The Seattle Times editorial board wants to educate our children, but not provide them any health care . Well, it’s nice to see somebody making those tough choices… you know, as long as those choices don’t include any tax increases.
Lawmakers should cut the number of state employees more and education less. Every dollar spent on education represents the best possible social program and wisest long-term investment. […] Other cuts are painful but, if education is the top priority, probably unavoidable. These include a cut of 40,000 people covered by the Basic Health Plan.
Hmm… I wonder if that either/or framing is intentionally clever, or just uninformed? Note to Times: teachers are state employees, so attempting to frame this as a hard choice between wasteful state employees and, you know, state employees , comes off as a little bit stupid.
Since the alternative to cutting is taxation, maybe this question is close enough to on-topic: Is there a source somewhere that shows the amount of families in WA State with taxable (federal) income over $1M, over $500K, over $250K and so on? I know an income tax isn’t likely this year, but I’d like to see what the base is. In NYC, Bloomberg is saying 50K families basically fund the entire city of 8 million people. Would something like that be possible here?
Thanks, and sorry for the somewhat OT post.
Huh?
Goldy has that info from the Gates Study.
HOWEVER, keep in mind that data is dated and does not reflect the impact of the Recession on compensation.
If you are excited about 50k families funding everything, chill. If that effort is made here, many of these families will establish residence elsewhere and move their businesses with them. Populist approach, but not a very healthy approach to generating more revenue.
It has plenty of undesirable consequences the LEFTIST PINHEADED KLOWNS are incapable of recognizing. They love to forge ahead with poorly thought out brainfarts…dontchaknow!
Hey Goldy–
It turns out the $9 BILLION Budget Deficit is just a myth. That it includes Billions of spending increases. Take a look at this one-page summary and let me know what you find wrong with it..
http://www.effwa.org/main/arti.....le_id=2747
It seems right on.
The Democrats & Gregoire are playing a “confidence game” on taxpayers.
They are liars and intentionally misrepresenting things.
For shame.
@2 – I am not necessarily excited about any tax plan (or spending cut) one way or the other at this moment. I would just like to see some data. What I have found on the web is just aggregate data, not number of families. I’ll google the Gates Study specifically and see what I can find. Thanks for the pointer.
Before the wackos overwhelm rational discourse, let me try to clarify.
When Goldy says “Note to Times: teachers are state employees”, he isn’t saying that their paychecks come from the State of Washington. He’s saying that their positions are covered by the Public Employees Benefits Board. As stated in WAC 182-12-115, specified classes of
Those classes are:
* Permanent employees
* Nonpermanent employees
* Career seasonal employees
* Instructional year employees
* Part-time faculty and part-time academic employees
* Part-time academic employees of community and technical colleges
* Part-time academic employees who have established eligibility
* Appointed and elected officials
* Judges
(all of the above were cut-and-pasted directly from the above-cited WAC)
Under this definition, if you’re an Asotin County Superior Court judge (or bailiff, or stenographer), you’re a state employee. If you’re a truck driver for Skagit County, you’re a state employee. If you teach 7th-graders in Cle Elum, you’re a state employee. If you dish out soup in the cafeteria at Harborview, you’re a state employee.
Goldy is so obsessed with the Seattle Times editorial board, that now he is misleading his readers. The cuts to the health plan is BEING PROPOSED BY DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS! THE SEATTLE TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD IS MERELY AGREEING WITH THEM!
USE YOUR FUCKING BRAINS, YOU SHEEP. DO YOUR FUCKING HOMEWORK, LIKE I DO.
From today’s Seattle Times article:
“We are absolutely going to do that,” said Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane. But, she added, “It’s very hard to pull back” on programs such as the state’s Basic Health Plan, which provides subsidized medical coverage to lower-income families.
House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, agreed the cuts are difficult to make: “We’re losing ground, which is really too bad.”
The Senate’s 2009-2011 budget would cut $877 million for public schools, $785 million for health care and $513 million for higher education. It’s largely up to state agencies, universities and school districts to figure out how to make the cuts.”
Actually, teachers are public, not state, employees. But faculty are state employees and about 3,000 of them are slated to lose their jobs at a time when the colleges are already overcrowded helping people who are laid off get more training and finish their degrees.
What astonished me is that people like Mr. Cynical are unwilling to help sacrific to preserve quality education and public services in Washington. People earning over $250,000 can afford to help. Many are willing to pay an income tax. But angry folks like Mr. Cynical would rather see people be put out of work. Sad day for Washington.
And, Goldy, ask for a transparent accounting of how they used the federal stabilization fund. It feels like some smoke and mirrors have been used.
N in Seattle–
Good clarification.
Goldy never lets the facts get in the way of the truth however.
However, teachers are employed by School Districts. School Districts are partly funded by the State and the teachers are part of the State Retirement System & Benefits.
But teachers are EMPLOYEES of the School District they teach in.
@5
Thanks for that.
7. Bently spews:
Ahh bently, you drank the Kool-Aid.
I do not accept the Democrats EXTORTION PLOT you are perpetuating that classroom teachers need to be the victims of this Gregoire-created Budget crisis. You are a faithful purvyor of the talking points…but the fact is it’s still the DEMOCRATS CHOICE to take this out on the teachers.
WHY?
To set up a tax increase!
Bently==Simpleton.
Are you a teacher, in education or a Union Hack?
Mississippi awaits.
Precisely. Facts ARE the truth. Of course, that’s something NEW to YOU.
The summation of all this is Goldy’s continuing fierce jealously of The Times.
See post #6. Bbbbbaaaahhhhh!!
@1 Is there a source somewhere that shows the amount of families in WA State with taxable (federal) income over $1M, over $500K, over $250K and so on? I know an income tax isn’t likely this year, but I’d like to see what the base is.
—————
Good question. Because in his post the other day entitled, “Now is the time for a “high income tax,” Goldy cited this study:
“According to the Economic Opportunity Institute, a ‘high income tax’ of 3% on incomes between $200,000 and $999,999, and 5% on incomes over $1 million, would raise about $2.58 billion per biennium, yet fall on only 4% of WA households. I’m guessing that’s slightly more than the June measure would be expected to raise.”
which presented projected revenue based on a higher income tax. However, and as I pointed out to Goldy (twice, actually), there was no analysis let alone higher wage income data presented by the study to verify the claims.
You can’t go far in these discussions WITHOUT this type of data.
Someone needs to explain to the folks at The Times that children are little germ factories. Get a few sick ones in a classroom and the next thing you know you’ve got a room full of sick kids and not much learning going on.
Undiagnosed/treated ear infections are a barrier to learning for little kiddo’s and a source of hearing loss.
Now, more than ever, we should be pushing for health coverage for everyone under 18.
From Schmudget:
@7
When will it ever end? Schools are like black holes the more money falls in the more it wants.
Do we continue throw good money after bad?
This this a good time to for our leaders to fix the problems of high overhead Teachers first and lower pay It’s not how much you make it’s how you make it. Lower building cost time schools look like schools again. Time For teachers to teach again.
Michael rightly comments that
To which I’ll add
@7
Sorry the other one notright wrote.
When will it ever end? Schools are like black hole the more money falls in the more it wants.
Do we continue throwing good money after bad?
Now is a good time for our leaders to fix the problems of high overhead districts, Teachers being first not the kids and lower pay It’s not how much you make it’s how you make it. Lower building cost. It’s time schools look like schools again. Time For teachers to teach again.
11. ROTCODDAM spews:
Precisely the arrogant, pinheaded response I expected from some KLOWN.
Keep dreaming of ways to fleece the wealthy and make them pay for damn near everything you freeloaders!
Sick kids don’t learn. If you don’t provide poor children with health care, they can’t perform in school, and if they don’t get educations, they’ll become expensive social problems later. Investing in childrens’ health care is like paying for a brake job so you don’t wreck your car.
I believe many School Districts & ESD’s should consolidate and eliminate redundant overhead.
Arizona had a ballot initiative to consolidate 227 School Districts into 76.
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/in.....Act_(2008)
The main people bitching?
You guessed it, ADMINISTRATOR’S!
I have looked at a number of proposed School District consolidations..they all said it wasn’t worth it and there were few economies of scale AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, they were all prepared or directed by ADMINISTRATORS!
Let’s get with it.
Small School Districts are a luxury we simply cannot afford.
And get rid of the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. What a waste.
Get more of the vast educational overhead into the classroom where it belongs. Most teachers are sick to death of the ridiculous burden too much administration puts on them.
Waaaaaay past due time to start with a blank piece of paper.
Teachers are not the problem.
Administrators and the Unions are!
On the other hand, I think it makes sense, in the face of a budget crunch, to eliminate funding for the two voter-approved school initiatives. Remember, the voters who approved these initiatives rejected the tax increase to pay for them, so they were never voter-funded. Another reason to eliminate them is because the schools can survive, and until the last budget did survive, without them — while I wouldn’t call smaller class sizes or improved teacher pay “luxuries” we can, in a crunch, live without them.
It should be remembered that the advertised $9 billion revenue shortfall is more like $3 to $4 billion in actual terms, because the rest is covered by federal stimulus funding and rainy day funds previously set aside. So, this is not a nine billion dollar problem, it is more like a four billion dollar problem, which makes it manageable through a combination of program cuts, hiring and pay freezes, and closing tax loopholes and possibly modest targeted tax increases (e.g., sin taxes and certain fees).
State government can get through this alive, although not without painful service cuts to the public. It’s not realistic to avoid those service cuts by raising taxes, given that personal incomes are dropping, not just to the unemployed by also for the still-employed who are experiencing pay cuts at the same time as they’re facing virulent inflation in food prices, property taxes, heating and fuel costs, and several other facets of the typical family budget. And by “virulent” I don’t mean three or four percent; the retail prices of some grocery items are leaping upward in bounds of 30%, 40%, 50%, and 60% overnight. In this kind of environment — higher unemployment, falling wages, explosive inflation — the legislature should either target the undertaxed high income segment of Washington’s population for tax increases, or forego tax increases altogether. It’s simply not fair to load yet more regressive tax burdens on those who are already struggling to pay their basic bills.
Also, I do not agree with Goldy’s characterization of teachers as “state employees.” The state is primarily a conduit for school funds. The state does not hire or fire teachers, negotiate their salaries, or supervise them. The state collects and distributes school taxes but this is mostly a ministerial process. The state does have some influence on school district spending policies and teacher salaries to the extent it says to districts and teachers, “this is all the money we’ve got, and if you want more, you’ll have to get voter approval for local levy increases,” but that doesn’t make teachers state employees.
21. Roger Rabbit spews:
True enough Rog, but all the money in the world cannot force bad parents to shut-off the TV, Computer Games etc. that act as “babysitters’ these days.
We can’t force parents to feed their kids non-junk food.
Society owes parents an OPPORTUNITY for their kids to learn. Parents have a responsiblity at home to make sure THEIR kids are not rotting their brains with TV/Video Games and that they are eating right. If they cannot afford food, there are plenty of sources. But I can assure you the problem is most often not a lack of food…but overindulgence in junk food that makes their little eyes spin out of control.
The question is “Where do you draw the line between parents responsibility and the schools”? Parents are sooo coddled…
We cannot afford it anymore.
If parents are unwilling to get their kids to schood well-fed and rest…they will have stupid, unsuccessful kids.
I’m not going to buy the argument that if we don’t do the parents job we will pay for it later. It is an “enablers” viewpoint.
Too many soft parents…who shouldn’t be parents. I feel sorry for kids where the mom don’t know the “baby’s daddy”…but that is for mom to sort out. There is plenty of help.
Need to draw a clear, concise line.
Schools try to do way too much…
NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT COSTS>
1, 2 – “Is there a source somewhere that shows the amount of families in WA State with taxable (federal) income over $1M, over $500K, over $250K and so on?” … “Huh? Goldy has that info from the Gates Study.”
Not true, Cyn. The Gates report only gives percentages. It says the lowest income decile (i.e., 20%) pays 17% of their income in state/local taxes, while the highest decile pays 4%, and small businesses pay 40% of total state/local tax collections compared to about 30% for other western states. The obvious conclusions are that high income households and big business are undertaxed, while low income households are obscenely overtaxed and Washington’s tax climate is somewhat disadvantageous for small businesses. Assuming revenue neutrality, the obvious fix is to shift a portion of the tax burden from the overtaxed segments (low income households and small business) to the undertaxed segments (high income households and big business).
The Gates report discussed several tax reform alternatives. The one that has received the most publicity and discussion is replacing the 6.5% state sales tax and B & O tax with a state income tax. Under this option, you would still pay local sales taxes, which are in the range of 2.5% to 3%.
@21
They also spread their germs around to the healthy kids.
@24 As I understand your argument, your logic goes something like this: It’s okay to eliminate health care for poor kids because some kids won’t learn anyway. Whatever, Cyn. I don’t expect you, a Republican, to be either logical or reasonable. I just don’t expect it from you, or from any other Republican. That’s why I support the concept of Democrats controlling government and making decisions without the participation of Republicans. This would become negotiable when and if you Republicans ever decide to be responsible citizens. Currently, you are not.
@24
See #26 for the reason all kids should have health insurance.
@24 “If parents are unwilling to get their kids to schood well-fed and rest…they will have stupid, unsuccessful kids.”
Has it ever occurred to you that low wages make some parents unable to “get their kids to schoo[l] well-fed and rest[ed] …”? You cheap labor conservatives take the cake. You do everything you can to knock wages as low as possible, then you blame the parents for not being able to support their kids? Fuck you, asshole. We liberals have a different agenda in mind. If you don’t want American families to earn living wages, then we’ll pay for our citizens’ necessities by taxing the selfish bastards who are sucking all the money out of the economy and leaving workers to starve. Don’t like it? Move to North Korea.
@5 I stand corrected.
@6 As always, you’re full of shit. The Seattle Times editorial board has swallowed the Republican “no taxes” mantra full-bore, and disagrees with the Democratic legislature’s allocation of cuts between education and other state programs. The editorialists want less cut from education and more state workers laid off to avoid using taxes to plug part of the revenue gap. This is an endorsement of the Republican minority’s position, not a rubber-stamp of what the Democratic majority has done. Apparently you’re too stupid to comprehend this, even though it’s spelled out.
Here is an example of a City running amok. Bainbridge likes to consider itself very Progressive. Bur here is where mindless Progressivism can lead, The following was written by a guy named Bob Fortner. I hope you enjoy it and ponder it—
MILESTONES ON THE WAY TO FINANCIAL DISASTER
I hope you all will think about this.
Progressivism has been high-jacked by a lot of BS leading to terrible results like in Bainbridge, Seattle, King County and Washington State.
You can still be Progressive but not be dumb about it.
One of the things going on right now is that some parents are transferring their kids from private to public schools because they can no longer afford private schooling. They pay the same school taxes as the rest of us, and are absolutely entitled to do this. But the increase in public school enrollments can only partially be absorbed by increasing class sizes. This inevitably will increase costs in the public education system, and that money will have to come from somewhere. Logically, it has to mean higher school taxes. Is that unfair to taxpayers? No, because parents who send their kids to private schools have been subsidizing the rest of us, and aren’t obligated to continue providing that subsidy. When they don’t, we have to pick up the difference.
@32 “Despite the perceptions of individual wealth, the economic demographics do not translate into a wealthy city since Bainbridge Island falls well below comparable cities in sales tax revenue.”
Well, this is the basic problem, isn’t it? Wealthy people do not generate appreciably more sales tax revenue than poor people, because their extra income tends to go to untaxed places — savings, investments, larger homes, out-of-state purchases, and so on.
As long as Washingtonians refuse to enact an income or wealth based tax system, wealthy communities will have to operate on the same municipal budgets as poor communities, and in the event they have different service expectations, they need to understand and accept that.
29. Roger Rabbit spews:
Some perhaps…but I contend the vast majority is due to bad parenting. We cannot construct massive government bureaucracy’s to meet the short-comings of irresponsible parents.
There are plenty of places to get good food. It takes self-control & commitment to avoid junk food. It ain’t hard to turn off the TV or Video Games either. A good night sleep is achievable thru good parenting Rog…
The problem with you Big Guv’mint KLOWNS is you are always looking for a sob story to justify yet another costly Bureaucracy rather than encouraging better parenting and better behavior. Your method has cost Trillions…and accomplished little over the decades Rog,
other than create a Welfare/Handout Dependency State.
@32 I think Seattle’s ultra-expensive light rail system is the height of progressive fiscal folly, and I believe this community will live to regret that decision.
Although Rog–
Your Handout/Welfare/Dependency State has created quite a base for the Democratic Party and other PIMPS OF POVERTY!
@35 “Some perhaps…but I contend the vast majority is due to bad parenting.”
Tell you what … let’s agree on a living-wage strategy for America. Then after we’ve eliminated low wages as a cause of kids not being learning-ready, you’ll have a free hand to blame the remaining non-learners on bad parenting.
@35 “Your method has cost Trillions….”
I can think of something else that has cost taxpayers trillions: Unregulated laissez faire bandit capitalism.
Rog @ 36–
How can you recognize folly of the Seattle light-rail (where by the way I recall you doing an extensive fiscal analysis) and then you go ahead and close your eyes about the Gregoire Big Costly Government folly?
I posted the list you asked for yesterday..105 ways in 105 days
http://www.effwa.org/main/page.php?number=564
Did you read it?
You asked for it?
There is plenty of fiscal house-cleaning to do.
It’s common when there is 1-Party rule and 1-party controls the Governors Mansion for 25 years.
Time to clean house a little.
But it won’t happen Rog, unless guys like you and Seattle Jew get somes balls and demand it.\
Seems like status quo is fine for you guys.
Chirp a wee bit..then crawl back in your hole, accomplishing nothing.
@37 The biggest pimps I see are the banker enablers of Wall Street greedheads.
@34
Your hole is full of shit time to clean up and get fresh air.
“Well, this is the basic problem, isn’t it? Wealthy people do not generate appreciably more sales tax revenue than poor people, because their extra income tends to go to untaxed places — savings, investments, larger homes, out-of-state purchases, and so on.”