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Gray Wolves

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Until today, I didn’t realize that this was part of the budget deal.

A rider in the budget bill to keep the federal government in operation has triggered fury among some wildlife groups because it would remove certain wolves from the endangered species list.

I’m not sure what Obama’s side got for it, and I didn’t want the government shut down, so I won’t comment on if it’s good as part of the budget package. But on its own, it stinks. It’s a bad idea, and a worse precedent.

Instead of letting the best science prevail, or forcing the states with dwindling wolf populations to come up with a reasonable recovery plan, it just bypassed the whole process. Even if you agree with the bill’s proponents about the merits of wolf recovery in the Northern Rockies, and you accept that legislation singling out one species is a good idea, it’s only reversible through legislation, so if populations do decline, this law will still be on the books. And surely in the future, with this on the books, we’ll have more states demanding stupid exceptions.

In any event, what right wing Republican nut job thought this would be a good idea?

“Right now, Montana’s wolf population is out of balance and this provision will get us back on the responsible path with state management,” Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, said in a written statement. He said he wrote the language together with Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho.

Awesome. John Tester is so far out there, he has Ron Fucking Paul making sense.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, said the inclusion of such a rider “doesn’t make any sense.”

“And it really shows how out of touch so many people are here in Washington and how unlikely it is that we will get to the bottom of our problems,” Paul said in an interview this week with CNN.

Sort of Like Rural Electrification, but More Blackouts

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State legislators are trying to pass liquor privatization. I’ll leave it to other people to point out that liquor privatization initiatives failed last year, as well as the pros and cons of this particular measure.

There is one thing I do find interesting about last year’s results: how poorly it did in Eastern Washington. Maybe there’s some moralizing and concern for the budget that compelled the rest of the state (myself included) to oppose liquor privatization. But there’s something else unique to rural Washington.

You see, in many rural parts of the country, capitalism doesn’t work very well. There aren’t enough people in the market for various goods and services, so they don’t get there. In some cases, that’s just how they want things. I think most people who chose to live 50 miles from the nearest stop sign wouldn’t trade with me, no matter how much I’m glad to have a few bakeries within walking distance, and the ability to go out on my bike anywhere I want. Still, rural people want some things that the market can’t provide. So we as a society have set up things like rural electrification, farm subsidies and public radio.

Surely, there are places in rural Washington where there would be less hard alcohol sold if we privatize the system. For a lot of people the selection and hours may not be all they want, but they know they would get less if the state stores went away.

Open Thread

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– Somehow, I doubt very much that my father will ever say, “Boy do you have smart commenters.”

– I’m not quite as pessimistic as Oliver about what would happen if there isn’t an extension of the debt ceiling but I imagine some terrible things.

– In part, I think this is the best strategy to deal with the debt ceiling. (h/t)

– Bikes for Books at the Lake City Library. Sounds like a great thing for 4th and 5th graders.

No Space Shuttle for Seattle

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Today marks the 50th anniversary of manned space flight and the 30th anniversary of the first Space Shuttle launch. Among other events, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr. is just announcing which museums will receive each of the five retiring Space Shuttles.

The Pacific Northwest, with its abundance of aviation museums, has two strong contenders among the 21 in the competition.

The first is, of course, the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field. I don’t need to say much about this, because if you have any interest in aviation, you’ve been there. (And if not, well…you’ve probably stopped reading.)

Another not-quite-so-well-known regional finalist is the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon. This is the place where Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose is housed. If you like aviation museums, Evergreen is fantastic. In recent years, the museum has expanded to two main buildings, one for aviation, one for space. They are currently building a water park with an unusual water slide. Here’s a photo I recently took on a dreary March afternoon…

Waterslide

Bolden choked up a few times during his introductory speech. Here is the list of awardees:

Bummer.

How Do These Morons Get Elected?

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I’m going to have trouble holding back the snark on this one. As the State House today passed the medical marijuana bill (which is not perfect, but a step up from the mess we currently have) this quote somehow managed to come out of the mouth of a legislator:

Opponents argue that this moves the state one step closer to full-blown legalization and doesn’t set up enough safeguards to keep marijuana out of the hands of children.

“It fosters ambiguity,” said Rep. Kevin Parker, R-Spokane. “We are confusing kids, we are confusing the law, and we are making it harder on law enforcement when the budgets we’re writing are reducing law enforcement in this state.”

That’s an overwhelming amount of stupid right there, so I’ll break this up into three parts:

We are confusing kids

In a word, no. It’s not confusing to any child anywhere in this state that there are stores that sell a plant product to sick people any more than it confuses kids that there are pharmacies that sell drugs to sick people. We tell kids not to use prescription drugs, yet those drugs are still sold in pharmacies to people whose doctors tell them they can have it. Is that confusing to kids? No. Our kids aren’t that stupid, and our legislators shouldn’t be either.

We are confusing the law

What? The reason that this bill came about was because the existing law was really unclear and confusing about what was allowed when it came to supplying medical marijuana patients. What SB 5073 represents is an attempt to make the law less confusing, and it’s impossible to look at the bill today and claim that it’s more gray than the status quo. I still have concerns with it, but it’s a big clarification of what had been very unclear up until now.

We are making it harder on law enforcement when the budgets we’re writing are reducing law enforcement in this state

This is just award-winning stupid. Every time we have a case where a patient or provider is clearly getting screwed over, we hear the same exact excuse from law enforcement, “We just want the rules to be clear, until then, we have to arrest people.” This bill does that. This bill makes the rules clear so that law enforcement can stop wasting money and time trying to figure out who’s supplying medical marijuana for people suffering from MS, cancer and other ailments and finally focus more of their time on real criminals and real crime. This bill will save law enforcement and our criminal justice system a significant amount of money by making it clearer who’s following the law and who isn’t. Anyone who says otherwise is either clueless or being stupid on purpose.

Protest in Seattle Times Approved Ways Only

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It might shock you to learn that an editorial in The Seattle Times pissed me off. But here we go:

PROTEST is a venerable American right. Sleep in the state Capitol building. Camp out on the Capitol grass. Carry signs. Chant, march, yell, make your point.

It is all part of the political process.

Here are a list of things that The Settle Times Editorial Board finds acceptable: Sleep, camp, carry signs, march, yell, and make a point. You may do these. Yes, the people who you want to persuade will probably ignore you. So will the Seattle Times.

But a protest becomes something else when a group of rowdy people storm or try to force their way into the relatively small foyer in the governor’s office in Olympia, which creates a safety hazard.

OH NO LOUD PEOPLE IN A FOYER! Save us from the Rowdy Foyer People!

So it was last week when a large group of protesters from the Service Employees International Union, upset about looming budget cuts, gathered outside Gov. Chris Gregoire’s office. They had earlier marched around the Capitol campus and demonstrated inside the legislative building.

Thank God less than 1% of them were a bit rowdy (and one probably more serious). Otherwise we might have to spend this prime editorial space talking about the issues they protested. Now we can harrumph.

These protesters wanted to talk to the governor. A lot of people do. A pushing match ensued with State Patrol officers who closed the governor’s door and stood guard outside her office to ensure her safety.

Look, they should be an editorial board. Governors call you up if you’re an editorial board. Senators. Legislators. Business leaders. If you were more polite like our editorial page, then more people would call you up.

Anyway, it goes on like this for a while. And it mentions that one of the people was charged with assault and are accused of elbowing and kicking State Patrol officers. Of course, don’t do that. If the entire editorial was, “hey please don’t kick police officers” it would have been fine. And left them space to debate what the actual budget maybe should look like.

Military—Political complex

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This is what U.S. military spending looks like over a little more than 2 decades:

MilitaryPolitical
(Data soure: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.)

So much for the Peace Dividend that followed the end of the Cold War. Apparently, fighting a rag-tag bunch of cave-dwellers requires the same level of funding as keeping up with mighty Soviet Union.

If we want a return to the glory days of a balanced federal budget–you know, like we saw during the last year of the Clinton administration, we should

  1. Let the budget busting Bush tax cuts expire. The second major experiment with Trickle-Down economics proved to be an abject failure. It is time for grown-up economic principles to be used for tax policy.
  2. Cut military spending to late 1990s levels. The proposed Ryan budget would, literally, cause higher death rates for the most vulnerable Americans, who would no longer be able to afford some types of health care. Quality of life would go down drastically for Seniors and people with disabilities.

    It’s immoral to allow military spending to increase far greater than inflation, and ask seniors and the disabled to pay for it with their life!

And if you believe that military spending pays us back by stimulating the economy, think again. A study by University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee political scientist Prof. Uk Heo finds:

…a 1 percent increase in the defense spending share of GDP in the United States is expected to lead to a 0.019 percent increase in economic growth over two years. This result indicates that the economic effects of defense spending on growth in the United States are meaningless because the size of the effects is virtually zero.

Military spending, at least at today’s levels, turns out to be a really, really lousy investment.

HA Bible Study

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Leviticus 25:44-46
Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

In honor of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, discuss.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Lawrence O’Donnell lays into Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA) for being willing to shut down Government to defund Planned Parenthood (via Crooks and Liars).

Obama on the budget agreement:

Sam Seder: Bristol Palin’s big pay day from nonprofit teen pregnancy prevention charity.

Mark Fiore: Terrorist lock-up.

About Glenn Beck:

The difference between Liberal and Conservative brains:

Obama picks Debbie Wasserman Schultz to lead the DNC.

Thom: Hate speech and free speech.

ONN: Internet outage forces public into street to voice inane opinions.

Wisconsin Election Madness:

Thom: The Good, the Bad and the Very Very Ugly.

Sam Seder: What will happen when the Government shuts down?

Maddow: Criminally phoney elections?

Pap: What Monsanto chemicals are in your food?.

The Birfer Donald:

Ann Telnaes: Afghan protests spread after Koran burning.

Cenk with Con Job: GOP budget exposed by CBO.

Newsy: Mississippi Republicans think mixed race marriages should be illegal.

White House: West Wing Week.

Rep. Jim McDermott on FAUX News discussing budget compromise:

Cenk: Why I am a progressive.

Liberal Viewer: Using R-word is totally gay?.

Lawrence O’Donnell: Last word on GOP/Teabagger holding Planned Parenthood hostage.

Wimpish Pawlenty puts out an action thriller against Obama. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! (via TalkingPointsMemo).

Maddow: Paul Ryan & GOP attack Medicare & raise debt?

Young Turks: Walker does cronyism.

ONN week in review: Obama cast national musical.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

How dare you call loopholes loopholes?

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In the debate about how the legislature should balance the budget* one of the main liberal arguments is that we should close the loopholes that have accumulated in the tax system over the years. At least have a look at what ones are and aren’t working any more. It makes sense, after all that what the legislature passed 10, 20, 30 years ago or more in better economic times may not make sense today when put against the tough budget reality. But don’t worry, Representative Ed Orcutt knows better. Not how to balance the budget, silly: what to call the loopholes.

As the Legislature contemplates how to deal with a multi-billion dollar budget shortfall, one of the more common phrases heard around the Capitol is “closing tax loopholes.” While this may seem admirable on the surface, a closer look reveals a complex economic system that can’t be oversimplified by catchy special interest sound bites.

Special interest = struggling families who have lost medical and dental care, and or schools.
Special interest ≠ out of state banks that pay millions of dollars less because of these loopholes.

For most, the term “loophole” conjures up images of shady characters in smoke-filled back rooms scheming for ways to buck the system. But here in Washington state, we don’t have “tax loopholes” we have tax incentives.

If you use a different word, it makes it OK.

Why is this clarification important? Because these tax incentives have been enacted via very deliberate legislative action.

No lobbyist has ever influenced any tax cut bill, you see. And any tax break that ever once made sense will forever make sense again.

In order to be passed into law, a tax incentive must be subjected to: a public hearing; amendment; a majority vote of committee members; and then subjected again to amendment and a 50-vote requirement to pass from the House floor. It then has to go through the same rigorous process in the Senate (with a 25-person vote requirement). If it passes both the House and Senate, it still must be signed into law by the governor. Often, these proposals receive far more than the 50 and 25 votes needed. So, it is a rigorous and difficult task for a bill to be passed and enacted.

The same process will also apply to any repeal (except it may also go to the voters or have to be 2/3 of the legislature). So, problem solved.

Furthermore, this process is done publicly with bill hearings announced in advance and testimony taken in public meetings. Anyone can now access any hearing via TVW webcast. There is no hiding. And lobbyists for the groups who are now calling for the repeal of these policies had every opportunity to testify against the proposals. Did they? Weren’t the bills still passed – and these incentives enacted – because of their benefit to our economy?

Well, our economy looks very different than it did when those loopholes passed. So it makes sense that we would see if they still make sense. We also enacted the social safety net to benefit our economy, not to mention to keep the most vulnerable safe. By the logic of the previous paragraph, we can’t dismantle that, since it had hearings and passed the legislature, etc.? And our schools have been funded by previous legislatures, and there’s even a clause about a paramount duty.

The fact is these incentives have been beneficial to workers, employers and communities throughout the state. Thousands of jobs with high wages and benefits have been created and many jobs in manufacturing have been saved. They worked because a lower tax rate brought businesses to Washington that would not have come otherwise.

Instead of actual facts to back this up, could you please give me an example you pulled out of your ass?

Which would you choose, a tax rate of 0.5 percent on $10 million or a 1.5 percent rate applied to $0? I choose the 0.5 percent rate as it creates jobs and generates revenue. The higher rate does not because many of those economic activities would gravitate toward more competitive states. That means the lower rate has actually protected or enhanced the funding for many of the programs that special interest groups are now trying to protect. Repeal of these incentives would leave employers with little option but to lay off more workers. Can we really afford that? Our efforts should be to create jobs, not destroy them.

If we rescind the loophole for banks, THERE WILL BE NO BANKS TO TAX IN WASHINGTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!

Over the last few years, true loopholes have been examined and eliminated. The improper use of reseller certificates to get building materials tax free for personal use, and tax avoidance have both been thoughtfully – and rightfully – repealed.

It’s only a loophole if I don’t support it.

Proposals to end our current tax incentives are by definition tax increases. Voters clearly said ‘No!’ to that last fall, and with good reason. Any tax increase would lead to job losses in our state and further delay the rehiring of workers by any employer affected by such a tax increase.

Well to the extent that you can divine anything about closing loopholes from that, they said they wanted either 2/3 of the legislature to vote on it or to put it to the people. So, if enough of your colleagues support it, then it can pass. So vote to close loopholes and problem solved.

A repeal of these incentives would further hamper our economy’s recovery and devastate our state and household budgets. We need to get past the misleading rhetoric of impropriety and look for better ways to get our budget balanced and to get Washington working again.

By cutting Basic Health and education. QED!

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