HorsesAss.Org

I don’t generally follow Tacoma City Council races, but I’ll make an exception for Keven Rojecki, who recently announced his candidacy for an open seat.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet and talk with Keven on a number of occasions during my adventures in Olympia, where in his capacity as a legislative liaison for the Washington State Council of Fire Fighters (WSCFF) we have often found ourselves working the same side of important public policy issues.  Keven is also an active fire fighter, an 18-year veteran with the SeaTac Fire Department, and has served the past two years as Vice-Chair of the Washington State Gambling Commission.

I know nothing about Keven’s opponent—perhaps she’s just as qualified, I dunno—but I do know that Keven is exactly the kind of public servant we could use more of in electoral politics, so I wish him the best of luck.  And if you’re down in Olympia Thursday, you can wish him luck in person at a luncheon reception and fundraiser being held at the WSCFF headquarters:

Date:	Thursday, April 23, 2009
Time:	11:00am – 1:30pm
Location:	Washington State Council of Fire Fighters
Street:	1069 Adams Street SE
City/Town:	Olympia, WA

Ah well, it looks like the timid status quoists are in full spin mode.

Covering the on-again/off-again prospects of a tax increase measure, Austin Jenkins reports for both KUOW and Crosscut that as weak as public support is for a sales tax increase, an income tax fares even worse:

The sales tax garnered better than 50 percent support if it included a tax rebate for working families and if the money raised was used to support hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care programs. […]  The income tax proposal polled under 50 percent even if the money was dedicated to education and health care.

Huh?  That’s not what I heard.  And while I’m not sure I’ve seen the polling detail to which Jenkins refers, clearly, neither has he.

Or maybe I have. Here’s how Jenkins describes the poll in question:

I got my hands on a summary of the poll that was given to the Senate Democratic Caucus. It’s not the complete poll, and I don’t have a sample size or margin of error; however I believe 800 likely voters were polled. The poll was taken last week — right when people were filing their taxes and there were anti-tax demonstrations all over the country, including at the State Capitol in Olympia. The health care groups who paid for the poll say it was the “worst possible” week to be asking voters their mood on taxes.

Huh.  I too have seen a poll of 800 likely voters, conducted last week, the worst week possible for asking voters their mood on an income tax… although unlike Jenkins, who reports on a summary passed on to the Senate Dem Caucus, I got to see some of the actual details:

Three tenths of one percent sales tax for working families tax rebate and Health Care Trust Fund For Basic Health Plan
(Total Approve) =  40%
Definitely Approve: 16%
Probably Approve 17%
Lean Approve 8%
Lean Reject 4%
Probably Reject 12%
Definitely Reject 22%
Undecided 21%

3% state income tax on individuals making over $250K
(Total Approve) =  47%
Definitely Approve: 27%
Probably Approve 15%
Lean Approve 5%
Lean Reject 2%
Probably Reject 8%
Definitely Reject 35%
Undecided 8%

Hmm. Perhaps there were two polls of the exact same survey size conducted at exactly the same time on the exact same subject?  And no doubt the pollsters asked these questions in multiple ways, pushing different strengths and weaknesses, so perhaps Jenkins’ data is just as valid as mine?  And yes, it is very difficult to make an apple to apple comparison when it comes to polling data.

But no, the impression that some Democratic lawmakers have been spinning to reporters, that an income tax fares worse in the polls than a sales tax hike, simply isn’t true.  In fact, the data I’ve seen from last week’s poll shows exactly the opposite, with an income tax out-polling a sales tax 47% to 40%.  Meanwhile, what support there was for a sales tax increase was incredibly soft, with only 16% responding “Definitely Approve,” compared to 27% for an income tax.

And that is consistent with all the other polling data of seen.  A recent Elway Poll showed an income tax slightly out-polling a sales tax, 53% to 51%, while a March 2009 poll, again a survey of 800 respondents, surprised income tax proponents and detractors alike with the proposal’s initial level of support:

“This measure would establish a two percent state income tax only on income above $300,000 a year for individuals or above $600,000 a year for married couples filing jointly. If the election were held today, would you vote to APPROVE this referendum, or would you vote to REJECT it?”

(TOTAL APPROVE) = 56%
DEFINITELY APPROVE 37%
PROBABLY APPROVE 16
[LEAN APPROVE] 3
[LEAN REJECT] 3
PROBABLY REJECT 7
DEFINITELY REJECT 30
[UNDECIDED] 5

Considering the income tax is purported to be the third rail of Washington politics, those results aren’t bad, and arguably represent a more neutral survey of the public’s initial impression than one conducted while voters were in the midst of filing their federal returns.

I’m not a big fan of poll-driven lawmaking, but since one side in this debate is attempting to discredit the high-earners income tax by pushing cherry-picked data to lawmakers and reporters, I feel the need to set the record straight.  There has not been a single poll this session that has shown top line support for a sales tax hike to be significantly higher than that for a high-earners income tax, while all the polls show what support there is for a sales tax increase to be unnervingly soft.  That’s why the health care coalition has been backing away from the sales tax proposal… their well justified fear of the squishy middle.

Yes, neither proposal has polled above 60 percent, the magic number the initiative and referendum industry considers the bare minimum level of initial support for a ballot measure to warrant a substantial financial investment.  But as the surprising level of support for a high-earners income tax has already shown, conventional wisdom can sometimes be wrong.

Back in June of 2005, polls showed support for Initiative 912’s repeal of the 9.5 cent gas tax increase to be running as high as 70 percent, yet once voters learned the costs and consequences of the measure, it failed in November by a comfortable ten point margin.  Likewise, in 2006, opponents were initially concerned about support for Initiative 920’s proposed repeal of the estate tax, but after voters learned revenue was targeted to education, the measure was trounced by a resounding 24 point margin.

Washington voters have recently proven their willingness to tax themselves for the services and investments they want and need.  And they’ve proven even more willing to tax the wealthy.

And while that final sentiment may be derided by some as a call to “class warfare,” it is hard to make that argument with a straight face in the state with the most cruelly regressive tax structure in the nation.

Knute Berger, writing at Crosscut, in a spot-on piece about populism and the loony right’s paranoid tendencies:

(Fox Noise personality Glenn) Beck’s world view does share with some incarnations of populism a distinct paranoia — his diatribes come complete with screen-filling images of Nazi swastikas and jackboots on the march and dire warnings that Obama is selling us out to the international socialists. But his critique is mostly incoherent, as if someone dropped the tray of right-wing refrigerator magnets. Lyndon Larouche makes more sense.

Full column worth a read.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/4140910[/vimeo]

Such a common sense proposal… I’m sure we can find a reason why “this will never work” in Washington (or Seattle, for that matter).

“Why am I here?”  It is a profound question, and one every Democratic lawmaker in Olympia should ask themselves during the final weeks of this chaotic session, especially when it comes to the issue of whether to put a revenue proposal on the fall ballot.

Why did you run for public office in the first place? What exactly brought you to Olympia? And when you retire (voluntarily or otherwise), how will you judge the success of  your legislative career?

Over the past five years or so I have had the opportunity to talk one on one with a number of Democratic legislators, and I think it safe to say that an overwhelming majority agree with me, at least in principle, on the necessity of revenue reform.  There is near unanimity in the Democratic caucuses that our current tax system is overwhelmingly regressive and unfair, and a strong consensus that it is also inadequate and unsustainable as is… that there exists a long term structural revenue deficit that, regardless of the economic cycle, virtually assures that the ability of state government to deliver services and invest in infrastructure will gradually erode over time.

Privately, off the record, most Democratic legislators will tell you that they support an income tax, and that they truly believe such reform to be in the best interest of the people of Washington state.  And the majority of them even have at least a basic understanding as to why.  But I am now pretty confident that a majority of Democratic legislators also believe an income tax to be a political impossibility… that it will never happen, and that it is futile to even try.

And it is these conflicted naysayers most of all who should ask themselves the question:  “Why am I here?”

Did you come to Olympia simply to balance the budget as best you can?  To do less damage to our environment, our schools and our social safety net than your Republican counterparts?  Did you really come to Olympia to fix problems in the short term that you full well know our structural deficit will inevitably unfix over time?  Are you comfortable being caretakers of our state’s slow decline?

If you understand that we need to move toward an income tax, yet cannot imagine a path toward getting there, why bother even showing up?  Shouldn’t you just step aside and make room for somebody who is at least willing to try?

And no, that’s not meant to be a rhetorical question.

Lacking any real economic arguments, our friends at the Seattle Times editorial board whine “No, no, no to increased taxes,” by attempting to frame their status quoist opposition as part of some populist rebellion.

WEDNESDAY’S tax protests should not be brushed off — particularly not by state legislators contemplating tax increases.

Five thousand people rallied in Olympia Wednesday in opposition to more taxes. Others rallied in hundreds of places around the nation, making a point about federal spending and taxes, and also about state spending and taxes.

Some will discount all this by saying it was organized, or that the rally sprung from the fringe. Of course it was organized. All protests with people carrying signs and listening to speakers are organized.

But when organizers get 5,000 people to come to Olympia on a workday, it is evidence of a strong feeling.

Really?  Fomented for weeks by FOX News and right-wing talk radio, and promoted locally by the Republican Party and the well-funded Evergreen Freedom Foundation, five thousand people show up in Olympia, and that’s reason enough for legislators to dismiss the notion of a tax increase?  5,000 protestors?  That’s the magic number?

So… if I were to get five thousand and one people to show up in Olympia rallying to support a high-earners income tax, would that be equally compelling?  Would that convince the Times that a tax increase should be considered?

No, of course not.  They’d dismiss us as the organized fringe, a small group of true believers out of step with the mainstream… you know, despite the trio of recent polls showing support for a high-earners income tax steadily above fifty percent.

But I’ll tell you what… I’m up to the challenge.  If the Times editors assure me that they would treat my pro-tax rally just as credulously as they treated the FOX teabagging party, I’ll bring at least 5,001 pro-tax protesters to Olympia.  And if I can’t, well, I guess the people will have spoken.

A photographer sneaks into North Korea and takes pictures of the 1984-like nightmare they have going on over there.

It seems the traditional media in the NW has some freaks in their midst:

Alan has never denied owning multiple Web sites catering to people interested in the sexual practices known as BDSM (for bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism). It’s long-term research, he says, adding that the true focus and scope is, for the time being, a secret.

It almost certainly has nothing to do with his work for the Cascade Policy Institute, a conservative political think tank. That’s a campaign to root out Oregonians who might cast fraudulent votes by assuming the identities, and ballots, of people who are dead.

“Fraudulent voters.” Um, yeah, okay.

I’m sure it’s just me, but every time I hear that phrase I get a little voice intoning “Republican crazy douche.” Just another MSM bad apple, nothing to worry about, or so we thought.

The BDSM media were wrong about invading Iraq and also wrong about how property values would go up forever. But you should go ahead and trust anyhow.

Please keep in mind left wing bloggers are shrill and don’t understand foreign policy or bidness. This has been proven by their opposition to foreign policy blunders and bidness bailouts.

Left wing bloggers will surely never survive in the age of virtually free internet service. Someone in the traditional BDSM media will point out the shrillness of left wing bloggers, and handcuff them to newsprint.

That would be a crime.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI8eWEG2c4M[/youtube]

There was no winner in last week’s contest. The correct answer was Tucson, AZ. This one should be more solvable, good luck!

Earlier this week, Josh Marshall at TPM posted up some thoughts on Mexico:

Clearly, there’s a lot of violence in Mexico tied to the Mexican government’s attempted crackdown on its drug cartels. And the Mexicans are quite legitimately pressuring us to limit the number of guns being smuggled from the US into Mexico, which are fueling the fire. And if Mexico degenerates to the level of Colombia where for many years the key cartels have operated as rivals to the government — clearly beyond the legitimate government’s ability to bring them to heel — then that’s a big problem for us, given our proximity and long border, etc. But I keep hearing these stories about violence spilling over into the US, questions from whether we may need to deploy the US army to our own border, vague stories about death squads in the US. I’m not saying there’s nothing to it. But a lot of this has the feel to me of one of those stories ginned up by politicians and restless news outlets where there ends up being much much less there than meets the eye. Part of me wonders whether it’s a recrudescence of the illegal immigration hysteria of last two years.

There are three separate points being addressed here: (1) The issue of guns being smuggled into Mexico from the U.S. (2) The issue of Mexico’s inability to defeat the drug traffickers and (3) The issue of violence spilling over into the U.S.

Josh looks at these three issues and concludes that the third issue is being “ginned up by politicians and restless news outlets.” He’s right about that, and he later posts a link to a good piece in the Texas Observer about how the media is over-hyping the level of violence on the American side of the border. But the reality is that it’s both the first and third points that are being “ginned up by politicians and restless news outlets.”

Recently, a number of politicians and news outlets have been claiming that 90 percent of the guns that get used by Mexican drug traffickers come from the U.S. In actuality, that figure is wildly inaccurate. And Obama repeated the mythical percentage this week when meeting with Mexican President Calderon.

A certain amount of guns do cross the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and it’s possible that the amount of high-powered weapons bought on the illegal black market from the U.S. is higher than we can accurately measure, but to say that the flow of guns is “fueling the fire” in Mexico’s drug war is buying into a large amount of spin. What’s fueling the fire in Mexico is not the weaponry itself, but the money that the drug traffickers are making that allows them to spend so much money on weapons.

Radley Balko, in a column this week in The Daily Beast, gets to the heart of what’s going wrong in Mexico:

When Barack Obama visits Mexico today, the drug war, and the violence it has spawned south of the border, is expected to dominate the agenda. Since 2006, more than 10,000 people have been murdered in Mexico as a direct consequence of the drug trade. This bloody outbreak began when, with the blessing of and funding from the U.S. government, Mexican President Felipe Calderon ordered the Mexican military to aggressively crack down on the drug cartels. Such crackdowns often ratchet up the level of violence, as the elimination of one major drug distributor provokes those who remain to war over his territory. That’s a pattern as old and predictable as Prohibition itself, yet politicians never seem to learn.

Last month, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Mexico, she expressed gave concern over the escalating violence… and then heaped praise on Calderon’s crackdown, promising to support it with more funding and more military hardware. Obama appears poised to say much the same thing. According to a recent preview of his trip in The Washington Post, the president is expected to promise swifter delivery of drug-war aid and increased efforts by the U.S. to stop the flow of American weapons to Mexico. But the best solution to what’s plaguing Mexico right now is the one topic that will almost assuredly be off the table: legalizing marijuana. Marijuana makes up 60 to 70 percent of the Mexican drug trade. Lifting prohibitions on it in the United States would eradicate a major source of funds for the cartels.

I’m not saying that the first and third issues mentioned above – guns traveling across south of the border and increased violence north of the border – aren’t happening at all. What’s happening is that politicians and media outlets are using both of these issues as distractions in order to avoid dealing with the central issue that Balko is discussing right there. This is a problem of organized crime, and the fuel for that fire is the billions of dollars (I’ve seen various estimates of between $10 billion to $100 billion per year) that Americans spend on drugs. It’s not going to be solved by stricter gun control measures. And sending law enforcement to secure the border would only escalate the amount of violence in our border communities. The only way to solve this problem is to cut off the drug trafficker’s income. But that’s something that Obama and a large part of the news media still can’t bring themselves to regard as a serious issue.

Word out of Olympia is that momentum toward putting a high-earners income tax measure on the fall ballot is stalling, despite polling whose fundamentals show that an income tax probably has a better chance of passing than the third of a cent sales tax increase the conventional thinkers prefer.  There just doesn’t seem to be the stomach for it amongst the House leadership, nor enough clamor from well-healed constituency groups to steel their nerves.

“Next year,” income tax advocates are being told.  “Maybe next year.”

Yeah.  Right.

Next year would be the worst time for House Speaker Frank Chopp to see an income tax measure on the ballot, helping to turn out Republican votes in the many suburban swing districts on which much of his majority is built.  2011 doesn’t look much better, and then we’re into a gubernatorial election year in 2012, so you can rule that out as well.  By “next year,” of course, the powers that be mean “some other year,” which really means “never.”

It’s not the mere prospect of losing this battle that so disappoints me—I didn’t go into it reasonably expecting a win—it’s the manner in which the proposal has been summarily rejected by so many in our Democratic establishment.  While the vast majority of folks I’ve approached just seem befuddled at the issue even being raised, I’ve occasionally found myself the target of laughter and eye-rolling and even a little anger.  And I’m not talking about the vile trolls in my comment threads or the Seattle Times ed board; some of the worst of it has come from Democratic elected officials and their closest advisers.

There’s a good chance a high-earners income tax ballot measure would fail, and either way, it would certainly be an uphill fight.  I know that.  I’m not stupid and I’m not naive.  But this year, with this economy and this budget crisis, and with Barack Obama newly elected to the White House, was the perfect year to at least start the conversation about progressive tax reform… the polling proves at least that.  Yet apart from Senate Majority Lisa Brown, a handful of other legislators, and a couple of constituency groups, the Democratic establishment has largely refused to even enter the debate.

With such an unprecedented revenue shortfall to fill, this was never going to be a satisfying legislative session.  But I didn’t expect the process to be just as disappointing as the result.

There’s definitely change in the air around Washington state regarding the prosecutions of medical marijuana patients. Three more cases being tracked by the Cannabis Defense Coalition were dropped this week, one in Kitsap County, one in Pierce County, and one in King County.

In Kitsap County, charges against Monte Levine and Marc Derenzy, who have been fighting Kitsap County authorities for nearly a decade, were dropped. According to Levine:

Yesterday my partner Marc and I went into Kitsap Superior Court. I had been scheduled for an Omnibus Hearing on the charge of Manufacturing Marijuana. Instead we picked up the Order of Dismissal. We stood in front of newly elected judge Olson, who smiled broadly as she signed our orders.

The prosecution stated that it was not in the best interest of justice to pursue this case. We were told that the Kitsap Prosecutors will meet and confer before moving forward with any manufacturing case that involves marijuana.

In Pierce County, charges against Michael Byers have been dropped. Byers has been raided three times in the past five years by Pierce County authorities despite being an authorized medical marijuana patient.

The case in King County that was dropped this week was a little different, as the defendant, Gaura Kish, did not have a medical marijuana authorization at the time of his arrest for being in possession of a small amount of marijuana. However, when the prosecutor noticed that there were over a dozen observers in the courtroom, he reviewed the defendant’s medical records and decided that the case was not in line with King County’s policies for trying medical marijuana patients.

A fourth case in Mason County, that I mentioned here, had a hearing yesterday in front of a group of courtroom observers. According to one person via email, the prosecutor seemed very agitated during the entire proceeding. The next court date for that case is on May 4th in Shelton. If you’d like to be an observer, please contact the folks at the CDC.

I’m not sure what to make of this trend other than to see these dismissals as a recognition from our public officials that the general public is fed up with our marijuana laws and that there’s now a real price to pay politically from continuing to waste taxpayer money like this. In the recent online question and answer forum set up by the state’s Senate Democrats, the top question was about arresting non-violent drug offenders. And the short infomercial on our marijuana laws filmed by Rick Steves (that KOMO TV refused to air) has just been nominated for a Northwest Emmy. Times are changing quickly, folks. Let’s see if the clown car in Olympia can keep up.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VISVcPsDJi4[/youtube]

(A collection of some 60 other media clips from the past week in politics is can be found at Hominid Views.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKyqtSOYucs&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

As I’ve written before, I’m rather agnostic about the specifics of HB 2261, the education reform bill that supposedly expands the definition of basic education, but includes no funding mechanism to actually pay for it.  In fact, at the same time legislators are patting themselves on the backs for bucking the teachers union to pass this bill, they’re also preparing to cut $2 billion from K-12 education.  And that’s an odd definition of reform.

I know there’s a lot of mumbling in Olympia about how this reform bill will serve as a necessary roadmap for setting funding priorities once the economy, and thus the budget, recovers, but I’m not so sure I buy the thesis that the budget will ever fully recover.  Rather, without some sort of structural revenue reform, I think we’ll more than likely look back on this crisis as marking a permanent ratcheting down of state spending power, and thus a permanent ratcheting down of state services and infrastructure investments. Even under a run of the mill economic recovery (and few economists expect even that) it’s hard to imagine state coffers recovering to pre-recession levels as either a percentage of personal income, or inflation-adjusted per capita revenue, let alone increasing to the level necessary to support the type of new spending promised.

So where will the extra money come from?

As the Washington Education Association angrily points out, the backers of this education reform bill can’t tell you, because to be honest, they don’t really have a plan to pay for these reforms.  But rather than just putting together angry YouTubes (however righteous), perhaps the WEA might want to accept their legislative defeat, and then fill the void by proposing a funding plan themselves.

I think you all know where I’m going with this.

As the Seattle Times’ Andrew Garber reports today, yet another poll shows a high-earners income tax, while far from a sure thing with voters, is anything but DOA:

A recent survey by Seattle pollster Stuart Elway found that 53 percent of voters questioned were “inclined to favor” an income tax on individuals making $250,000 or households earning $500,000.

The poll also found that 51 percent of voters questions favored small increase in the sales tax increase to help fund the Basic Health Plan.

Writing about the poll results, Elway said, “Although Washington voters are open to the discussion of tax increases to help close the $9 billion state government budget gap, they remain to be convinced. It will not be an easy sell, but most will not slam the door in your face if you bring up the subject.”

By my count that’s the third poll to show a high-earners income tax polling in the low to mid 50’s, and while one generally wants ballot measures to start off at least 10 points higher, it’s a damn sight better than anybody had expected going into this debate.  And to the “experts” who insist that’s not good enough, I say tell me… when do you ever expect conditions to get any better?

Remember, an income tax was approved at the polls in 1932 by a 70% margin, yet a similar constitutional amendment was handedly rejected by voters just two years later.  Sometimes, the time is just right.

So, yeah, that’s my advice to the WEA… the time is right.  If the Legislature won’t show you the money, then be proactive and show it to them:  a high-earners income tax.  It’ll never happen without your support… and without some sort of substantive revenue reform, these education reforms will never be fully funded.