who were on public assistance. Try not to get too dizzy as you visualize money going around in circles.
So…the end result of Carlson’s proposal would be to attempt to balance the state budget by taking money from those who don’t have much. People whose life situations weren’t all that great to start with would become even worse.
Why not tax high-stakes poker or roulette instead?
Goldy–
As you pointed out, Carlson clearly stated “new revenue source to help our schools and keep down taxes and tuition,”. The debatable issue is type of revenue source and how much goes to bureaucracy and how much goes to keeping taxes down.
And that’s a huge debate.
I am not a proponent of gambling in Wasshington State. Gregoire gave away a huge legit source of revenue from the tribes. Just gave it away. Even though Gregoire made an obvious political move to placate the tribes…I would still hate to see more gambling.
@1,
Sounds like a good idea to me!
BYEBYE SUCKS DICKS IN A CLINCH
In 1982, a young John Carlson and Sarge happened to both spend the summer in Washington DC, and travel in the same circles. I arrived as a Republican, and I swear to God, it was conversations with that smug, sanctimonious, condescending John Carlson that, more than anything, started me down the liberal path.
And when a decade and a half later he pushed through the asinine and draconian “three strikes you’re out” initiative, then devoted a year of his life trying, successfully I might add, to deny opportunity to black people, I realized my gut instincts were correct. The guy, and his ideology, are reprehensible.
John Carlson was an early pioneer in the Republican ideological move towards a theory that belief in Jesus as the one and only true Savior, matched by an equally fervent disdain for taxes and bureaucrats, and, basically anything that served to promote the welfare of the least advantaged in society, was all that was required for good governance.
I present to you: Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Susan Hutchison…
Speaking of taxes and raising revenue.
7 Carlson blew a fair amount of his moral credibility when he started blabbing about the WIC program, calling it “baby showers for unwed mothers”, with a pretty strong implication attached that they and their children should suffer for their transgressions instead of being “rewarded”.
You want to debate a tax source that keeps taxes down and increases revenue??? Are you nuts?
“The debatable issue is type of revenue source and how much goes to bureaucracy and how much goes to keeping taxes down.”
Criminal charges filed against ACORN, two employees
What, acorn employees arrested? Can’t be true, they’re community organizers.
Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller announced Monday that voter registration fraud charges have been filed against an organization that works with low-income people and two of its employees in its Las Vegas office.
The complaint includes 26 counts of voter fraud and 13 counts for compensating those registering voters, both felonies.
Voter fraud from acorn volunteers, who woulda thunk it. Well, besides anyone with an iq 3 points higher than byebyegoober that is.
How long until obama pardons them for their hard work getting him elected?
At least John is employed Goldy, which is more than you can say.
Wow REALLY, REALLY bad news for the asslickers on the right. These traitors who hope for America’s failure have been slapped down AGAIN!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3683270/
RALLY under PRESIDENT OBAMA!
Even though the AWOL coward George Bush and his band of child-raping thieves tried their best to ruin America, DEMOCRATS saved us!
That means bad news for the cooks and crooks left in the GOP!
This is why the federal government has to keep raising taxes…
Feds Will Spend $400,000 to Study Drinking and Sex Habits of Homosexuals in Argentina
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding a study that seeks to discover a link between drinking and having sex among homosexuals in Argentina.
I guess homosexuals, or as steve and gbs refer to them, “faggots” drink and have unprotected sex.
Of course they couldn’t be reached for comment, uncle sam is paying for their 2 year long party.
The left-wingnuts keep insisting that republicans are the racist party…
Yet it’s an elected democrat that just cost his constituents $$$.
ALBANY — Gov. Paterson, who raised state taxes by $8 billion last month, just cost state taxpayers $300,000 more.
The state has secretly settled an embarrassing federal racial-discrimination lawsuit, The Post has learned. The suit accused Paterson, back when he was Senate minority leader in 2003, of firing a white Senate photographer in order to replace him with an African-American.
Of course the article labels others involved in the case as democrats, yet no mention that the racist that cost his constituents $$ was a democrat. Go figure.
When elected democrat officials abuse their power, they need to be held accountable, just like ron sims.
For years the democrats cried about the prisoners in gitmo to be let free.
Now with democrats in power, they decided against letting them free.
Strange how often that happens to the democrats, flip-flopping on issues once they are in power.
House Democrats are refusing to pay for President Barack Obama’s plan to relocate prisoners from the Guantanamo detention facility where enemy combatants are being held.
Obama has signed an executive order to close the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by early next year. But the Pentagon has yet to come up with a plan on where to put the 240 or so prisoners. Between 50-100 are likely to be sent to the United States.
No lawmaker wants the accused terrorists in their backyard.
Too bad it took obama in the white house until the democrats could figure it out. Or on the other hand, maybe they knew better the whole time and thought it would be advantageous for the party if bush released terrorists in the America.
Bush knew better. Now the democrats know better.
Slowly liberals are seeing the truth…
Obama criticism shuts down conversation
Parties were more fun when George W. Bush was president. You could debate, argue even, praise and condemn, throw darts and laurels and solve the world’s problems over a bottle of wine.
No more. At least not in my circles. If you want to stop a conversation in its tracks, just question something President Barack Obama has said or done. It’s not open to debate — and I don’t think that’s healthy, for the country or the president.
Just think, a couple months ago dissent was patriotic, now the same dissenters are scared to speak up.
AWOL Bush raises $100 million for his library. Are you fucking kidding me? The motherfucker has read one book in his whole fucking miserable life – MY PET GOAT! And then he let the terrorists blow up the Twin Towers. He needs a library like Puffybutt needs a dick.
Is John Carlson still around?
I remember when we beat that punk Carlson like a drum – the fuckhead actually thought he could get elected? Dog catcher MAYBE!
Wow!! That would swing an election — not.
A losing proposition is still profitable for the Madison people. That’s the revenue he’s talking about.
@14 As the purpose of the study is to identify factors that lead to the spread of HIV, which is a major health problem that costs the U.S. billions, it may be money well spent; but in any case, the study has been ongoing since September 2008, which means the money came from the 2007 federal budget or earlier, which of course was a Republican budget signed by your organ grinder monkey.
@16 “For years the democrats cried about the prisoners in gitmo to be let free”
You’re mistaken about that. It was the Bush administration who freed Gitmo detainees. Hundreds of them. Simply let them go. Why? Because they were innocent. These were men the U.S. government locked up for years without charges, trials, or access to lawyers. Frankly, I think they should be allowed to sue the GOP for damages in U.S. courts; and if I were on the jury, I would award each and every one of them $1,000 a day for their detention.
@17 “Just think, a couple months ago dissent was patriotic”
Really?
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/90700/
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2.....-a02.shtml
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ar.....estion.htm
The whole rationale, Marvin, for detaining the prisoners at Gitmo is that they were NOT enemy combatants. An enemy combatant has rights.
Ah…so if a Republican suggest a “new revenue source” that’s fine. But if a Democrat does it, then it’s a tax. Got it. Thanks!
ByeByeGOP, you are relentless. Enough with the goats, etc.
It’s just got to be said, once in a while.
How about being better than them and leave the personal attacks to the conservatives? Attack the ideas, not the people.
If you look at the Laffer Curve:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
It says that if you decrease the tax rate, tax revenue goes up! Ronald Raygun said so!