Apparently, my incredibly foul-mouthed mockery doesn’t do much to hurt my credibility after all, for the same day I called a sitting state senator a "pig fucker" (repeatedly) a bipartisan crowd of reputedly respectable politicos and journalists joined me a our weekly meeting of Seattle’s Drinking Liberally.
We couldn’t quite convince Seattle Times editorial board member Bruce Ramsey to join us on the podcast, but state Rep. Toby Nixon (R-45) proved more foolish. Joining me and Toby in literally naked discourse were Will, Carl, Seattle P-I political columnist Joel Connelly, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Topics of discussion included the Times incredibly mean-spirited and over-the-top attack on Darcy Burner (apparently written by Kate Riley, go figure), the relative irrelevance of editorial board endorsements, Jimmy’s fascinating new political venture Campaigns Wikia, a refreshingly wonkish (though surprisingly entertaining) discussion of tax restructuring and education funding, and Toby’s startling endorsement of a state income tax.
The show is 59:35, and is available here as a 26 MB MP3. Please visit PodcastingLiberally.com for complete archives and RSS feeds.
[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for producing the show.]
All income in WASH should be taxed [state tax] at 50%. Have at it, commie libs!!!
It’s way past time for this state to have a state income tax. Those damn multi-billionaires in Seattle have been getting over not paying their fair share of taxes for decades.
Bill Gates – when are you going to start paying for the “commons?”
Darcy Burner is debating Reichert tonight at a League of Women’s voters forum —
Mercer Island Candidate Forum
At Islander Middle School
8225 SE 72nd St.
Mercer Island, WA 98040
Wednesday, October 18
7:00 – 7:30pm Reception
7:30 – 9:00pm Forum
more info at: http://www.mipreschoolassociat.....lative.htm
David, did you read the second editorial in today’s Seattle Times? Is their position self-interested or genuinely community-minded?
Almost every year our budget predictions in Washington state swing widely between an unexpected surplus and a disasterous deficit. Since the state must balance its books, and teachers cannot be treated as if they were temporary workers, we need a more stable revenue flow.
The B&O tax system in this state is a disaster, punishing small businesses with a tax on their “gross revenues”, not taking into account most expenses (including even the cost of goods sold). The largest businesses are largly exempt or pay nominal rates, by virtue of lobbying and carefully defining their “catagory” to give them favorable treatment.
A stable taxing system relies upon all three legs of the stool: income, property, and consumption (sales). This creates a more stable income flow, regardless of the temporary hills and valleys in the state’s economy. Oregon has been suffering considerably over the past few years, in part, because they only have two legs of the stool (property & income tax).
A smart state income tax system simply mimics the federal one, asking for you to take the “taxable income” from the appropriate line of the federal tax form, and multiply it by the appropriate state tax rate, to calculate the state income tax. If the legislature can resist the temptation to make local adjustments, then the cost and effort of filling out the state form is minimal.
The total tax revenue to be raised from those three sources is a seperate issue from the method in which they are collected. It is quite possible to set up a combined income, sales tax, and property tax system which does not cost the average Washington worker any more money than they currently pay. Of course, there would be some winners and losers in such a system. Those with higher incomes would pay more, and lower incomes would pay less in total taxes. That is where you could expect the resistance to arise.
Perhaps instead of saying “winners and losers”, I should have said “winners and whiners”.
The issue is not taxing billionaires. First of all, Washington has only a dozen or so billionaires. Secondly, those billionaires probably all pay a significant amount in sales and property taxes. But even if all of Washington’s billionaires were evading virtually all state and local taxation under the current system, that really doesn’t have much to do with the reasons for overhauling our state tax system.
1) Washington’s tax system is a Rube Goldberg patchwork of revenue-raising devices randomly grafted into the laws at various times over the course of a century that lacks rationality and fairness.
2) The existing system is difficult to enforce and unduly expensive to administer.
3) The Gates Commission study revealed the existing system is grossly inequitable: The tax burden is disproportionately borne by low-income households and small business. Specifically, the study found the highest income quintile pays only 4% of their income in state and local taxes, while the lowest income quintile pays 17% of their income in state and local taxes, more than 4 times as much; and small business pays 41% of total state and local tax revenues, compared to an average of 30% in the other western states.
4) The B & O tax is unfair, imposes costly recordkeeping on small businesses, treats businesses differently according to how much political power they have in Olympia, and discourages businesses from locating in Washington and discourages job creation.
5) The sales tax is now so high many Washington citizens engage in significant tax-avoidance efforts by shopping on-line or in Idaho and Oregon, and it is profitable for them to do so.
The problem is NOT spending. The cost of state and local goverment in Washington is about average compared to the rest of the nation. Moreover, most of that spending is for items that can’t be significantly cut without harming the state’s economy or public welfare: Transportation, education, law enforcement, and prisons. Take away those things, and the state’s economic output will suffer, and every will be worse off — it’s like giving up $100 a day of earnings by refusing to pay $2 a day for bus fare to work.
For decades, tax reform in our state has been blocked by the politically powerful, generally Republican-leaning, upper-middle-class households that would be required to pay a fairer share under a more rational tax system. The main beneficiaries of the current system are high-income households and large corporations like Boeing, Weyerhauser, and Microsoft who have enough legislative clout to get exemptions from the onerous business taxes that drive mom-and-pops into the ground.
The ordinary citizens who are getting screwed by the current system have the votes to bring about reform — so we can get the job done by educating the public. It won’t be easy, because reformers will have to overcome a wall of inertia, the emotionalism that surrounds this issue (“no income tax! no way! no how!”), and the inevitable lies and disinformation campaigns that will be mounted by the special interests who are getting a free ride under the current system at our expense. To see what that will be like, all you have to do is look at the propaganda of the anti-inheritance-tax gang. It will take a well-organized, persistent, and determined effort — but I believe it can be done.
1
No — only YOUR income should be taxed at 50%. Hell, in your case, the tax rate should be 100%. Just for being you.
2
Decades ago, Bill Gates was just a kid getting an allowance.
4
The Seattle Times editorial board consists of several veteran journalists, and the Times editorial page runs not only Frank Blethen’s periodic personal rants, but also the generally thoughtful work product of this group.
They make a cogent (but less than compelling) argument against I-91. It’s time to shut down the sports promoters who want taxpayers to put up the capital for their venues — not only because they have already reached deeply into our pockets, but also because they’ve overreached: No matter how much we let them take us for, it’s never enough; every billion they extract from ordinary citizens is an invitation to grab even more. There will never be any end to it.
I do believe this community is already over-invested in sports facilities, and under-invested in things that matter more (like schools and crumbling infrastructure). Studies show that sports team create very few new jobs, and bring in virtually no money from outside the community — they simply take consumer spending away from other local businesses. In other words, a zero-sum game. On the other hand, sports teams ARE efficient at creating traffic jams, and neighborhood noise and impacts.
But the biggest objection I have to building any more sports venues at public expense is that I’m simply fed up with paying taxes for expensive facilities the teams throw away after a few years. The Kingdome was only 24 years old when it was dynamited. Key Arena received an expensive remodel only 11 years ago, but the Sonics owners already went to gut and rebuilt it or tear it down at a $200 million-plus cost to taxpayers. If they get their quarter-billion-dollar new arena, 10 years from now it won’t be good enough and they’ll demand that taxpayers pony up again … maybe for half a billion or a billion next time … holding the team hostage (“we’ll move if you don’t”).
And our sycophantic pols and city bureaucrats suck up to them, and enable this bullshit to go on. Why not? It isn’t their money they’re spending, it’s ours.
I-91 is aimed at city officials, including — especially — elected city officials even more than it’s aimed at the greedy sports promoters. Both groups are out of control, but the city officials who are supposed to protect our interests are the most out of control. The gist of the Seattle Times editorial is that we should entrust our pocketbooks to the very out-of-control politicians and bureaucrats the intiative is designed to stop!
Bad call. The Seattle Times is wrong on this one. The interest rate is a minor detail. I-91 may not be flawless in the details, but the idea of letting the city government — which is controlled by business and developer interests — call the shots on spending the taxpayers’ money on sports facilities is a blunder of the first magnitude.
Vote FOR I-91. You’ll regret it if you don’t.
I emphatically deny having endorsed a state income tax. And drinking or being liberal. And being literally naked. And cavorting with swine. (Just being pre-emptive on that last one…)
But I would not hesitate to join you again, David. It was a blast.
I think it’s a dumb idea to build multi-zillion sports arenas without public approval (I think part of the reason Tim got his start was because the state gave a big middle finger to King County voters regarding Safeco Field, and built it after a stadium was REJECTED in a public vote)- and I-91 could easily be repealed by simply having a City Council put a referendum on the ballot. Freaking school construction levies get public votes- why shouldn’t sports arenas/
So I think I-91’s irrelevant, personally. If the plebs want circuses, they should be able to have them. If not, then it’s not the job of government officials to go behind their back, because I see these sorts of things as quite secondary compared to roads/schools/fire/police/water/etc.
“Maybe our side ought to steal elections.”
Commentby Roger Rabbit— [NOV 2000…….Black districts in Philly voting Democrat at 115% of registration. New York Jews voting Democrat in NYC and in Palm Beach and Miami, FL. East St. Louis, MI………Democrat judges orders polls in ONLY black districts to stay open two extra hours while polls in the white areas were ordered to close on time. Milwaukee, WI……….Young black Democrats slashing tires on Republican vans on Election Eve. RR, Democrats are the Party of Voter Fraud. That is why you fight voter ID and/or the “purple” finger. Sad………Democrats: Just like a third world country.]
Now we’ve learned that Hugo Chaves is training Islamic terrorists how to speak Spanish. Then he teaches them how to pass as Latinos, gives them faske documents,and sends them on their way into the United States to vote Democrat . Does anyone on HA.ORG have a problem with that? [Democrats: domestic idiot terrorists]
In a letter to the Seattle Times, Mike Moedritzer of Seattle asks,
“Would the people supporting a new viaduct still think it’s OK if they understood it would be an ugly scar on our urban landscape as far into the future as anyone can imagine — the rest of their lives, their children’s lives and their children’s children’s lives?”
Roger Rabbit answers,
Yes. Although I think Mr. Moedritzer is conflating how long a replacement structure will last — we’re talking 50 years, not 100 years. I would add, if you want pretty views, Mr. Moedritzer — pay for it yourself. I can’t afford to grace you with pretty views … that’s my food money you want to spend.
He continues,
“How about if they learned it will set us back from achieving widely held goals of improving air quality, reducing greenhouse gases, reducing dependence on foreign oil, and enhancing the public transportation option to freeway traffic?”
Huh?!! How the fuck does a tunnel improve air quality? The vehicle exhaust will still end up in the atmosphere, after being blown out of the tunnel by fans. How the fuck does a tunnel reduce dependence on foreign oil? He seems to assume building a tunnel will get people out of their cars and onto buses. Please explain your reasoning, Mr. Moedritzer.
“What if they knew that, as bad as the current viaduct is in urban aesthetics, the new one will by far out-ugly the old, as it is projected to be taller, wider, stouter; and surely noisier and dirtier as well, creating perhaps twice the pigeon and rat habitat underneath?”
Now I know for sure this guy has an agenda. Is he a downtown property owner hoping to reap millions in enhanced property values from improved views? I’ll bet he is. This screed is pure bullshit. He’s trying to tell us the architects can’t design a structure more pleasing to the eye than the current one. I say, you’re just blowing smoke out of your ass, Mr. Moedritzer.
“A new viaduct’s only positive is less cost. Surely we can do better than that!”
Well, if you really really really want a tunnel, I have a couple of suggestions about how to get one without burdening homeowners, retirees on fixed incomes, and others who will get little or no benefit from it and can’t afford to pay for it:
1) Charge tolls.
2) Sell the air rights above it to developers for office buildings.
3) Create a Special Improvement District to collect taxes from the property owners who will benefit from enhanced views and increased property values to pay the difference in costs.
4) Let the people who want a tunnel donate their money to a special voluntary “Tunnel Fund.”
5) The city should buy 125,000 lottery tickets. The money will come from Greg Nickels donating his salary for this purpose.
6) A combination of the above.
11
Of course you were cavoting with swine.
Another republican Congressman appears to have courted underage Pages for homosexual sex. Yet the righties have no problem with that conduct as long as it’s one of their own showing such “moral” superiority!
Hey Toby, as long as you’re here on this board, I want to ask you to take a moment to pay attention to the vox populi:
1. NO MORE TAXPAYER MONEY FOR SPORTS VENUES!!!
2. NO TUNNEL!!!
Any questions?
18
Of course, being a Republican, I don’t expect you to listen to me. After all, I’m not exactly the GOP’s biggest fan and supporter. But maybe you’ll listen to the little voice of common sense inside your head warning you that low-wage workers, retirees on fixed incomes, and other people of limited means are tired of being asked to pay for gold-plated civic toys. And next time you see Pam Roach, please tell her that Roger Rabbit thanks her for saving my ass! She has done a great service to our state’s liberal community by keeping Roger Rabbit in circulation. Whatever I am, I’m not an ingrate.
13
No, I fight voter ID because it’s a sleazy gimmick to disenfranchise eligible voters for the crime of leaning Democratic. Voter ID proponents haven’t proved, and can’t prove, a single case of a polling place imposter. It’s a “solution” to a “problem” that doesn’t exist. It’s only purpose is to suppress the Democratic turnout.
13 (continued)
If you want to play that game, JCH, then I think we should require Republican voters to prove they’re not traitors as a condition of voting — and I’ll decide what constitutes “treason.”
Robert Crocker of Chehalis wrote to the Seattle Times:
“There is only one proper and ‘green’ solution to resolving the crumbling Alaskan Way Viaduct problem and that is to tear it down and declare all the land in its shadow a wilderness area — a wilderness area where walkways and bike paths will proliferate and be the only form of transportation allowed, and old-growth cedars are planted and allowed to prosper and grow again.”
Roger Rabbit replies,
Shut up. You don’t know a fucking thing about urban problems. People like you who live in small towns surrounded by farms and forests have opportunities us city folks can’t even dream of to live amidst aesthetic surroundings. And what do you troglodytes with your heads stuck in a 19th-century robber-baron mentality do to YOUR environment? Chehalis sucks. You live in an ugly town. So shut up and don’t tell us Seattleites what to do.
Toby @11,
Thanks for coming by last night and being such a good sport. I’m sure you may disagree, but freeing up your Tuesday nights so that you can become a DL regular is all the more reason to vote for Eric.
18 RR
I prefer a tunnel replacement for the viaduct, in part because it then becomes much easier to replace the seawall at the same time, but I agree with you that creative funding for the project should ameliorate the burden of those on fixed incomes.
JCH
I gotta say, JCH, I’m pretty much against anything you are for.
Roger,
I’m still in favor of a tunnel, even if it costs more, as long as it can be designed to safely survive an earthquake.
I am influenced by the experience of the building of the Weslake Mall. Stenbruck (sp?) argued that the area should be left an open park, to create a vista from Downtown Seattle to Lake Union. I thought that was a silly argument. Until they tore down the old buildings, and suddenly the beautiful architecture of the surrounding buildings became visable, and the view down the hill to Lake Union was breathtaking. It would have indeed created a center for the City of Seattle, a great public gathering place.
Now we have a similar opportunity with regard to the viaduct. Even if a tunnel costs significantly more, this is not a time to be penny-wise and pound-follish. You only get a chance to make a majro civic improvement like this once in a lifetime, it will certainly have to last at least another fifty years.
But being from Everett, I would benefit from the tunnel during my trips to Seattle, but I would probably have no say in its construction. If we had a tunnel instead of a viaduct, I would probably go to the Seattle waterfront more often, bringing my money with me and spending it in Seattle. As it is now, the noise from the viaduct just doesn’t make it a peaceful experience for me.
One of the problems with the monorail was that it was too big a project for just the city, it needed a regional funding base. I think the viaduct also needs more widespread funding. Certainly the federal and state governments should pony up an appropriate share. But perhaps the regional transportation systems linking Snohomish, King, and Pierce County should contribute also, as their traffic will also use those roads. Finally, there should be a “local improvement district” tax which allows the property owners who would benefit most from the removal of the viaduct to participate in its construction cost.
Boy, first I thought Toby was nusts (or drunk) regarding the income tax…glad you clarified this and didn’t endorse it.
I have no problem with a fair tax, but knowing our elected democrats in the State government, an income tax would not replace the current tax structure, but being added to it…therefore costing us more taxes. I just don’t trust our Government in Olympia. And that alone is a reason to vote for Toby to get more balance into this bunch.
Speaking of balance: Got a call/survey yesterday from India asking if I would vote for Eric….now that is weird…it was praising Eric, so I assume it was a democratic poll…geeze, next time anyone complains about jobs going overseas.
And Roger: Yes on no more taxes for sports and Yes on no tunnel.
JCH: Say you are for freedom and Daddy Love will have to say he’s for slavery or similar actions! Otherwise Daddy Love is just another liar!
Jaybo blogged:
“n ethnic jew finally makes his position clear.
Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2006 3:45 p.m. EDT
George Soros Takes Aim at Israel
Billionaire investor George Soros is leading a move to stitch together an American Jewish political lobby that is “anti-Israel,” according to a column in the Jerusalem Post.
Soros, who spent millions attempting to defeat President Bush in 2004, is one of a “tiny minority of American Jews” who have played a role in undermining support for Israel in the Democratic Party, and they now seek “to undermine Israel’s position in the U.S. in general,” Caroline Glick writes in the Post.
Soros has invited another American Jewish billionaire, Peter Lewis, along with “North American Jewish plutocrats” like Charles and Edgar Bronfman, to join forces with him and leftist Jewish American organizations – including American Friends of Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom – to construct a political lobby that will weaken the influence of the pro-Israel lobby.
“Many of the individuals and organizations associated with the initiative have actively worked to undermine Israel,” Glick writes.
“Soros caused a storm in 2003 when, during a fund-raising conference for Israel, he alleged that Israel was partially responsible for the rise in anti-Semitic violence in Europe because of its harsh response to Palestinian terrorism.”
Glick also points out that in November 2005, the leaders of the Israel Policy Forum met with Condoleezza Rice and urged her to dismiss Israel’s security concerns regarding two of the Gaza Strip’s border crossing points. As a result, Rice pressured Israel to make dangerous concessions to the Palestinians.
And after Hamas’ electoral victory in January, American Friends of Peace Now, Israel Policy Forum and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom worked to shield the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority from Congressional sanctions.
Together they worked to torpedo the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act, which enjoyed overwhelming support in the Congress and was designed to update American policy toward the Palestinian
Authority in the wake of Hamas’ ascendance to power.
Among its provisions, the bill called for an immediate end to U.S. assistance to nongovernmental and U.N. organizations operating in the PA that had connections to terrorist organizations.
Due to the lobbying efforts of the “Jewish leftists,” the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act was eventually scuttled, Glick notes, adding:
“Soros would like to institutionalize the ad-hoc coalition’s success in undermining the Palestinian Anti-Terror Act in a new lobby.
“While its Jewish founders insist that they are pro-Israel, the fact of the matter is that they are about to establish an American Jewish anti-Israel lobby.”
Commentby jaybo— 10/18/06@ 6:18 am”
Well said jaybo. I’d add Goldy to that list. Funny how that happens! Nuff SAID!
David; friend of Israeli Supreme Court justice: Do you support George Soros? Just wondering?
I bet John Dingell has been made an honorary Jew in the Jew-Haters Club.
Goldy MWS asked when you will post links the Haaretz and JPost? Are you OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH SO SO SO SO SO SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO afraid of moonbats viewing the truth about your democratic friends hamas, al aksa, and hezbollah? Did Rachel Corrie die in vain Goldy?
26
rhp, you’re usually a reasonable guy on this board, and I don’t want to encourage liberals to eat their own. Part of how we got to where we are now is we’re good at that. So let’s consider this a competition of ideas among friends.
For decades, nobody thought of the viaduct as civic decoration. Its function is to move 110,000 vehicles a day through downtown Seattle to sustain this city’s commerce. As transportation infrastructure, it serves us best by doing that expeditiously and cost effectively. It isn’t a park or a gathering place.
“Penny wise and pound foolish” is one of those statements that contains inherent wisdom but is a meaningless platitude when removed from context. The context in this case is spending a rather large extra sum of money to enhance SR-99 through downtown Seattle, not by increasing its traffic capacity, but by undergrounding it to make the city prettier. You can make the same argument for undergrounding power lines in residential neighborhoods so we don’t have to look at ugly poles and overhead lines. Problem is, all these things cost a lot of money, and a lot of folks only have a little money.
When I was an employed professional earning an adequate, albeit not generous, salary it was easy for me to forget that some of the people around me couldn’t afford things I thought we should pay for. Now that I’m retired, and facing the scary prospect of trying to live on a modest pension income that will never increase despite inflation, with health insurance alone taking a third of it off the top (before copays, deductibles, and non-covereds are paid), I have a good deal more empathy for people of modest means who are asked to pay for expensive civic “improvements.” In my case, and their case, the principle of “penny wise and pound foolish” applies this way. When you take money from us for expensive civic “improvements” that we can’t afford, we don’t go to the doctor for a routine checkup because we no longer have the money for the copay. Then we get very sick whereas a routine checkup might have nipped the infirmity in the bud when treatment would have been relatively cheap. That is what I call being penny-foolish because someone wants to spend a lot of pounds of other people’s money.
I have now lived in this world long enough to know from experience that the promoters of things like tunnels, underground power lines, and sports stadiums have no intention of paying for these things themselves. I know, to a certainty, that if our community agrees to spend an extra billion or two to underground SR-99 through the downtown core, the manner in which it’s paid for will not likely be accomplished with due attention to fairness, social justice, ability to pay, or who benefits from it. Human nature being what it is, these costs will be dumped on the powerless.
You say you live in Everett. I say, if you have no problem with paying a $10 or $20 toll every time you drive through the tunnel, so that the extra cost of the tunnel is entirely paid for by those who use it, then I have no problem at all with building the tunnel. If I use it once or twice a year, which is my current average utilization of the viaduct, then I should pay the toll, too. But I’m retired now, don’t commute cross-town to a job, don’t have the salary income from that job, and I can’t afford to pay higher property taxes, sales taxes, or any other kind of taxes for a tunnel. I need that money for food, medicine, health insurance premiums, co-pays and non-covereds, and considering that I worked for 45 years and fought a war for this country, I think I’m entitled to have a little left over (say, $50 or $100 a month) to spend on enjoyment.
Let me explain something here. It costs me about $4 just in case to drive to Drinking Liberally. I think twice about spending that $4. Much as I would like to contribute to candidates like Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark, I can’t because I haven’t got it. Are you getting the picture?
If I help get the tunnel built by coming up with a bright idea of how to pay for it, then give me a fucking medal! Or name it, “Roger Rabbit Tunnel” in honor of my crucial contribution to getting it built. City Light named Ross Lake and Ross Dam after J.D. Ross, a City Light superintendent of a bygone era, because of his visionary role in getting the City Light dams built. Well, if the tunnel gets built because Roger Rabbit thought of selling the airspace rights to developers or creating an LID to put the cost on the well-heeled downtown property owners whose already large fortunes will be further enhanced by undergrounding SR-99, then name it the “Roger Rabbit Tunnel” or better yet the Roger Fucking Rabbit Tunnel”! After all, I’m a rabbit, and I fuck rabbits like crazy to make more rabbits, because that’s my natural function!
Well, SR-99’s function is to move 110,000 vehicles a day, expeditiously and cost effectively, and the governor recognizes it’s the state’s responsibility to pay for that much of whatever is done there. But the state has also taken the position that any enhancement beyond basic infrastructure is on the local dime. Don’t even think about raising that local money through taxes on homeowners, or sales taxes. Get it from the people who’ve got it and/or will benefit from the tunnel.
Unfortunately, I don’t trust the downtown business owners and developers or their shoeshine boy Greg Nickles to do this fairly. I know damn well they’re going to try to stick this cost to people like me. Let’s not forget that we’ve already seen a rough outline of Nickels’ financing package, and it does exactly what I feared, it relies on regional tax increases, primarily on homeowners and small businesses, for $800 million of it.
I don’t trust that guy. Any questions.
Goldy – But see, that’s the problem with arbitrarily defined community standards. People swear all the time. Maybe we all know it isn’t especially polite, but most everybody does it, which makes it sort of the standard by default. Forbidding swearing on the basis of community standards is like outlawing popular and successful adult stores on the basis that the community, i.e. the customers who spend all that money there in the first place, could be assumed not to approve.
In politics, what’s respectable is being able to get people to listen to you. That’s why someone like Pat Robertson or Rush Limbaugh, men who may not swear but like to encourage hatred and genocide, can be considered a player instead of a dangerous nutball. And you’ve yet to call for a single head to be stuck on a pigpole, so really, you’re ahead of the game, partisan pundit respectability-wise.
Dutch @ 27 – Ah yes, the concern-trolling argument that, well, it would be nice to make the tax system fair, but the only people who would ever attempt it will be sure to live up to your own personal nightmare.
This is ridiculous. I can’t imagine that there’s a single Democrat in Olympia who doesn’t understand, with every fiber of their being, that merely adding a state tax while leaving the B&O in place or refusing to lower other taxes would be political suicide. Do any of our state politicians, especially Gov. Gregoire, strike you as particularly lacking in the will to have a future in public life?
Roger Rabbit @ 18
No argument from me. You know, the most significant issue that compelled me to stop just yelling at the TV, put down the remote, get out of the recliner, and run for office in 1999 was the decision of the legislature to override the vote of the people and build a new baseball stadium anyway, compounded by the subsequent purchase of a stadium vote for $5 million by Paul Allen. Paul made a paper profit on his Microsoft stock on a single day during that campaign sufficient to pay for the stadium himself three times over. There are more important things than professional sports stadiums. Professional sports facilities should be paid for and owned by the teams, not the public.
Natasha…let’s not get started what I think about the cognitive complexity of our esteemed governor…:-)…but I do have my doubts when it comes to taxes and Olympia. No, I don’t think any politician is interested in political suicide…most of them are politicians because they like to be in power. Most politicians give a flying rats ass about the constituents as long as they get elected (again)…that’s what counts, not to do the right thing. That’s why you hear promises over promises and after the election, things are quickly forgotten. That’s why you have idiots like Senator Stevens to build the bridge to nowhere…even if it is bad for the country. This is the US Congress we are talking about not the WA Congress or the Seattle Congress, or this is WA State legislature, not the Seattle SODo legislature…etc.
And unfortunately, most voters lack the whole picture. Most people don;t pay B&O taxes so it would be easy to leave them in place while “proudly” announcing, we got income tax replacing sales tax….but then I could see an argument where income tax replaces some of the sales tax and some funky fuzzy math showing that this will save money to the taxpayer (which it might or might not) or the various counties and cities keep their portion of the sales tax.
That’s how things started in states like NY and others having both income tax and sales tax…a little here, a little there…and soon…you have both.
14
Yes, I can see how the idiots in charge of our security might think an Arab with a fake Spanish accent was a Latino. There’s precedent for this. About 90% of the people they arrested and threw into Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, or one of their other hell-holes were completely innocent.
34
Who cares what you think of the governor’s cognitive complexity. I don’t know you, but I know her, and feel confident in saying her cognitive complexity is a lot better organized and more functional than yours. Is she perfect? No. But she’s a damned smart lawyer, has proved herself a more than able administrator, and her main weakness is she still has a few things to learn about campaigning and the mechanics of getting elected. But she’s very tuned in to popular sentiment, and she’s got several tons of common sense. Since taking office, she hasn’t made any big mistakes, or even little ones that I can think of. She got more done in her first year than Gary Locke did in two terms.
34 (continued)
You don’t know about what’s going on with state tax reform. You’ve never read the Gates Commission report, have you? Read it here http://tinyurl.com/ygbnxd.
I’ve never paid the B&O tax, but I know it’s a bad tax. Many other people who don’t own small businesses know it’s a bad tax, too.
The Gates Commission consisted of prominent academic, business, political, and community leaders. After collecting and analyzing data, and thrashing through policy issues, this group outlined several alternatives for tax reform, but favored a revenue-neutral package consisting of a flat-rate income tax, eliminating the B&O tax, and reducing the sales tax.
This would make Washington’s state tax structure virtually identical to the tax structures of 45 other states. There are good reasons why there’s so much similarity among most of the states in how they raise state and local revenues. This mixture of taxes has passed the tests of practicality and public acceptance, and stood the test of time.
What you offer us is unfounded paranoia as a justification for perpetuating America’s worst and most regressive state tax system. The folks on the Gates Commission are smarter than you — and had their feet on the ground better than you do. Given a choice between their opinion or yours, well …
Do you know what “revenue neutral” means, dutch? It means the new tax system would raise the same amount of total revenue as the old tax system. However, it would raise the revenue in a different way, and redistribute some of the tax burden. In general, low income and average households would pay less, and affluent households would pay more. In addition, some of the tax burden would shift from small businesses to households. The Gates Commission took the view that small business is currently overtaxed in Washington, compared to other states, and the data back them up. I agree with their proposal to give tax relief to small business and get more of the state’s revenues from the income stream of the Washington households most able to pay (and who are currently paying less than their fair share).
As a proponent of keeping our regressive and unfair tax system, you will have a heavy burden of justification to bear. Fantasies of a runaway legislature using tax reform as an opportunity and excuse to raise taxes won’t cut it. Forty-five states have a state income tax. The ones I’m familiar with typically have a flat-rate income tax of around 2%, and the rate has never been raised. Show me examples of states where the income tax is being abused or repeatedly raised. Show me why we should continue taxing our poorest 20% of citizens 4 1/4 times as much, proportionately, as our richest 20% of citizens. Show me how keeping the tax system we’ve got is justified.
Robert Crocker of Chehalis wrote to the Seattle Times:
“There is only one proper and ‘green’ solution to resolving the crumbling Alaskan Way Viaduct problem and that is to tear it down and declare all the land in its shadow a wilderness area — a wilderness area where walkways and bike paths will proliferate and be the only form of transportation allowed, and old-growth cedars are planted and allowed to prosper and grow again.”
Roger Rabbit replies,
Shut up. You don’t know a fucking thing about urban problems. People like you who live in small towns surrounded by farms and forests have opportunities us city folks can’t even dream of to live amidst aesthetic surroundings. And what do you troglodytes with your heads stuck in a 19th-century robber-baron mentality do to YOUR environment? Chehalis sucks. You live in an ugly town. So shut up and don’t tell us Seattleites what to do.
Commentby Roger Rabbit— 10/18/06@ 12:53 pm
Well Mr Fur Ball,
Then PAY FOR IT YOURSELF. STAY THE F$CK OUTTA LEWIS COUNTY, AND MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. We have the Beauty here because we don’t PAVE OR BUILD on every single inch of our land. BUT when you SEATTLITES want some serenity to your F$CKED UP lives (pavement, traffic and long haired liberals) you seek refuge HERE.
CRAWL BACK INTO YOUR LIL HUTCH, and leave us ALONE. BTW did I see your family on TV the other night? Hundreds of Rabbits dead and alive, pretty sick if you ask me.
38
I’ll go to Lewis County anytime I please. It’s part of the United States and Washington State, and I don’t need a passport to go there. Lewis County has lettuce. YUMMY!!! I LOVE LETTUCE!!! Just try finding a lettuce patch in King County, outside of Stefan’s garden. Chehalis is nothing but strip malls, a juvenile prison, and power plant. Even your one-caboose railroad there has an engine that belches smoke!!! You better be polite to us Seattle liberals or we’re gonna bring our money down there and drive up your housing prices so nobody from Chehalis can afford to live in Chehalis! How you like them apples.
The only thing Chehalis ever had that was any good was old man Hamilton’s political sign on his turkey farm. He was a freak, but he was funny. The one I liked best was:
“Every congressman should serve two terms. One in Congress, and one in jail.”
Well, old Hamilton is turning to dust in the ground now, but he’s gonna get his wish after Nov. 7.
It seems fitting that the spot where Hamilton built his rightwing billboard has been purchased by the City of Chehalis and they’re going to use it for dumping human sewage.
http://www.crcwater.org/issues14/20030221wt.html