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The Tacoma News Tribune editorial board chimes in on the growing crisis at our public college and university system: “Seats in public colleges, career opportunities, are fast disappearing.”

What’s being broken here is not only an intergenerational obligation, but a social compact. Washington lags far behind most other states in the capacity of its four-year schools. It supposedly compensates for this deficiency with higher-than-average capacity in its two-year colleges. The deal was, you could go to a community college, do your homework, then transfer to get a UW degree.

But this only works if there’s room at the UW in Seattle, Tacoma and Bothell – which there isn’t. Today’s 18-year-olds could well ask of today’s lawmakers and taxpayers, “Why couldn’t you provide for us the same college opportunity your parents provided for you?”

This is an issue that should create outrage, for it threatens all of our futures, not just the unfortunate members of the “baby boom echo” generation who are being denied educational opportunities. If universities are the engines that drive local economic development, ours is running out of gas.

Some of my regular readers might wonder why I am focusing on this instead of my usual obsession with tax structure and all things Eyman. Well this economically shortsighted failure to meet our “intergenerational obligation” is all about taxes.

The reason public universities across the state are shutting their doors to new admissions is because we the people have been too cheap to properly fund them. We’ve allowed lying, self-serving demagogues like Tim Eyman to convince us that state spending is out of control (it is not,) and spineless, unimaginative politicians to convince themselves that we can’t do anything to fix the most regressive and unfair tax structure in the nation… the true cause of our state’s growing crisis of revenue adequacy.

Take a look at this gem of quote in today’s Seattle P-I (“Sims, Gregoire widely split“) from Attorney General Christine Gregoire, the front runner for governor:

Gregoire added that a proposal to create an income tax would be “dead on arrival” with state lawmakers and the public. “Leadership is about getting things done,” she said.

That’s not “leadership” Christine… that’s following.

Leadership is using your office as a bully pulpit to build consensus where none existed. And while I’m not entirely convinced that Ron Sims is up to the task of persuading, cajoling and strong-arming voters into approving his tax reform proposals, at least he’s willing to spend his political capital trying, instead of just sticking his finger in the wind and accepting common wisdom.

“Pragmatic” politicians like Christine Gregoire and Gary Locke may think income tax proponents are tilting at windmills, but I’d rather fight a quixotic campaign to save our state from the inevitable budgetary meltdown, than continue to sit idly by watching middle- and low-income households ground between the mill stones.

We could implement a reform package that doesn’t cost Washington a penny more in taxes, yet easily puts an additional $600 million into state coffers. But rather than even discuss such a sensible proposal, Christine defends the status quo with misleading, Eymanesque scare tactics: “This is about whether we’re going to raise taxes as we’re trying to pull ourselves out of a recession.”

Ron’s reply is refreshingly blunt: “You can’t grow your economy with stupid, unskilled people.”

You get what you pay for folks, and right now we’re on pace to buy ourselves a second-rate economy.

I’m really beginning to like Bill Virgin.

A couple days ago I blogged about the need to properly fund state colleges and universities, or face the inevitable negative economic consequences. [I’m an east coast, elitist, academic snob]

In Thursday’s Seattle P-I, Bill echoes some of my comments, and elaborates further on the role of universities as economic engines. [University is now key to a state’s economy]

Universities have long been part of economic development, anyway, because of the research they produce that is commercialized by startups and existing companies, and because of the graduates and faculty members who become entrepreneurs.

I couldn’t agree more. (In fact, a couple days ago, I did.) But Bill goes on:

Today, though, governors and economic development authorities are deliberately and specifically designating universities as a key component in generating new economic activity, not just through training and education but as centers for creating new technologies and commercial ventures.

This is what wacky liberals like me mean when we talk about investing in the future. Thanks Bill, for pointing out a few more reasons why we’re not spending enough money on higher education!

Political consultant Christian Sinderman calls Tim Eyman “the state’s highest paid panhandler,” and Timmy’s out rattling his tin cup once again. [Eyman again solicits salary fund – despite setback]

Personally, I find it hard to believe that even his most fervent supporters will continue throwing good money after bad if Tim continues to fail to get his so-called “grassroots” initiatives on the ballot.

Last year it was I-807, this year I-864. Tim often asks supporters to “reinvest” their car-tab savings in his current tax-cutting scheme, but over the past two years contributors haven’t seen much return on their investment.

Tim claims to have collected 160,000 signatures for I-864, about two-thirds of his target… but I don’t really believe he came even that close. Hell, if I had been standing in front of cameras at the Secretary of State’s office trying to spin victory out of a failed petition drive, I might have exaggerated the numbers too. It’s hard to imagine an admitted liar like Tim could resist the temptation.

My educated guess is he didn’t break 100,000 valid signatures, and probably significantly less. I could write a week of blogs on how Tim screwed up this campaign, but I don’t need to give him any free advice.

Suffice it to say that the fact that Tim can’t raise enough money to hire the signature gatherers needed to qualify his “grassroots” initiatives for the ballot, suggests that there isn’t much grassroots support in Washington state for his anti-government, tax-cutting agenda. Tim might point to his gambling industry financed I-892 as evidence to the contrary, but if that campaign hints at any anti-tax fervor, it seems limited to corporate boardrooms in Nevada and British Columbia, where much of the contributions originated.

As far as I’m concerned, if Tim’s true believers want to spend their hard earned dollars paying the mortgage on his Mukilteo McMansion, more power to them. Those are dollars that won’t be spent on some other, more destructive cause.

On Friday the P-I reported that the University of Washington has stopped accepting transfers from community colleges due to over-enrollment. [No more transfers to UW]

Let’s get straight to the point: we’re not spending enough money on higher education!

And if we don’t fix this, our economy is eventually going to go to hell in a hand basket.

Cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and even rust-belt poster-child Pittsburgh, survived the collapse of their manufacturing industries — and prospered — due largely to the influx of talent attracted to their prestigious colleges and universities. The best and the brightest don’t just grab their degrees and leave; many settle in their adopted cities, creating new businesses and industries, or attracting existing ones to the growing pool of qualified workers.

My question is, which schools are going to be the economic engines for Washington, when we won’t even spend the money to educate our own children, let alone attract talent from out-of-state?

I moved to Seattle as an adult about 12 years ago, so I don’t have the same provincial pride in local institutions as most of you natives. And I’m not ashamed to admit that from my snobbish, east coast, elitist perspective there is not a single undergraduate program in the state that I could brag to family about my daughter attending.

Or rather, I am ashamed to admit this, because I’m a Washingtonian now, and I’m embarrassed to see my neighbors talk about how hard it is to get into the UW — like it’s some kind of west coast Harvard — when in fact increased admissions competition is due to declining funding not rising academic standards.

I grew up outside Philadelphia within 20 minutes of 4 schools — Haverford, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr and the University of Pennsylvania — where on its own, 1450 on your SATs and an A average would elicit a collective yawn from the admissions office. You show me the Washington state equivalent.

Now you can dismiss this as academic snobbery (and as President Bush proves, you can get a crappy education anywhere.) But show me a parent who wouldn’t want their children to gain all the advantages of an Ivy League education?

For whatever historical reasons, Washington is never going to have that kind of private college infrastructure. So we have to pick up the slack with our public university system.

Don’t get me wrong, the UW is a good state university… but it is only that.

And it is not going to get any better unless we fund it properly. That doesn’t simply mean more tax dollars. We also need to build the kind of multi-billion dollar private endowment that all the best schools rely on. And we need to move away from subsidizing all students equally, towards a means-tested system where tuition approaches market prices, and students receive generous financial aid based on need.

Either that, or we can continue exporting our best and brightest out-of-state.

We all know that Tim Eyman can be pretty damn revolting, but are taxpayers?

According to a recent survey conducted for the City of Renton… no.

As reported this week in the King County Journal (“Renton survey: Majority willing to pay more in property taxes“) a survey of 400 residents found broad support for maintaining public services at current levels. 63% responded that their local taxes were well spent, with only 24% saying they were not.

When informed that maintaining city services and facilities would require a levy increase of 1% (about $10 per year on average) 41% supported a 1% increase, while 15% supported increasing by more than 1%. Only 11% responded that they wanted lower taxes.

That’s 56% for higher taxes, 11% for lower.

What does all this mean? Well first of all, it apparently says that Renton is a well-run city.

But it also tells you that despite years of fomenting an anti-government tax revolt, Eyman’s claims of broad support for his tax-cutting agenda are groundless. Taxpayers are smart consumers, and except for a minority of ideologues, they are willing to pay for value when they see it.

There is no question that not all local governments are as efficient and responsive as the City of Renton. But that’s all the more reason to address these local problems locally rather than through Eyman’s ridiculously over-simplified statewide initiatives that seek to punish all governments, even those already doing a good job… especially those already doing a good job.

If Eyman somehow manages to get next year’s “Son of I-864” onto the ballot, he will be asking voters statewide to tell Renton voters that they can’t have the level of local services they want, unless they can manage a 60% supermajority to pass an excess levy.

That’s not just undemocratic. It’s just plain stupid.

The strategy for defeating I-892 (Slots for Tots) is to educate voters with truth: it massively expands gambling by legalizing slot machines in 4000 bars, restaurants, and bowling alleys, scattered through nearly every community in the state. If voters understand this very simple fact, the majority will vote against it.

Of course, that’s not the only reason to vote against I-892. Eileen Yoshina raises another important issue in today’s Olympian, that deserves to be talked about even if it isn’t the strongest political message. [Eyman’s life would be different as an American Indian]

Anybody can look at I-892’s motto “Just Treat Us the Same,” or read Eyman’s statements and understand the subtle racist appeal. Tim is clearly trying to make this an us-versus-them debate.

But if you were down there at the Secretary of State’s office when he first announced this initiative, and heard the tone in his voice as he delivered his statement before the cameras, there was really nothing subtle about it. This was a calculated, cynical and offensive appeal to voters’ basest instincts.

“Just Treat Us the Same” is not an accidental piece of rhetoric. Tim may not intend to inflame racial tensions, but he clearly doesn’t seem to mind if that is the unintended result.

Perhaps if Collin Levey spent a little less time reading the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and a little more time watching TV, she’d be better informed.

Oh, I’m not suggesting she tune in “Who Wants to Marry an Apprentice Survivor,” or whatever the latest hit reality show is (although that would probably still be more informative than the WSJ editorial page.) But if she was planning to write on federal forest management policies, she might have benefited from KCTS’s Tuesday airing of the NOVA episode “Fire Wars,” which chronicles the devastating 2000 forest fire season, and explains how a century of misguided fire suppression policy led to the monster fires we see today.

But no, just like the Bush administration, she prefers to base her opinions on political polemic rather than science. [It takes a tree-hugger to raze a forest]

So for Collin, the real culprit is the hoard of “downy youngsters with laptops chaining themselves to old-growth trees.” She finds this image so amusing she mentions it three times, and I admit it might have a satirical impact with readers if the image it parodied actually had any currency.

I’m an avid news-hound, and while I don’t doubt that somewhere in this great nation an idealistic, young environmentalist is protesting old-growth logging, I don’t recall a recent news story involving chains and laptops. (At least not related to forestry.)

I’m particularly leery of Collin’s tales of summer-camp-like tree sitting outings, with campers emailing home personal hygiene reports. It’s not the lack of showers that makes me suspicious — that’s consistent with my own overnight camp experience. It’s her obsession with laptops.

First of all, it can be hard enough configuring a WIFI network to extend 60 feet from the den to the living-room, let alone hundreds of miles deep into roadless, virgin forest. So it’s not like these purported young activists are passing the days browsing the internet.

Second, the average laptop is lucky to get 2 to 3 hours per charge, so unless these old growth stands happen to be strategically located near power outlets, I doubt these laptops are good for much more than protecting your lap from angry squirrels. In fact, harkening back to my own summer camp days, the only laptop I remember is that of a particularly odd counselor who always seemed a bit too fond of the younger boys.

I’m not saying Collin made this anecdote up; I’m sure she based it on something or other she read somewhere… before completely blowing it out of proportion. But as I’m too ethically rigid (i.e. cheap) to send a dime to the WSJ for the privilege of reading their editorial page slanders, I don’t usually have access to her primary source material.

In any case… there never is much subtext to Collin’s arguments, and this column struts the usual rhetorical cahones, branding Bill Clinton’s now-defunct road building ban “a giveaway.” A giveaway to whom? The American public who owns the national forests?

Calling it a “giveaway” implies that road building through virgin timber is somehow the natural state of affairs, but we’re talking about our national forests, not the interstate highway system. This isn’t the I-5 corridor, it’s the last 10% of old growth forest that once symbolized the Evergreen State.

Saving for future generations the few remaining patches of unspoiled wilderness is not a giveaway. A giveaway is subsidizing the logging industry by spending taxpayer dollars to build roads through virgin timber that would otherwise be uneconomical to cut.

By measuring forests in “board feet”, and attacking John Kerry for “sidling up to hunting and sportsmen groups,” it is clear that Collins idea of “more-localized accountability for the management of public lands” envisions our national forests as little more than the unfinished two-by-four section of Home Depot.

I understand Collin’s partisan zeal to reduce this issue to a fight between Democrats and the rest of us, but in so doing she dumbs down a complex debate that would best be decided by forestry experts rather than politicians, columnists and bloggers. It is convenient for her to blame the recent spate of fires on “hands-off” forestry policy, but she’s clearly spent little if any effort researching the issue.

If Collin really wants to understand the scientific and historical context of todays forestry practices, she should set her VCR for Saturday, July 17 at 2:00 AM, when KCTS rebroadcasts “Fire Wars.”

But I doubt she’s interested. See, the problem with science is that — unlike the WSJ editorial page — it doesn’t always tell you what you want to hear.

Well that was fun. The final results are in:

Do you think non-tribal casinos in Washington should be allowed to operate slot machines?
Yes: 37.4%
No: 47.0%
Don’t know: 1.8%
Don’t care: 13.7%
Total Votes: 4377

I take back everything I said about online polls being bogus. This poll was clearly a scientific and accurate representation of public opinion.

Wow… for much of the morning the P-I’s bogus online poll regarding I-892 was hovering around 43% yes, 37% no. Then we started getting the word out, and the numbers started to change. As of a couple minutes ago it is now 40.9% yes and 42.2% no!

Let’s push the yes vote under 40%! Vote early, vote late… vote often!

Speaking of today’s Seattle P-I, their website is in the midst of one of those bogus internet polls, this one asking “Do you think non-tribal casinos in Washington should be allowed to operate slot machines?”

As of this writing, a plurality of votes are in favor, 44% to 37%. But the results might be different if the question was asked of local bars, bowling alleys and restaurants, instead of just casinos.

The results might also be different if my loyal readers would pass the word along to go to http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/ and vote no. (Of course you don’t want to delete the cookies Poll1454 and Poll1454State and vote repeatedly. That would be dishonest.)

I know rigging the vote on an online poll is, well… sophomoric. But then, so am I.

What a whiner. Tim Eyman emailed his list with one of his “media double-standards” rants. Apparently Tim is a little pissed that his expensive, paid-signature-gathering campaigns have received more bad press than some of the other expensive, paid-signature-gathering campaigns.

So when billionaires Bill Gates, Bill Gates Sr, Nicholas Hanauer, and the teachers’ union “buy their way on the ballot” with anti-taxpayer Initiative 884, the press looks the other way. But when Washington-based businesses financially support pro-taxpayer I-892, the press throws a hypocritical hissyfit.

Oh. You mean “Washington-based businesses” like, say… The Great Canadian Gaming Corporation?

Local subsidiaries of British Columbia-based Great Canadian Gaming Corp., which owns four Washington casinos and says it has expansion plans, have now poured $160,000 in cash and loans into the apparently successful effort to get I-892 onto the ballot.

That’s from today’s Seattle P-I, where Neil Modie lays out the money being raised for and against I-892 (“Tribes battle Eyman initiative to legalize slot machines in state.”) So let’s just compare Great Canadian with evil billionaire Bill Gates for a moment.

If I-892 passes, Great Canadian stands to suck an additional $20 million a year out of state and across the border, whereas if I-884 passes, Bill Gates, who has helped bring billions of dollars of wealth into our state, will pay a little extra for whatever it is evil billionaires buy.

And whatever you think of Microsoft’s monopolistic practices, at least Gates and his company aren’t currently facing allegations of loansharking, prostitution, profit skimming, financial fraud, and bribery… unlike Great Canadian.

See… I have a suggestion Tim: perhaps the reason your initiatives attract more criticism than some of the others, is that your initiatives clearly suck.

And perhaps the reason the media pays a little more attention to I-892’s contributions is that over a third of the money has come from out-of-state and foreign corporations, and your top three contributors have all been the subject of various criminal and civil investigations. Notice that the media has not leveled a single attack against contributors to I-864, which mostly consist of the average joes you abandoned to focus on the more remunerative I-892 campaign.

But for consistency sake, let me just reiterate again my position. I believe the shift towards high-cost professional initiative campaigns that rely predominately — if not solely — on paid signature gatherers is disastrous to our democracy. And for the record, I did not sign a single initiative this year.

Tim can whine all he wants, but he, his initiatives, and his backers deserve all the media scrutiny they get… and more so. Tim has been instrumental in transforming “direct” democracy into “corporate” democracy, in which only wealthy special interests have the resources to use the initiative process to get their pet legislation onto the ballot.

He has no reason to complain if wealthy special interests he disagrees with simply follow his lead.

You know, Tim Eyman could have attempted to point towards today’s article in the Bremerton Sun as a moral victory. [Failed I-864 will still affect city]

The story outlines how some city and county governments are working on “cost-of-government” studies to help develop clearer spending priorities in the wake of the budget scare over I-864 (Cruel and Stupid 25% Tax Cut.)

Instead of claiming credit (deserved or not) for promoting accountability, Tim is quoted dismissively repeating his standard “fat and happy” line. He then emailed a copy of the article to his list (once again in violation of copyright laws) advising them not to get their hopes up, and promising a more draconian sequel. (A 35% tax cut next year?)

Which raises the question as to what is his true agenda? Is it really to protect taxpayers, as he claims, or is it merely to perpetually run initiatives?

Tim is clearly a libertarian. But apparently his radical anti-government agenda is only surpassed by his own personal self-interest.

Tim is in the initiative business, and a moral victory is useless if it doesn’t put money in the bank. If voters see public officials as responsive and accountable, then contributions will dry up, and Tim will be out of a job.

In fact, Tim can’t afford to bask in any victories, moral or otherwise. What Karl Marx wrote of the bourgeoisie could well be applied to Tim’s perpetual revolution… what it produces above all is its own gravediggers.

The point is, there is no end game for Tim, no scenario in which he could ever claim victory, because that would undermine support for next year’s professional campaign. Defeat for Tim is not losing at the polls or failing to qualify for the ballot… it would be to find himself back hawking novelty watches again.

The Seattle P-I’s business columnist, Bill Virgin, voices a perspective we haven’t heard too much from during the debate over I-892 (Slots for Tots.) [Gambling craze not a good bet for states]

States are making a big mistake counting on taxes on gambling to provide a stable source of revenues. And Bill points out that even as the rest of the nation has rushed to explode gambling, Nevada has been working diligently to diversify their economy.

Tim Eyman is pitching I-892 as something for nothing, a $400 million tax cut that won’t cut services. His “revenue neutral” claim is a lie, of course, that shows an understanding of economics as shallow as his ethics. It also ignores the enormous cost to state and local governments of dealing with gambling’s problems. Not to mention the incalculable toll in human misery.

But all that aside, I-892 suggests we’re sitting on top of an untapped reservoir of tax revenues, and that the more we expand gambling the less we’ll have to rely on taxpayers to fund essential government services.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

As the market approaches saturation, revenues will decline with margins, and many casinos will find themselves hard pressed to turn a profit. You can be sure that with billions of dollars in revenues and thousands of employees, casino operators will turn towards the Legislature for tax breaks to keep them in business.

Even now, one of the arguments made to legalize slot machines is that non-tribal operators can’t compete with the tribal casinos. It is not a stretch to suggest that in the near future, further demands will be made to subsidize an industry controlled by foreign and out of state interests, and which adds not a single dime of wealth to our economy.

I don’t always agree with Bill Virgin, but this one’s a no-brainer. Expanding gambling is not a good bet for Washington state.

As published in a number of papers today, the AP reports that the sales tax deduction plan currently before congress would only benefit a third of Washington residents, the vast majority from wealthy households. [Sales tax deduction plan ripped]

In Washington state, 34.7 percent of taxpayers itemized on their federal returns in 2001, the study said. Those numbers dropped to 29.9 percent of those who earned below $100,000, and 17.8 percent of those who earned below $50,000.

By contrast, more than 90 percent of tax filers with annual incomes over $200,000 itemized.

Figures, doesn’t it? George Nethercutt, who’s running against Patty Murray for the Senate, has made a big hoo-hah about sales tax deductibility (a concept which is supported by the entire state delegation, even if the specific bill that contains this measure is not.) But as usual, Republican tax cuts tend to be primarily tax cuts for the rich.

(Oh… and Nethercutt also doesn’t like to mention the fact that it expires after two-years. Naw, that doesn’t sound like a manufactured election year issue, does it?)

Anyway, nobody from WA is going to argue against sales tax deductibility… it’s in our own interests. But it completely misses the point.

The real solution is not to reinstate sales tax deductibility (eliminated by Ronald Reagan, by the way) but to bring Washington’s tax structure into the 21st Century (hell, I’d settle for the 20th) and implement an income tax.

Yeah I know, common wisdom is that the income tax is the third rail of Washington politics, but judging from the turnout at his Tax Reform Town Hall Meeting on Saturday, gubernatorial candidate Ron Sims has apparently touched it and lived. In fact, rumors are that polls show Sims steadily closing the gap on frontrunner Christine Gregoire in the weeks since he prominently made tax reform the central theme of his campaign.

Gregoire and Rossi maintain their dismissive attitude towards this issue at their own risk. I was impressed by Sims’ deft mixture of energetic populism with a genuine effort to build consensus by providing voters the tools to understand this very complex issue. (Take a look at the Tax Reform Calculator on his campaign website for an example of his measured approach.)

Talking to Sims, he seems to understand that any tax reform package must come before the people as either an initiative or a referendum. As Governor, his role would not be to impose a plan from on top, but to use his bully pulpit to build consensus from the ground up.

Whatever speculation one might make as to the political calculations that led Sims to embrace what most consultants would consider a losing issue, I am convinced that his decision is a display of faith… faith that voters will welcome a reasonable discussion on the issues, whatever the partisan rhetoric of reform opponents.

For example, depending on how one structured a tax reform package, we could actually generate the extra billion dollars I-884 wants to put towards funding education, without costing state taxpayers a single dime. Show me a voter who wouldn’t at least want to hear the details of such a win-win proposal, and I’ll show you… Tim Eyman.

In my ode to Phil Talmadge on his withdrawal from the race (“Talmadge’s withdrawal smarts“) I summed up the Sims campaign by saying “Ron is running on being a leader.”

This is exactly the kind of leadership I was talking about.

I just wanted to point you towards an excellent editorial in in today’s Tacoma News Tribune: “Irresponsible initiative meets deserved fate.”

Enough said.