HorsesAss.Org

If an influential politician was promising to increase gambling in Washington state by $23 billion a year — a twenty-fold increase — you’d think you’d hear about it in the media, right?

Wrong.

For that is exactly what Tim Eyman is promising when he asks voters to accept I-892’s legalization of slot machines in exchange for a $400 million property tax cut, and yet the press has been awfully quiet about the numbers.

How do I come up with $23 billion? Well, first I read the initiative. Then a did a little research (okay… I Googled.) And then I did the math.

Here’s how it breaks down. I-892 establishes a 35% tax on the “net win” (an odd term that actually means what the gambler loses.) 99% of these tax revenues go to reduce the state property tax; the other 1% goes to the Washington State Council on Problem Gambling (which happens to be controlled by the same corporations financing I-892. Go figure.)

We can thus calculate the net win required to produce Eyman’s projection quite easily: ($400 million / 35%) / 99%) = $1.2 billion

That represents how much money Washington citizens must lose each year to fund a $400 million tax cut. Quite a bargain, huh?

But how do we calculate the amount wagered? Well, all we need to know is the “payback” on slot machines… that is, the amount a slot machine pays back for every dollar gambled. Essentially, the odds. You can google this yourself, but it turns out the industry average is just about 95%. That means a casino makes only a nickel in profit from every dollar gambled on slots… which is part of what makes slot machines so addictive.

So, divide $1.2 billion by $.05, and you get $23 billion in gross wagering. (Okay, you get $24 billion, but the $1.2 billion figure was rounded up, and I like to be accurate.)

I know… boring blog material. But I promised I would occasionally get wonkish.

Anyway, the point is, when I-892’s opponents talk about the most massive expansion of gambling in state history, they’re not kidding. But you’d think they were, considering the media’s refusal to do the math and print the actual numbers.

I’m busy writing a real column in response to Tim Eyman’s latest fantasy in The Seattle P-I “I’m a lying, thieving, blowhard” (okay… I’m paraphrasing,) but I thought I’d take advantage of the creative freedom inherent in blogging, to jot down a few, unfiltered thoughts.

What a load of crap!

He writes 600 words on I-892 and never once bothers to tell readers that it LEGALIZES SLOT MACHINES!

Which is a pretty shrewd move on his part as poll after poll shows that voters are opposed to LEGALIZING SLOT MACHINES, and he clearly knows that if voters understand that I-892 LEGALIZES SLOT MACHINES, he’ll stand a better chance of winning at SLOT MACHINES than getting them approved at the ballot.

Of course it’s hard to blame the P-I’s editorial board for printing Eyman’s column, even though it’s ostensibly about an initiative that LEGALIZES SLOT MACHINES, while never once mentioning that it LEGALIZES SLOT MACHINES. After all, Tim is such a fine writer. I especially enjoy the way his essay follows the classic structure we all learned in high school English class:

1. Tell the readers an extended quote from Ghostbusters.
2. Tell them a bunch of lies.
3. Tell them what you said… while trashing Gary Locke.

Here are just a few of the lies the mainstream press won’t find the time to refute:

I-892 is NOT revenue-neutral! (See Lie of the Week: I-892 is revenue neutral? Not!)

I-892 can’t possibly reduce the property tax by $400 million. Eyman’s “conservative” estimate is pulled out of thin air. $400 million in tax savings would require over $4.6 billion in new wagering… a fanciful five-fold increase over 2003.

I-892 is NOT a tax-cut initiative… it’s about LEGALIZING SLOT MACHINES! Enough said.

So that’s the Lie of the Week. I apologize if it doesn’t meet my usual literary standards, but I couldn’t find my copy of Ghostbusters.

A quick perusal of the recent financial disclosure reports for I-892 — Tim Eyman’s “Slots for Tots” initiative — reveals an interesting footnote. While the bulk of the money comes from Canadian and Nevada-based gambling conglomerates, a fair number of bowling alleys have also contributed to the campaign.

Support from bowling alleys comprises the heart of Eyman’s claim that this is a battle for equal treatment for mom-and-pop businesses against a powerful “tribal monopoly.” Indeed, in the days following the initiative’s announcement, a handful of bowling alley owners made the rounds of talk radio arguing just that point.

I remember one particular phone call from a woman who pleaded for slot machines on behalf of the bowling alley that had been in her family for three generations. She claimed she just couldn’t compete against the tribal casinos anymore, and if I-892 didn’t pass, she would probably shutter the family business.

Now, at the risk of sounding unsympathetic, I’d like to impart a bit of wisdom from one small businessperson to another:

YOU’RE RUNNING A FUCKING BOWLING ALLEY!!!

And perhaps, instead of trying to compete with the tribal casinos, you should spend a little time and effort promoting… gee, I don’t know… bowling?!

Saying that bowling alleys need slot machines to compete with tribal casinos is like saying Chuck E. Cheese’s needs a liquor license and strippers to compete with the Deja Vu.

The point is, if you can’t make ends meet enticing people to chuck balls at pins, then perhaps you’re in the wrong business. Or sadly, perhaps bowling just isn’t a viable industry anymore.

That may sound harsh… but that’s capitalism. And until the tribes start building bowling alleys instead of casinos, I don’t want to hear anymore whining about unfair competition.

When I was a kid I loved to go bowling, despite the fact that I fairly consistently sucked. As a parent, bowling has its own rewards: playing against a 7-year-old girl almost guarantees me an occasional win.

I want bowling to survive… but as a rationale for legalizing slot machines, I find the argument utterly and completely ridiculous.

Besides, reluctantly putting my feet into those rented shoes is a gamble enough.

A couple weeks ago Phil Talmadge dropped out of the governor’s race due to health reasons, and while I probably wouldn’t have voted for him in the Democratic primary, I was genuinely sad to see him go.

Of course, his flagging funding raising, low visibility and meager poll numbers would have eventually knocked him out of contention even if his bum kidney hadn’t. But his is a voice that will be sorely missed from the public debate: the intelligent voice.

One of the things I always seek in politics — and rarely find — is a candidate who is smarter than me… and flaunts it. (Oh, there are plenty who flaunt it, but they’re usually shooting blanks.)

[Read more…]

Yesterday I suggested that Tim Eyman’s reputation as a lying, thieving, blowhard actually works to his advantage, as the media seems to treat his lack of credibility as an unspoken assumption. I suppose they think it a waste of time to research his claims, when nobody believes him anyway.

This is part of a larger double standard, where the “good guys” are expected to be good, and the “bad guys” are expected to be bad. And if the two sides ever stray from their assigned roles, it results in shock and dismay, or unwarranted praise.

An example of this has stuck in my craw the past few days, so I thought I’d better spit it out:

[Read more…]

Just a quick note to all those Windows users who were wondering what sort of aesthetic moron would layout a website so that all the text was centered? Well… the kind of moron who didn’t bother to view the site in Explorer for Windows. (Everything looked fine on my Mac.)

I could blame Adobe GoLive for creating crappy HTML, or Microsoft for their crappy, inconsistent browsers… but I’m just going to blame myself for being too lazy to review my work in the browser with 95% market share.

Man I feel stupid. (But not as stupid as Tim Eyman must feel every time he accidentally includes all 3800 email address in the TO header of his newsletter.)

Let’s kick things off with what will surely be a regular feature as long as Tim Eyman remains a blight on our political landscape: The Lie of the Week!

I’ve chosen this introductory Lie, not simply because it is so easy to refute, but because it offers such a clear illustration of how a lying, thieving, blowhard like Tim Eyman uses the press to perpetuate his untruths.

The Lie:
I-892 (Tim’s “Slots for Tots” initiative) is “revenue neutral.”

The Liar’s Explanation:
All tax revenues raised from slot machines are used to reduce the state property tax, dollar for dollar. Thus homeowners get a break on their taxes, while state revenues remain unchanged.

The Truth:
Slot machines will draw consumer dollars from other taxable activities — including other forms of non-tribal gambling — and every one of these dollars represents a loss of state and local revenue.

[Read more…]

Last year, a reporter asked me why I thought so many people were willing to donate time and money to what was obviously a joke initiative. I glibly replied that politics was boring, and that my “horse’s ass” initiative gave people the opportunity to get involved, while having a little fun at the same time.

Washington state politics is particularly boring — oh not just because it’s full of numbers and legalese and the usual wonkish stuff like that — but because we happen to be blessed with some of the most boring politicians in the nation. There’s a reason a lying, thieving, blowhard like Tim Eyman commands so much media attention: he’s an interesting lying, thieving, blowhard. Gary Locke, on the other hand, whatever you may think of his job performance, is, well… boring.

But I never knew how god-awful boring politics could be until I tried doing a little of it myself.

I’ve often been accused of taking a joke too far, and this joke took me back and forth to Olympia dozens of times over the past year. It took me deep into the intricacies of Washington’s incredibly complex (and astoundingly unfair) tax structure. And it took me face to face with the frustrating bureaucracy that is the WA State Legislature.

Looking back, I can’t tell you at what point I was transformed from a political prankster into an accidental activist, but I can tell you that in the process I became a bit more boring myself. I have always chafed at the tendency of some people to confuse “solemnity” with “seriousness,” and yet time and again I found myself sacrificing the satire and irreverence that launched me into the public debate, for the sake of maintaining the credibility I had so laboriously earned.

Well… no more.

I have serious political goals, and I intend to pursue them. I intend to help educate the public and the media about an astonishingly regressive tax system that gives billions of dollars of tax breaks to wealthy special interests while placing an almost unbearable burden on the backs of middle- and low-income families. I intend to work for real, progressive, tax reforms that provide meaningful relief to those who need it most, assure adequate funding for essential public services, and create the kind of positive, rational business environment that all citizens want. And I intend to continue my efforts to expose Tim Eyman as the lying, thieving, blowhard even many of his most ardent supporters admit he really is. (Did I mention Tim Eyman is a lying, thieving, blowhard?)

But I also intend to have a little fun.

Which brings me to the relaunch of HorsesAss.org.

I want to have fun with politics, yet I also want to get stuff done. I want to be sarcastic, satirical, irreverent — even silly — and yet I want to be taken seriously. I want to be edgy, out spoken, and occasionally foul mouthed, and yet I want to maintain my credibility with stuffy politicos and even stuffier editorial boards.

So I have to split myself in two.

HorsesAss.org will remain the playground of the fun half, while the more respectable half will set up office at the recently formed TaxSanity.org. Both halves will remain deadly serious… they’ll just speak with different voices.

So how do you know which half is speaking? They even have different names.

For most of my 41 years, friends and family have called me “Goldy,” and that is the name I sign to this HorsesAss.org blog. Anybody who knows Goldy well, will tell you he’s sarcastic, irreverent… even a little bit warped. (And obviously, secure enough in his own manhood to pass through adolescence with such an effeminate sounding nickname intact.)

But most people know me by my given name, “David,” a respectable Old Testament name, perfect for printing on business cards, and attaching to “serious” political efforts like TaxSanity.org.

So… HorsesAss.org has evolved into what it should have been from the start: a personal blog, a forum for shameless self-promotion, and a platform for the occasional, outrageous, political stunt. Sometimes wonkish, sometimes satirical — but always truthful — it is an opportunity to speak my mind while enjoying the delusion that others actually care what I have to say. It is pure, unadulterated me.

TaxSanity.org, on the other hand, is a real political .ORG, of which I am only a single member, and to which I have pledged my political energies. Over the next few months its web site will become the definitive resource for facts, statistics and policy discussions regarding Washington’s tax structure. And over the coming year we plan to organize into the largest grassroots organization in the state dedicated to promoting progressive tax reform, and opposing the irresponsible efforts of Tim Eyman and his fellow libertarians to de-fund state and local government. Oh, we’ll certainly try to make TaxSanity.org more fun than your typical political organization… it just can’t possibly be as much fun as a running a website that got it’s start calling Tim Eyman names. (Did I mention Tim Eyman is a lying, thieving, blowhard?)

Now I know some might find this split between the politically prankish Goldy and the politically earnest David a little arbitrary… or even weird. So to those upstanding members of the political and media establishment who insist I cannot possibly expect to maintain my credibility as an activist while producing an irreverent and outrageous blog, the Goldy half of me respectfully says: “fuck you.”

Of course, the David half of me effusively apologizes for what the Goldy half just said. There’s absolutely no excuse for that kind of language, and given the opportunity David might attempt to explain to this “haughty, humorless prick” (my words, not his) that he should excuse Goldy as a sort of stage persona, somewhat like Tim Eyman, who publicly portrays himself as a lying, thieving, blowhard, but who in the comfort of his own home, rarely steals anything. David might also privately intimate that Goldy has the emotional maturity of a 13-year-old, and amuses nobody but himself. Or perhaps that he’s insane.

Whatever.

David can apologize all he wants, but Goldy has no regrets. Yes, I am writing this blog to amuse myself; if I entertain, educate or motivate others… great! But if some people occasionally find me rude or offensive, well… that’s okay too. In the unlikely event I ever run for office, I’m sure this blog will bite me in the ass. But then, wouldn’t voters prefer to elect somebody boorish for a change, instead of somebody who’s simply boring?