Why doesn’t this surprise me?
The state says Washington’s Republican Party is deadbeat in repaying legal fees associated with a failed challenge to the Top 2 primary system.
In a federal court filing Monday, the Attorney General’s Office wrote that while the Democratic Party has paid the $37,700 it owes, the Republicans haven’t made a dent on their $55,000 bill. Furthermore, Deputy Solicitor General Jeffrey T. Even says a GOP lawyer told him not to expect payment any time soon.
I guess that’s one definition of what it means to be “fiscally conservative.” I suppose if the Republicans were in charge our state budget crisis could be solved overnight, simply by refusing to pay our bills.
“The Libertarian Party has also failed to pay. It owes $16,300”.
Imagine how many members of both of these parties have attended Tea Bagger events demanding fiscal restraint.
I imagine that the Republican Party will avoid paying the debt for quite a while, directing contributions away from the Party coffers itself and instead into candidates or independent action committees.
Anyone who’s ever provided services to a campaign knows that they have to get the money up front – once the election is over, the party or campaign will take years to pay the bills, if ever. Unfortunately, the state isn’t allowed to make such a demand.
“I suppose if the Republicans were in charge our state budget crisis could be solved overnight, simply by refusing to pay our bills.”
There’s more truth to this than you know, Goldy. The last time Washington had a Republican governor, the state workers literally did not get paid.
Faced with a budget crunch, GOP Party Gov. Spellman made state workers skip two consecutive paychecks — with only 24 hours’ notice. Instead of being paid twice a month, Spellman ordered them paid once monthly. This meant state workers who expected on Thursday to be paid on Friday had to wait 6 weeks for their next paycheck.
The only concession Spellman made to the workers was some mild jawboning — he suggested banks and mortgage companies not charge late fees to state workers who couldn’t make their house payments. Not a single company listened to him.
On the other hand, Spellman ordered DSHS to deny food stamp applications filed by state workers. Many state workers literally had no money for food and qualified for food stamps under federal and state regulations, but per GOP Party Gov. Spellman’s order, their applications were denied. Legal aid lawyers representing low-income state workers (yes, some state workers are low income) took the state to court and got this blatantly illegal order thrown out, but it took over two years for these workers to get their food stamps; meanwhile, they and their families went hungry.
The point of all this? The state had the money to pay the workers, but by leaving it in the bank an extra month, the state earned $4 million of interest. The reason for GOP Party Gov. Spellman’s illegal order to deny food stamps to hungry, unpaid state workers was doing so would have eaten up some of this windfall. So let ’em eat cake, or go to food banks!
I once knew a small businessman. He was a rightwing Republican. His business went broke, but not before he emptied the union pension fund to pay his business expenses (and pay himself). He didn’t pay the IRS, either, and eventually was allowed to pay about 10 cents on the dollar on the taxes he should have paid. That 90% reduction in his taxes was even better than the 2/3rds reduction in taxes I get for flipping stocks instead of working or producing anything!
The point of my telling these stories is that Republicans like to brag about “meeting payroll” but the truth is you can’t trust Republicans to pay their taxes or bills let alone meet payroll! If a Republican owes you money, you might see half of it in your lifetime if you’re lucky. I’d never sell anything on a contract or IOU to a Republican because these people have such a shitty attitude toward other people’s money that you can count on being the last person to get paid — if you get paid at all.
Why would anyone vote for these thieves? I just don’t understand it.
The Obama administration should block the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska forthwith. Bristol Bay salmon are a natural resource of national significance. A handful of greedy, selfish, and locally powerful Republican politicians in Alaska don’t have the right to take that resource away from the rest of us for the sake of lining a few miners’ pockets.
@1 Few things are more amusing than watching conservatives protest taxes they don’t pay.
Click here for photo of Republican tax deduction:
http://www.aerospace-technolog.....ss-jet.jpg
But a worker can’t deduct his ride on this:
http://www.lightrailnow.org/im.....iew_lh.jpg
Personally, I think CEOs and rich guys should get the same tax deductions their employees get. I don’t think that’s asking for very much. That’s equal treatment, nothing more. This is America, not some two-bit African monarchy.
Don’t be misled by nominal tax rates! When Republicans complain about “progressive” income taxes, remember, they get exemptions, deductions, and tax credits you can’t even dream about! By the time they subtract all that stuff they’re paying a nickel on the dollar — if that much. Many of the rich pay no taxes at all.
Yes sheep, look over here at the Republicans, who are in charge of nothing in this region. Get upset at the Republicans, who aren’t in power. Let Goldy divert your attention. Look over here! Look over here! Don’t think about the job the Democrats are doing.
You fucking sheep fall for Goldy’s ploy every time.
Lazy deadbeat republicans?
I don’t remember bush appointing tax deadbeat after tax deadbeat to his administration like the oba-mao routinely does.
The man oba-mao picked to head the treasury department couldn’t even figure out how to use turbo tax.
The epitome of coddling the rich with special tax breaks is the $3.5 million of capital gains that heirs get absolutely tax-free. Here’s how it works. When Daddy Warbucks dies, his kids get what’s called a “basis stepup”. To illustrate, let’s say D.W. started a company and got all his stock in the company free, but now it’s worth $3.5 million. Normally, if he sold that stock, he’d owe capital gains taxes on the difference between what he paid for the stock ($0) and what he got for it ($3.5 million). Part of it would be taxed at 5%, part at 10%, and part at 15%. That’s pretty fucking generous compared to the 32.65% tax rate paid on wages by a typical middle-class worker. But wait! When D.W. dies and his kids get the “basis stepup,” that capital gain is wiped out and their tax liability is — ZERO!!!
Now, you’re certain to hear Republicans argue that this income “has already been taxed” and what they inaccurately call “death taxes” (dead people don’t pay taxes; their heirs pay any estate taxes owed) is double taxation. Don’t be fooled! That’s bullshit! The overwhelming percentage of estates wealthy enough to owe estate taxes consists of untaxed capital gains. The $3.5 million estate tax exemption, combined with the basis stepup, passes $3.5 million to heirs, free of tax, that consists, on average, of 90% to 98% of income on which no taxes have ever been paid or ever will be paid — it’s almost all TAX FREE INCOME.
Workers don’t get a deal like that. There used to be a guy who lived in Seattle’s Broadmoor gated community. He never worked a day in his life. He lived on money he inherited from an ancestor who invented the Thompson submachine gun. His ancestor made a shitload of money selling Tommy Guns to bootleggers and gangsters, and this guy got a big chunk of it tax-free. So what did he do with his life, while you were commuting to work on city buses? He molested little boys. That’s right, taxpayers spent a shitload of money on police work trying to build a case against this dude. Yep, ain’t capitalism grand, it gives tax-free millions to guys like him so they can spend their time putting their hands down little boys’ pants. This is what Republicans are referring to when they say we need to give tax breaks to millionaires because they’re society’s most “productive” people.
@9 “I don’t remember bush appointing tax deadbeat after tax deadbeat to his administration”
I do. His cabinet was full of CEOs who flew around on “tax deductions” (instead of riding city buses like the rest of us). But what was really interesting about Bush’s cabinet is that NONE of these guys ever ran an enterprise that had to make an honest dollar in a competitive marketplace. Every single last one of them ran companies that lived off government contracts. None of them knew how to make a buck by any means except sucking on the public tit. And, of course, what we saw under the Bush administration was a massive milking of taxpayers that exceeded all previously known corruption. What Republicans are exceptionally good at is stealing from taxpayers. So, go ahead and rant about “tax deadbeats,” those who know the truth about Republicans laugh at you! You’re hilarious.
@8 Yes, you’re right, Democrats run everything around here; which is fortunate, because as bad as things are now (due to the national Republican Depression), they would be far worse if Republicans were managing our money. Thank God they’re not! Now let’s keep it that way.
Show me a Republican developer and Rossi supporter, and I’ll show you a guy who isn’t making his payments.
@12
Goldy’s posts about Republicans is a red herring.
@14 It would be only if Republicans never ran for, or held, any public office.
The pertinent question is why anyone would vote for anyone as financially irresponsible as Republicans are.
@15
Wrong.
A red herring is a device which intends to divert the audience from the truth or an item of significance.
When Goldy is constantly telling us to look over here at the Republicans, who aren’t even in power, he’s doing it in order to divert our attention away from something else.
It’s up to you to figure out what he’s trying to divert our attention away from.
To me, it’s obvious.
Just as obvious as his rants against the Seattle Times probably have more to do with him applying there and not being hired, than …
brb, business call
RR: Yea, I knew a guy who owned several businesses. He hired a brand-new accountant to work for him getting his books in order. It took the guy working 60 hour weeks for the better part of a month, so he generated a considerable bill, even at a “reduced” hourly rate. This was in the mid-1980’s.
The accountant submitted his bill. The business owner ignored the bill. Then the accountant demanded payment, which was also ignored. After about three months, the accountant’s own finances are in pretty bad shape – after all, he had worked very hard for over a month and hadn’t gotten paid at all. So he hired an attorney, who sued the business owner.
The business owner defended against the lawsuit, claiming that it wasn’t he “personally” who had hired the accountant, it was his one business which didn’t have any money. He claimed that if he wanted, the accountant could get a judgement against this empty shell of a business if he wanted, but he was never going to get paid.
The accountant’s attorney wouldn’t have any of that, and argued that the business owner had hired the accountant personally, not as the president of any specific corporation. The case was transferred to mandatory arbitration, which the accountant won. Then the business owner appealed, requiring an entirely new trial in superior court. The accountant won. Then the business owner appealed to the Court of Appeals, which eventually dismissed the appeal because the business owner hadn’t submitted his documents according to his deadlines. By the time the accountant tried to enforce his judgement, the business owner had re-organized his various businesses into corporations and trust funds so that he, and lots of other creditors (mostly former employees) were fighting through the maze, trying to get to assets they could seize to pay their judgements.
Finally the business owner offered to settle by making paying half of what he owed in the first place, if the accountant would release any claims to interest, attorney fees, and court costs. Exhausted by the battle to collect a month’s worth of wages which had taken two trials and seven months of effort, the accountant settled.
What was particullarly galling about this whole enterprise was that this business owner who regularly hired employees and then fired them to avoid paying their wages was an ardent Reagan Republican, who regularly went on-and-on about how “only Republicans know what it’s like to have to meet payroll”, and how taxes were always too high, and how workers were always lazy and unwilling to work.
@9
Yer funny.
And in today’s news….
Source: Army food fraud called ‘massive’
As the article indicates, this was known as early as 2005, but it isn’t until this year that the government has become involved in pursuing this case.
The company’s website braggs about it’s phenominal growth in just a few years to a 6.8 billion dollar (US) operation. It’s not hard to figure out how that happened, with contracts with the U.S. government in the middle east between 2003 and the succeeding years.
@ #20
No surprises there either. The Bush administration actively protected Bernie Madoff, Blackwater and Halliburton as well. They halted investigations, provided inside information on ongoing investigations to the people and companies being investigated, and fired US Attorneys who would not comply with White House orders to cease these investigations.
There was so much fraud, outright theft and looting of the US Treasury by GOP friendly corporations and individuals during the last administration that it will never be prosecuted.
Welcome to the Corporatocracy, be a good citizen. Consume, obey, and do not question or God will strike you down.
Goldy you pinhead…
Why didn’t you print Luke Esser’s response & explanation??
Guess you are getting out your trusty misleading gland early this election season.
Here it is:
May I remind you of Bush saying “9/11, 9/11, 9/11” “The terrorists attacks of September the 11th , 2001” “Evil-doers”
Yeah, shiny keys of terror while Reagan Republicans borrowed $11 TRILLION dollars from China and ran the economy into a mini depression, left Afghantistan and the War on Terror under resourced for 8 years and fucked up as a military leader in Iraq.
Shiny keys.
No, let me remind you.
I keep asking you for your proof, why do you keep ducking me.
Why are you afraid of me?
Got proof?
hahahahahahaha
@ 24:
Marvie, Marvie, Marvie, I’m not afraid of you, I’m ignoring you.
I notice it pisses you off.
I was wrong about you being one of Puddy’s known sock puppet characters.
As Steve and others pointed out the other day, you’re way too stupid to be Puddy.
My bad.
Now, back to ignoring you. Unless you have some sort of man crush on me you’ll do the same.
EXACTLY.
I knew you would fall for it when I wrote it.
Credit due, you admit when wrong… even to someone too stupid to be Puddy.
You can go back to ignoring me again.
hahahahahaha