I’m off to Olympia again this morning, first for what I assume will be a brief run-in with our friend Tim Eyman, and then off to the House Finance Committee to hear Bill Gates Sr. testify on tax structure reform. (Talk about a couple of odd hobbies.)
For those who don’t know, Mr. Gates chaired the Washington State Tax Structure Committee, whose final report included recommendations to implement a state income tax. Whatever you think of its recommendations, the Committee’s report should be the starting point for anybody wanting to educate themselves on the structural deficit and basic unfairness of the nation’s most regressive state and local tax system.
I’ll report back late this afternoon on both events, but for now I point your attention to a couple of items in today’s Seattle P-I. First, the news that local clean-elections activist Bev Harris has been vindicated in a whistle-blower suit in California, against dominant election equipment manufacturer Diebold (“I guarantee Bush will win Ohio”) Election Systems.
The second is Paul Loeb’s guest column: “Revote? If Florida and Ohio go first.”