Even as the Metro cuts we voted to make happen start to happen, we should consider other ways to pay for it. Goldy had a piece on Seattle maybe keeping our transit, but it really should be a regional thing. The Seattle Times tells us that the biggest problem was how regressive the tax was (and that we pay bus drivers). I’m sure the fact that they haven’t suggested any solutions is a lack of imagination, not proof that complaining about a regressive tax was bad faith. So with that in mind here are some suggestions to at least pay for part of the shortfall:
– King County should up the B&O tax for newspapers to match what the state cut: A few years the state gave an exemption to a portion of that tax to newspapers. Since The Seattle Times is so against unfair, regressive taxes, they’re surely against this unfair regressive tax loophole. I know their publisher lobbied for it, but he also shot a dog [Spokesman Review link]. People do things they regret, and I’m sure given his paper’s fight against regressive taxes, this is another thing he’ll change his mind on. As long as the state insists on being foolish, King County should impose a B&O tax on newspapers to match what it would have paid to the state.
– Private Charity: As we all know when Boeing and Microsoft help gut state education, and then pay a tiny little itty bitty portion of what they saved back, we applaud the paying back. Since The Seattle Times will undoubtedly claim victory for the defeat of Prop 1, they should step up and pay for buses. This is especially true since The Seattle Times doesn’t think 550,00 hours is very much of a loss, it won’t be very much for them to make up.
– Local income tax: It’s time — it’s probably past time — for a King County high earner’s income tax, and apply that to the Metro gap. Is it constitutional? I don’t know! Would the Seattle Times support it? Well, they wanted a less regressive tax, so who knows?
– Dog shooter tax: I don’t know the demographics of who shoots dogs, so this might not be as progressive as I would hope. But obviously, they’re terrible, terrible people. Anyone who thinks people who shoot at dogs shouldn’t pay their fair share and then some more must also be a terrible person who frankly doesn’t deserve to be listened to on anything ever.
How about a city inheritance tax to break up family fortunes that are past their prime? By the time a family business has been run by five generations, the founder’s original vision is long forgotten, and the present owners just think of it as an ATM machine.
You libs need to see someone about your tax obsession.
@1…So in other words, just straight up steal peoples money.
@3 Adults call it “an estate tax” but yeah, if you’re a troll who considers any tax “stealing” then I guess your right.
I bet big money, as a former employee in the Times newsroom, that not one of the people penning editorials or columns at the Times rides the bus regularly. For reporters, it’s a necessity to drive. For these folks, they get paid enough to ignore the inconvenience of decreased bus service.
#3 – Your libertarian utopia would fall apart the second that low-income downtown workers couldn’t get to their jobs to pour you that $5 vente double-slim caramel mocha. You see, those people use buses. Imagine downtown on a weekday without those people. Or a Mariners game.
Or we could just pay those folks enough to live downtown.
Oh, and Frank Blethen and his brood shot straight to the top of the newspaper world, surely based only on merit. Must be a lot of talent in those genes. Or having fck-you wealth and family connections at birth.
@3 Why not? That’s how the rich get it in the first place.
Let’s see a show of hands of everyone who believes that in today’s America most fortunes are honestly earned by hard working souls who win in the marketplace by offering better products at lower prices.
Sounds like my brother: he blames the consequences of his bad decisions on others. Personal responsibility is not in his dictionary.
Our government-hating libertarians who whine about every little tax have it good. They don’t know what real government oppression is like. Under Stalin, millions of people starved to death because the regime confiscated even their seed corn so they couldn’t plant crops. Timothy Snyder’s “Bloodlands” describes starving children eating their own flesh. Now that’s the kind of tyranny worth laying down your life to fight against.
Cliven Bundy claims our government is tyrannical because it wants him to pay grazing fees to graze his cows on public land, like every other western rancher has to do. He’s about the same age as me. Did he go to Vietnam to fight the spread of real tyranny, communist tyranny, the kind of tyranny that starves people to death by seizing their seed corn? I did, and I don’t remember seeing him there. I’d like to know if he’s a military veteran or just a windbag of hot air.
Huzzah Rabbit!
Cliven Bundy is an anarchist who doesn’t know when he has it good. He claims Nevada, not BLM, owns the land where he grazes his cattle. He says he should pay grazing fees to the state of Nevada, not BLM. Fine! Let him!
Nevada grazing fee: $15.50 per cow
BLM grazing fee: $1.35 per cow
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....utionalism
Roger Rabbit Commentary: According to my calculator, if Bundy doesn’t own BLM $1.1 million, then he does owe the state of Nevada $12,630,000.
Conservatives want government services, they just don’t want to pay for them.
And for added benefit the stranger will also have their b&o tax go up. Serves Tim right for not setting a wage floor at that rag of 15 or more.
What evidence is there that Blethen regrets shooting the dog? Or that he hasn’t shot others we haven’t heard about?
Someone told him that Labradors were unionized, and so, every chance he gets…
@ 11 RR
He’s also now acknowledged himself as a white supremecist.
Great heroes you got there Spittles.
Earlier when I mentioned about the different governance and funding streams for San Francisco Municipal Railway, I also wanted to show a link describing how one of the systems on the other side of the Bay is funded. Alameda-Contra Costa County Transit is funded partly through a mix of state, federal, and local sources. Unfortunately, not many of them progressive. One is a property tax, but it is a flat parcel tax, not on accessed value.
http://www.actransit.org/about.....es/budget/
Was going to post it this morning, but had to catch the bus to work.
In Florida, where a railroad wants to construct a higher speed rail operation, and operate it themselves, on their own track(except where it will be in the right of way of the Bee Line Expressway between Coco Beach and Orlando) from Miami to Orlando, people are trying to block it too.
http://www.progressiverailroad.....ck@msn.com
One irony of All Aboard Florida’s parent, the Florida East Coast railway, is it was an early quitter of passenger service, using a strike as a pretext.
@12…Wrong, Conservatives want logical government services and are more than willing to pay for them…Liberals want ALL aspects of daily life (plus many services that seem to have been dreamed up during an acid trip) provided for them by the government and want others to pay for them.
re 17 — Same tired crap I’ve been hearing from the right for as long as I can remember. Your pointless, responsibility-evading ideology is as depressing as a bouquet of day-old Mylar™ balloons flopping listlessly in the breeze.
I’m not buyin’ it. To quote the good Book: “When I was a child, I thought as a child….”
@18 Logical?
What’s logical about giving Boeing an $8B tax break to keep jobs in the state, then Boeing moving jobs out of state? What’s logical about giving oil companies tax breaks while recording record profits? What’s logical about government bailouts to banks that screwed the public and not sending their CEOs to jail?
Conservatives only want “logical” government services when public tax money gets redistributed to themselves.
Hey, Metro employees:
“By the end of the year, there will be hundreds of jobs that won’t be here anymore at Metro,” Desmond said, including bus drivers as well as managers.
http://seattletimes.com/html/l.....tsxml.html
Are you SURE that freeze from a couple of years ago is all you’re willing to bring to the table?
@18. In other words. Conservatives only want the public to pay for the services that benefit them.
What, pray tell, are the services you find extraneous? What would YOU cut?
@21…
Who’s going to buy whatever shit that “Bickle” clown and his oligarch heroes make if nobody has jobs?
Are ALL these NeoLiberal/Classical/Supply Siders this fucking stupid?
@23. I’m sure he wouldn’t think pay cuts would apply to him and his job.
@22: Like