In Goldy’s metacommentary piece yesterday on The Seattle Times’ oppposition to funding Metro, he gave them some well deserved shit for pretending to oppose it because of its regressive nature.
Oh no! It’s a “regressive” tax! This from an editorial board that has opposed every single progressive tax (like, you know, on income or estates) that has come before it. What a bunch of fucking concern trolls.
But I think it’s even worse than that: We’ve known something was coming for a while. The Seattle Times ed board hasn’t exactly been leading the charge for a better system. Dow Constantine has been telegraphing since he got into office that he’d do something if the state didn’t act. And in that time The Seattle Times has neither suggested what that something ought to be nor have they pushed the legislature to act to allow King County to have a better system.
Could you imagine how different the debate would be in the state, if the state’s leading — or at least largest — paper had editorial after editorial pushing the legislature to let King County tax ourselves however we want? If they demanded that even if the GOP didn’t pass a complete transit package, that they at least give us a more progressive option?
We knew the federal sequester was coming for awhile, as well. We were treated to all sorts of worst-case-scenario scare stories about how bad things would be.
Didn’t happen.
When the federal government shutdown occurred, same thing.
Didn’t happen.
With Metro, we might actually get to find out what happens when a regressive tax hike effort fails, time runs out, and Metro is faced with its own sequester of sorts.
I am sure there are all kinds of bad things that theoretically might occur if a cut in subsidy is allowed to take place. Fares might increase. Drivers might actually have to accept a cut rather than a freeze. Some routes might be affected. But perhaps overtime won’t need to be paid in such large quantity, and some of those part-timers instead could be full-timers. Etc.
My suspicion is that the scare stories won’t actually materialize, and that we’ll all still be here when the dust settles.
Yes, we’ve known something was coming for awhile, and we’ve known it’s coming in an environment in which tax increases are not a popular item on the ballot. Given that reality, perhaps Metro supporters could have done something, and could now be doing something, other than dredge up scare scenarios. Hopefully, in the background, Metro planners are working on doing as much as possible, with less, as they can. That just might be their reality.
Goldy claims “Squirrel!” is the Seattle Times’ approach. One might respond that ‘Wolf!” is the Metro supporters’ approach. Is that any more reasonable?
Had an interesting discussion on Prop 1. In summary, everyone in the discussion emotionally felt that Metro was corrupt, incompetent, lazy, fiscally irresponsible, unaccountable, etc. Everyone HATED the idea of shoveling even more money to them, just to have them waste it even more. I have not idea if it’s true or not, but that’s the common perception of it. All the sins of any transit were attributed to them, like the shameful and dangerous construction of 520 that nobody has been punished for and the pending tolls on I-90.
And in the next breath, everyone said it wasn’t fair to the commuters, who no fault of their own, would be punished if Metro funding got cut. When everyone was faced with the idea that the services they used all the time or sporadically or wanted as future backup, might get cut, they might vote for it.
It’s like car company workers being punished because the head office make one disastrous corporate decision after another.
Still, I think it’s going to fail, from the anger toward transit corruption in general.
The state democrats like regressive taxing because the lobbyists for Boeing and Microsoft like regressive taxing. Full stop.
If the democrats — and I’m looking at you Ed Murray, Frank Chopp and Judy Clibborn — weren’t whores for businesses transit would be funded the way the peers do it: minimal regressive taxing and no long-term bonding.
Transit here should be financed the way the similarly-sized regions do it: little or no new regressive taxing, no new g.o. muni bonds, revenue bonds secured by fares (to the extent needed), progressive tax revenue streams such as payroll taxes on larger companies, large commercial property transfer taxes, reallocation of parts of extant county/city/state tax streams, taxes on petroleum transfers by those in that industry, federal grants, state grants, LID assessments and higher fares.
The Twin Cities and the greater Portland area are good examples. UNlike here, they employ reasonable, effective financing plans.
When either Carl or David FOR THE FIRST TIME decides to publish a truthful story about the extent of Sound Transit’s taxing policies that unaccountable board adopted AFTER the 2008 vote they will have the moral authority to comment on the reality of transit taxing around here. They have not done so yet.
Transit taxing here is the worst in the nation, and abusive by any measure. Until they show themselves capable of speaking truth to power in that way their inane musings on the subject will continue to ring hollow and sound as insubstantial and self-absorbed as anything coming from a table of girls in a middle school lunchroom.
My spouse rides Metro every day to and from work and has done so for the past 20 years. Sometimes buses are late or are full but on the whole she finds they system to work. The drivers are mostly professional and responsive.
The biggest critics oaf Metro seem to be people who don’t ride the bus often or ever. Not surprisingly, they are prepared to accept whatever cuts might come.
@2: the opinions of people who can’t distinguish between bus service and road construction are pretty clearly nonsense, much like people who whine about the Post Office but can’t point to a single lost letter. They know the system is corrupt so who needs evidence?
@2. You can dismiss the opinions of people who can’t distinguish between bus service and road construction as pretty clearly nonsense, but they are also the same people who vote. It’s not fair but it’s reality. So now what?
@5 DNA tests for voters to determine which planet they’re from.
I find it amazing that this ostensibly liberal city has such a retrograde newspaper. Asinine.
@7 Newspapers are owned by rich white guys pretty much everywhere. They’re the only people who can afford
$150 million printing plants.
However, those printing plants are now liabilities because less people are reading actual newsprint. The Times is now almost half advertising, some of it Times ads trying to get readers to read the newspaper, which is about the level of non-intelligence they show in their stories. They’re a scorpion that is turning on its own tail and stinging itself. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
@9 The Seattle Times is a sand castle melting away.