HorsesAss.Org

Sen. John McCain has a well earned reputation as a foul-mouthed hothead, having called opponents and colleagues “shitheads,” “assholes” and on at least one occasion, “a fucking jerk.” Personally, I have no qualms with the occasional profane rant, but you gotta admit, it’s not exactly presidential behavior.

Well, a new book, The Real McCain by Cliff Shecter, documents an outburst so shocking, even I winced at the senator’s choice of words:

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain’s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, “You’re getting a little thin up there.” McCain’s face reddened, and he responded, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.” McCain’s excuse was that it had been a long day.

As Shecter points out, McCain would have many long days if elected President.

The Seattle Times editorial board urges Gov. Gregoire to be “careful” regarding the state budget…

Its additions were modest, and the $0.015 billion the governor vetoed was helpful in that regard. So was the $0.85 billion ending savings account. But these changes were on the top of a total — $33.7 billion in a two-year cycle — that was not modest. In four years, state spending has risen by 33 percent. […] Some of this spending was necessary. But the across-the-board spending has meant the state was not able to lower taxes in any substantial way.

Yeah, well, there are reasons to be careful regarding the state budget in the face of an antiquated tax system that virtually assures a longterm structural deficit, but not for the reasons the Times suggests. Indeed, every time they trod out Rossi’s intentionally misleading “33 percent” number — without offering readers the appropriate budgetary context — the Times does a great disservice toward the cause of fiscal stability.

Yes, the state budget has grown by about a third over the past four years, and no, that rate is not sustainable when compared to longterm budget forecasts, but our state government’s growth has absolutely been “modest” by any meaningful economic measure. In fact, a January 2007 analysis by the Washington State Budget & Policy Center clearly shows that general fund spending under Gov. Gregoire has merely followed the same trend established during the 1990s.

The Times would have you believe that it was the spending increase under Gov. Gregoire’s watch that is the anomaly, when in fact it was the slower spending growth during the national recession and tepid recovery that actually fell below historical growth levels. Gov. Gregoire’s budget merely returned the state to the established trend.

Indeed, as a share of the total state economy, Gov. Gregoire’s budget actually represents a reduced investment — a smaller share of state resources than any of the six budgets that directly precede it.

Anti-government/anti-tax critics can spout all they want about rising spending and per-capita tax increases, but those numbers are entirely meaningless when taken out of context… as they usually are. Read the academic literature and you will find that the most common metric used in comparative studies of government spending, and for analyzing the relative growth of both expenditures and revenues, is spending/taxation as a percentage of personal income.

The reason is twofold. First, the economic metric that most closely tracks long term growth in demand for government services is growth in total personal income. That is because many of the services provided by the government are commodities, and as personal income increases, so does consumption. As our state grows wealthier, demand for government services increases faster than population plus inflation.

The other reason to focus on personal income is that it is the only metric that tracks individual taxpayers’ ability to pay. The state invests in things like transportation and education and law enforcement — investments that provide the infrastructure necessary for our economy to grow and for all our citizens to prosper. Thus a spending increase, even when accompanied by an increase in marginal tax rates, does not increase the real burden on individual taxpayers if it results in a corresponding increase in personal income.

So how does our state stack up in terms of state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income? Again, according to the Budget & Policy Center, Washington currently ranks 36th nationwide… and falling.

There is a legitimate debate to be had over the proper size and scope of government, and the priority in which we make public investments, but it is fundamentally dishonest to enter this debate by reinforcing the common misconception that our state government is out of control, when by the most meaningful measure — the government’s total share of our state’s economic resources — even a four-year 33-percent increase represents a decline from historic trends. And it is equally dishonest to profess a concern for fiscal responsibility by focusing solely on budgetary expenditures while refusing to address the revenue side of the equation.

Washington state not only boasts the most regressive tax structure in the nation — one in which the bottom 20% of wage earners pay a whopping 17.6% of income in state and local taxes while the wealthiest pay only 3.1% — our tax system is also based on an antiquated, early 20th century model that over-relies on an ever shrinking portion of our 21st century economy: the manufacture and sale of goods. Economic booms can mask this structural deficit in the short term, but because our economic growth is increasingly occurring in sectors that remain un- or under-taxed, longterm revenue growth simply cannot keep pace with growth in demand for public services… at least not without raising marginal tax rates, shifting an ever greater burden on exactly those families who can least afford it.

The Times and other critics have repeatedly cautioned about unsustainable budget growth while refusing to articulate which programs and services they would see slashed, or displaying an ounce of willingness to discuss the kind of fundamental tax restructuring that might allow state and local government revenues to reliably keep pace with both economic growth, and with the growth in demand for public services. If the Times editorial board wants a smaller state government — if they want to see less per capita real dollars spent on education, transportation, law enforcement, children’s health care, and other essential services — they should just come out and say it; we would all benefit from an honest debate. But the sort of disingenuous budgetary “concern trolling” they display in today’s editorial adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.

The nice thing about being a Democratic governor in Washington state is that you have several congressmen, many of them in safe seats, who have your back when you run for re-election. (Unfortunatly for Rossi, all he has is the BIAW and Jay Buhner.)

Riding the bus with the Gov today is Rep. Norm Dicks. He’s an Abrams tank of a man. Dicks is the perfect wartime consiglierie.

If you want to watch the kick-off online, check out the live feed here.

Turns out, Chris Gregoire’s mother was a single mom who worked at the local cafe, getting up early everyday to bake pies. At the start of every campaign, Gregoire returns to her hometown of Auburn, WA and visits the Rainbow Cafe. I’ve never been, but I like the small town dinners a lot. Since my family didn’t always have lots of money for expensive vacations, my dad and my sis and I would go on roadtrips around the state. The local diners were some of the highlights. OLne of my favorites? A dusty little joint in Washtucna.

Every politician should have a “Rainbow Cafe”.

First off, this is the nicest bus I’ve ever been on. Which isn’t saying much. Well, after the John Madden Cruiser, how many other “really nice” buses are there?

Somebody noticed my laptop, and just yelled at me.

“It’s about time we started kicking Dino Rossi’s ass.”

We’re underway…

I’ll be riding the Gregoire campaign bus tomorrow, reporting from stops along the way (wifi willing).

The first event starts at 10:15 AM in Auburn with another later in Tacoma. The bus then continues to Vancouver (without me, though.)

Later that evening I’ll be at Peter Goldmark’s campaign kick-off at the Olympic Sculpture Park. He’s running for commissioner of public lands. Special guest is Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer.

* Thank God I knew some people from Drinking Liberally, or I would have been bored out of my mind. I do appreciate the earnestness of the people there to debate resolutions, but holy shit did we really need to hand count the public financing resolution? I was there with a pregnant woman; standing in a hot sweaty gym for 4 hours was tough for me; I’m sure that extra 20 minutes of standing wasn’t good for her; and hello, the final four started at 3:00.

* Maybe it was a sense memory from being in a high school gym and later a high school auditorium, maybe it was the people I was with, maybe it’s just the events, but I was just asshole comment after asshole comment about the day’s events. It was like Mystery Science Theater 3000 except with politics.

* Sean Astin gave a good Clinton speech, but got cut off before he was done. It was good to hear him praise Obama but still be solidly in the Clinton camp. The first lady stuff, comparing Hillary positively to Abigail Adams and Elenore Roosevelt was marvelous. I feel bad about yelling, “thank you Frodo!” Especially since he didn’t actually play that part: “Rudy, Rudy, Rudy” would have been better.

* A bit better than 3 to 1 for Obama (I forget the actual count and it isn’t on the website yet, sorry if this is off). This seems fairly typical for Seattle.

* The Clinton subcaucus was a hoot. It was amazing to hear from all the people who are still going for her. A lot of great energy even in 30 second chunks. Also: Comfortable chairs in the auditorium.

* I put my name up for the state convention, and was able to keep under the allocated 30 seconds: My real name and number. There are plenty of under 30’s who support Hillary Clinton, and I’m one glad to be one of them. I’m supporting her because we can have a president who’ll work to make universal healthcare in this country and womens’ rights around the world a reality. My name and number.

* Thank Christ for the timekeepers. Molly, you rule! Janis, thank goodness you were there! It could have been a long ass break out session.

* How the hell long does it take to count the votes for delegate? Seriously, I still don’t know if I’m headed to the next level.

And what has Reichert done recently ever that’s captured the imagination of national pundits?

Um, I guess it’s finally time to take Chuck’s gun away from him…

Seattle’s Winlar asks “Which one is next?”:

Seattle Times editorial, titled “Snohomish County transit agency’s double-decker buses a success”:

The double-decked buses are proving to be practical, too. They can carry more passengers than an articulated bus, and can operate in worse weather conditions. During snowstorms, for instance, Community Transit has had to stop using the bendable buses, which can jackknife.

Then again, the top-heavy double decker buses have been known to tip over:

A deadly bus crash on I-15 last week has transportation officials changing the way they do business when it comes to vehicle maintenance. Officials say one week before the accident, drivers of the double-decker bus involved in the crash complained about the left tire.

I’ve struggled at times to explain exactly what “net neutrality” is, and why it is so important to the future of the Internet. But Damian Kulash Jr., the lead singer for the band OK Go, has no such problem; read his op-ed in today’s NY Times: “Beware the New New Thing.”

Most people assume that the Internet is a democratic free-for-all by nature — that it could be no other way. But the openness of the Internet as we know it is a byproduct of the fact that the network was started on phone lines. The phone system is subject to “common carriage” laws, which require phone companies to treat all calls and customers equally. They can’t offer tiered service in which higher-paying customers get their calls through faster or clearer, or calls originating on a competitor’s network are blocked or slowed.

These laws have been on the books for about as long as telephones have been ringing, and were meant to keep Bell from using its elephantine market share to squash everyone else. And because of common carriage, digital data running over the phone lines has essentially been off limits to the people who laid the lines. But in the last decade, the network providers have argued that since the Internet is no longer primarily run on phone lines, the laws of data equality no longer apply. They reason that they own the fiber optic and coaxial lines, so they should be able to do whatever they want with the information crossing them.

[… O]utright censorship and obstruction of access are only one part of the issue, and they represent the lesser threat, in the long run. What we should worry about more is not what’s kept from us today, but what will be built (or not built) in the years to come.

We hate when things are taken from us (so we rage at censorship), but we also love to get new things. And the providers are chomping at the bit to offer them to us: new high-bandwidth treats like superfast high-definition video and quick movie downloads. They can make it sound great: newer, bigger, faster, better! But the new fast lanes they propose will be theirs to control and exploit and sell access to, without the level playing field that common carriage built into today’s network.

They won’t be blocking anything per se — we’ll never know what we’re not getting — they’ll just be leapfrogging today’s technology with a new, higher-bandwidth network where they get to be the gatekeepers and toll collectors. The superlative new video on offer will be available from (surprise, surprise) them, or companies who’ve paid them for the privilege of access to their customers. If this model sounds familiar, that’s because it is. It’s how cable TV operates.

That’s net neutrality in a nutshell: do you want an Internet that operates like the one we have today, or one that operates like cable TV, where Comcast decides which content to carry, and offers it to you only in bundles of its own devising? Most folks simply aren’t going to subscribe to two internets, and those who choose the one with the high definition video on demand, very well may not have access to voices like mine. (Or for those on the other side of the ideological divide, voices like yours.)

You would think this is one issue on which we could all agree.

AND WHAT’S MORE:

Damian Kulash knows ping-pong, too:

Darcy Burner addresses the Take America Back Conference:

(This along with some seventy other media clips from the past week in politics are now posted at Hominid Views.)