Search Results for: ’

What the headline says:

The research literature on whether minimum wage increases kill jobs is decidedly mixed. Some economists have found that hikes lead to small job losses among teens and in industries like fast food. Others have found that losses are nonexistent, or at least negligible. In the end, I tend to argue that even if you assume reasonable job losses, middle-class and poor families come out ahead in the bargain. Though some workers end up unemployed, enough get raises to make the tradeoff worthwhile.

But that assumes we don’t lift the pay floor too high, too fast. Minimum wage studies have typically looked at small increases, somewhere around 50 cents or a dollar. Seattle’s proposal would be far larger. It would also have virtually no U.S. precedent.

So, there’s no good evidence to show that increasing the minimum wage to $15 would kill jobs, but there’s no proof that it wouldn’t. So we better not try. Or something.

Because if there’s one thing that capitalism discourages, it’s taking risks.

Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat better watch his tongue, or he soon may find himself writing at some foul-mouthed blog:

Dear Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education:

Hello from the other Washington! I’m writing to say that you can take your No Child Left Behind law and shove it.

I’d add “up your ass,” but that’s just me. Other than that, I completely agree with everything Westneat has to say about No Child Left Behind’s failed testing regime, and the political stupidity of picking a fight over it with Washington State:

I’ll close by saying I think you’re messing with the wrong state. You should try to change this “fundamentally flawed” law, rather than impose it on us out of pique. A prediction: We like to do our own thing out here anyway, and your action will only fuel more boycotts of these tests, as well as suspicion of the entire education-reform industry.

When those letters go out informing parents at every public school in the state that their school is a failure, parents, teachers, and administrators should mock these letters with celebratory dunce caps and All Children Left Behind parties. Perhaps schools should even take a day off from mandated testing to teach students important lessons of civil disobedience in American history, like the pre-Revolutionary War non-importation agreements and the various peaceful protests and boycotts of the civil rights movement.

This is a teachable moment, if not a testable one. Which is exactly the point.

Washington State will be better off resisting the feds on No Child Left Behind, and the rest of the nation would do well to our lead.

When I laid out the details of the mayor’s minimum wage proposal last week, I promised to follow up with a political analysis. But man is this a difficult post to write. Political journalists may not like to admit it, but there is an observer effect to what we do—a kinda Heisenberg uncertainty principle of politics, in which the mere act of analyzing the political process can influence its outcome.

And so it is with many, many, many caveats that I reluctantly characterize this deeply flawed and disappointing compromise as a huge fucking victory for minimum wage workers.

Um… huh?

To be clear, this is not the minimum wage proposal I would write—its phase-in is too long and complicated, its definition of “small” business too broad, and the temporary tip and benefit deduction it imposes is both unwarranted and unfair. But I’m no idiot. Given where we were just a year ago on this issue, this proposal is a bit astounding. By 2025 every worker in Seattle will earn an inflation-adjusted equivalent of $15 an hour (in 2017 dollars)—twice the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour—no tip penalty, no health benefit deduction, no total compensation, no nothing. And most fast food and other national chain workers will earn this by 2017.

Come on. Be honest. When fast food workers first walked out last year demanding a $15 minimum wage, did you really think they were going to get it?

Sure, given the strong public support for $15 and the very real threat of passing a less business friendly ballot measure, I had hoped that labor leaders would have held out for a better deal. But that said, if the city council doesn’t further water down this deal, and if our local business community not only refrains from challenging the ordinance at the ballot, but stands with workers to defend it against challenges coming from outside the city, Seattle will have achieved something truly momentous. Business buy-in wasn’t necessary to pass a $15 minimum wage at the ballot in Seattle; a ton of grassroots canvassing and a couple million dollars of well-spent media likely would have been enough. But the acquiescence of businesses groups here in Seattle will help set the frame for the minimum wage debate nationwide.

Second, let’s be clear that if it breezes through into law with little further opposition, that this minimum wage proposal will not only prove a huge win for minimum wage workers, but for the advocates who fought on their behalf, from the folks at SEIU and other unions who organized the fast food strikes and masterminded the SeaTac initiative, to Kshama Sawant, Socialist Alternative, and 15Now.org. Yes, Sawant voted against the proposal on the committee. Because that’s her role. And she’s played it astoundingly well. For without the legitimate threat from the left that Sawant and her organization provides, labor leaders would have been less able to squeeze concessions out of a business community that went into negotiations hoping to pad their profits with tip credits and total compensation and other giveaways.

If a minimum wage ordinance passes the council 9-0, and Sawant suddenly pivots to claim victory, it will be without a drop of irony. And if 15Now.org should suddenly pivot the impressive grassroots organization it is building from pushing a ballot measure to defending against one, well, minimum wage opponents should know that they will have a helluva fight on their hands.

It won’t be easy for 15Now.org to make that pivot, as this is far from a perfect proposal. Workers at small businesses who will only be earning $11 by 2017, the same year some big business workers start earning $15, will be particularly screwed by the lengthy phase-in and the temporary tip/benefit deduction. So they have every right to feel betrayed at being thrown under the bus.

But if this is ultimately the deal, and if the council can keep itself from carving out any additional loopholes, and if the business community delivers on its promise to support and defend it, then I’m enough of a political realist to know a political win when I see one.

What a bunch of fucking hypocrites:

RIGHT now the Washington state Legislature is cringing like a student who turns in homework and knows that it is incomplete. An impatient state Supreme Court demanded a fully fleshed-out plan for financing K-12 education, on its desk, by April 30.

Last week, lawmakers handed in a report that says they couldn’t reach agreement this year. It explains what the Legislature has done so far, reminds the court of the role of the judiciary, and makes a promise: We’ll take it from here.

What the court ought to do is to take lawmakers at their word, recognize that the Legislature plays a role as important as its own, and let it get down to business.

That’s right, the same editorial board that urges legislators to hold students and teachers accountable through rigorous standardized testing and inflexible graduation requirements, advises the Washington State Supreme Court to back off from holding legislators accountable for failing to meet a court order to which they are clearly in contempt.

Personally, I’m not confident that there is anything the legislature can do anymore to head off this looming constitutional crisis. But encouraging the court to do nothing pretty much assures that it will be ignored. And that’s bullshit.

Also, there’s this:

For too long, they have shorted education in all its forms, and they have spent the state’s money where the special interests were the noisiest.

… Now that Washington’s economy is recovering, the Legislature should earmark the majority of its rebounding tax revenue for education. That won’t sit well with public-employee unions and other interests that would prefer to see a tax increase.

First, that was Rob McKenna’s gubernatorial platform. And he lost. So fuck you.

Second, if the editors at the Seattle Times have any idea as to where in the state budget legislators can find an extra $3 billion to $7 billion in unnecessary spending, they have a fucking daily newspaper editorial board page in which to enlighten us. But of course, they’ve got no ideas other than UNIONS! and SPECIAL INTERESTS! and useless dog whistles like that. So fuck you.

We’re talking about our constitutional “paramount duty” here, for chrissake! We need billions a year in new tax revenue to meet McCleary. Nothing else can do it. It’s simple math. And any advocacy against raising this revenue is advocacy against both the interests of our children and against the preservation of the rule of law.

– Who could have predicted that less stimulus would mean a slower economy?

– But, as the media and general public turn their attention to other issues, it’s worth remembering that Bundy’s fringe ideas are mirrored by current efforts in many Western states to seize federal lands

– A while ago, I was farting around downtown and got on the Atlantic Street Overpass sidewalk. It wasn’t particularly helpful, but it’s nice to see that there’s now a bike path under it.

– The situation at the Bundy ranch, where armed militiamen and “Patriots” are camped out, has deteriorated so badly that competing factions apparently drew weapons on one another during heated arguments.

– Well, it’s a lousy substitute for losing our buses, but bus poetry is coming back.

– Oh, hey guys, we know the length of a day on Beta Pictoris b

It’s tough running a small business.

Your rent goes up, but what can you do? So you muddle on. Fuel costs go up, but you muddle on. The cost of supplies goes up—food, inventory, whatever—and you muddle on. The cost of borrowing goes up, and you muddle on. Health insurance premiums go up (oh man do they ever), and you muddle on.

But lawmakers talk about raising the minimum wage, and you throw up your arms and threaten to close your doors.

So what makes the cost of labor different from all those other fluctuating costs business owners must deal with every day? Labor is the only cost of business where you set the price.

And that’s where I think a lot of this emotional response to the minimum wage comes from. It’s about control. Both controlling one’s costs and controlling one’s employees. A government mandated minimum wage upsets the traditional power relationship between management and labor. And understand: for many small business owners, that’s the only power relationship in which they currently hold the advantage.

Like I said, it’s tough running a small business. I know. You put so much equity into your business—both sweat and monetary—and yet it feels like so much of what determines success or failure is beyond your control. The economy. The competition. Consumer tastes. Disruptive technologies. Taxes and regulations. Hell, even the weather. And now the City of Seattle is going to tell you how much to pay your workers? Folks who’ve never owned a business—who’ve never hired and fired—may not understand it, but the experience often comes with a profound sense of a lack of control.

I get it. And I’m not dismissing the very real financial challenge that a $15 minimum wage would pose to some businesses. But my advice to small business owners in general is to acknowledge that at least some of your negative response to this proposal is emotional, and to trust that like most of the other challenges you face on an everyday basis, you will ultimately find a way to muddle on. In fact, experience from previous substantial minimum wage hikes tells us that that’s what most small businesses manage to do. Because as much as it doesn’t feel like it, you actually have a lot more control over the success or failure of your business than simply the power to dictate wages.

Because they can:

A proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10, an underpinning of President Obama’s economic agenda and an issue that Democrats hope to leverage against Republicans in the midterm elections, failed in the Senate on Wednesday.

The vote was 54 to 42, with 60 votes needed to advance the measure.

All but one Republican voted to sustain a filibuster against the measure, saying that the increase would damage the fragile economy and force businesses to cut hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Democrats were mostly united behind the bill.

Think about that. Republicans bothered to filibuster a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to just $10.10 an hour—despite the fact that this bill was almost certainly never would have reached the floor in the Republican controlled House. That’s how much Republicans are opposed to raising the incomes of working people.

There is class warfare being waged in our nation, and Republicans are not on the side of the vast majority of Americans.

God Damn.

A botched execution using a disputed new drug combination left an Oklahoma inmate writhing and clenching his teeth on the gurney on Tuesday, leading prison officials to halt the proceedings before the inmate’s eventual death from a heart attack.

Clayton Lockett, 38, was declared unconscious 10 minutes after the first of the state’s new three-drug combination was administered. Three minutes later, though, he began breathing heavily, writhing on the gurney, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow.

Shame on us as a society for allowing this to happen. There has always been the option of not executing people no matter how horrible their crimes.

No doubt there are some actual Dems who are actually disappointed at the way Kirkland mayor Joan McBride was shoved aside in the 48th Legislative District state senate race in order to make room for incumbent Democratic state Representative Cyrus Habib. McBride had gotten into the race early against turncoat incumbent state Senator Rodney Tom, but once Tom dropped out, she and Habib quickly switched races. It’s a smart political move given that the seat could determine control of the senate, but I certainly empathize with McBride or her supporters if they feel like she got the short end of the stick.

That said, the concern-trolling coming from the Washington State Republican Party is hilarious!

Democrat Kirkland Mayor Joan McBride has been running for the State Senate in the 48th legislative district for months. However, Representative Cyrus Habib has now pounced on a perceived opportunity, seeking to throw yet another woman Democrat under the bus. Habib, taking the easy way out, avoided running against Rodney Tom, but now that Tom has announced he will not seek reelection Habib wants McBride to step aside so that a more high-profile candidate (such as himself) can seek the seat. He promised he would have “a number of conversations” with party leaders. The goal seems clear: push the woman Democrat to the curb and tell her to support a male Democrat who wants to advance his personal political career.

That’s a, um, hysterical line of attack coming from state GOP chair Susan Hutchison after she made such a big stink about her party paying her less than her male predecessor. “The pay cut defies the concept of equal pay for equal work, playing into the ‘war on women’ narrative against Republicans,” Hutchison lamented at the time. But this recent I’m-rubber-you’re-glue press release is more than just ironic; it’s also an entirely calculated response intended to blunt criticism of the GOP’s anti-women policies, by, you know, accusing Democrats of hating women too!

“You know, it confuses the voters so much when both sides are accusing each other,” Hutchison told fellow GOPers January 25 at the Mainstream Republicans annual Roanoke Conference, “that you just say ‘okay, it’s a wash.’ Both anti-women.”

Ha, ha! Voters are sooooo stoopid, says Hutchison! (Okay. Maybe. But I’m not a state party chair, so I can say it.)

But Hutchison’s war on the War on Women doesn’t end there. In addition to advising Republicans to accuse Democrats of hating women, Hutchison also has some advice specifically for male candidates: “Please don’t mention the word ‘rape’ in any way,” Hutchison sagely advises. “Also, let’s not talk about anything to do with women’s reproductive cycles or um, um, women’s sexuality,” continues Hutchison before state Representative Liz Pike (R-Camas) helpfully adds in: “Don’t talk about things in the bedroom or the doctor’s office.” Because letting women know that Republicans want to control their sexuality makes it harder to win women’s votes, I suppose.

Instead, if the topic comes up, just change the subject. “Talk about the Seahawks,” suggests Hutchison.

Really:

A moment later, just beyond the end of the audio above, Hutchison goes on to amazingly describe former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee as “a victim of the war on women.”

That she even has to tell male candidates not mention the word “rape” tells you everything you need to know about a Republican Party whose policies are profoundly anti-woman. But it’s not just talk, it’s action. Hutchison’s party opposes choice—both when it comes to abortion and birth control. Republicans overwhelmingly opposed the Violence Against Women Act. They even opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, an irony apparently lost on Hutchison in her own struggle for equal pay.

The truth is, Democrats effectively brand Republicans as being anti-women because Republican policies are anti-women. The embarrassing “rape” talk only make it easier. So if Hutchison really wants to change that perception, perhaps she should advise the men in her party to change the party platform?

It is important to remember that none of this would have been necessary had Olympia not cowardly reimposed I-747 after Tim Eyman’s fiscally irresponsible tax-limiting initiative had been ruled unconstitutional:

Over the objections of some advocates, the Seattle City Council on Monday unanimously approved forwarding to the August ballot the creation of a Seattle Parks District to provide a new and permanent source of funding for the city’s parks and recreation programs.

Seriously. How is it that our local daily continues to cover this story without covering the context?

Also, you know how some of the establishment folk continue to roll their eyes at Kshama Sawant for being some sort of ridiculous one-and-done accidental council member, inflexibly incapable of pragmatic compromise?

City Councilmember Kshama Sawant said she agreed that additional property taxes placed a burden on middle-income residents when the “superwealthy and big business” should be paying a larger share.

But she said the city had limited taxing authority and that low-income residents and those on fixed-incomes are some of the heaviest users of parks and community centers.

“Sometimes, these are the only services they have access to. It’s important that we’re doing this as a council.”

That’s crazy talk! Amiright?

I’m not surprised that King County Metro’s Proposition 1 failed at the polls during a special election, but like most other observers I am surprised that it failed by such a wide margin. Late ballots have softened the blow somewhat, but there aren’t many late ballots remaining. When the final vote is tallied, Prop 1 will have failed by about eight points.

By modern American standards, eight points is almost a landslide.

So the question remains: had the county gone to the ballot with the more progressive Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET) we requested from the legislature (a 1.5 percent tax on the value of your car), would voters have approved that at Tuesday’s election? And I think the answer would likely have been a resounding “No.”

Editorial board opponents had touted the regressive nature of Prop 1’s car tab/sales tax combo, but of course that was disingenuous. All our taxes are regressive, and there’s no support from the Blethenites to fix that. The truth is, any Metro funding solution that didn’t involve busting the bus drivers union would have earned a “no” endorsement from the Seattle Times.

Not that there wasn’t a sizable contingent of “no” voters on the left who failed to weigh the regressive nature of bus cuts versus the shitty reality of the tax authority we have. But I just don’t believe that’s a large enough swing vote to overcome an eight point margin. The fact is, most voters just aren’t going to distinguish between an MVET and a VLF (Vehicle License Fee)—they are both taxes that you pay when you renew your car tabs.

King County voters voted against raising taxes on their cars. Period. By eight fucking points. So it would be a mistake to read too much nuance into Tuesday’s results in order to presume that an MVET would have fared much better.

That’s why, unless the legislature is prepared to give King County councilmanic authority to levy an MVET without the approval voters—and the legislature most certainly is not—I believe Olympia’s failure to act is probably now moot. We can’t pass an MVET in a special election, and maybe not in an off-year general election either. Perhaps in 2016, during a high-turnout presidential election, but even that wouldn’t be a sure thing. In the meanwhile, systemwide Metro cuts are now unavoidable.

Politically, that means two things. First, Seattle must act on its own to save our in-city bus service from the cutting room floor. We can do that. Prop 1 passed handedly in Seattle precincts. And we have plenty of funding options.

Second, our county’s legislative delegation must wrap its collective mind around the fact that an otherwise crappy state transportation funding package is no longer a price worth paying in return for Metro MVET authority. The hostage has died. So don’t make major concessions elsewhere in return for a non-councilmanic MVET authority we likely can’t use.

Elections have consequences, and most of Tuesday’s consequences are bad. But let’s not compound them by pretending they didn’t happen.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray packed a conference room at city hall this afternoon to announce that he has no minimum wage proposal. At least not yet. Oh well.

Murray did outline several main points. If he had made a proposal it would phase in to $15 (eventually), indexed to inflation (eventually), with a slower phase-in for small businesses, however “small” is ultimately defined. There would be no “exemptions” we’re told, but there would be a phased out deduction for the cost of providing some benefits. And maybe a tip credit. That’s still under discussion.

I don’t mean to come off as snarky here. This isn’t easy. But he’s pretty much talking about all the things we’ve all been talking about, but without providing much specificity.

So, yeah. No news, really.

It’s not like I write in a vacuum. So when I posted this morning that we should pursue Plan C, and buy back Metro bus service cuts within Seattle, it’s not like I didn’t know that transit advocates had been discussing exactly such an option. But I had no idea that they were prepared to move this quickly:

SEATTLE — Friends of Transit today announced it will file an initiative for the November 2014 ballot that would save bus service within Seattle city limits. The measure could raise up to $25 million a year for the next six years, enough to reverse most cuts to King County Metro routes that serve Seattle.

… The proposed initiative would increase the city’s property tax by $0.22 per $1,000 of assessed value between 2015 and 2021. The measure is estimated to generate $25 million a year in revenue, enough to fund as much as 250,000 hours of bus service. This funding would help stave off cuts to routes operating completely within Seattle, and may help reduce cuts to routes operating between Seattle and other cities. The property tax increase requires a simple majority vote for approval.

I suppose a property tax makes as much sense as a car tab, though at $0.22 per $1,000—$88 a year on a $400,000 home—it will personally cost me a tad more than Prop 1. Either way, I’m all for the city pursuing self-sufficiency in the face of inadequate revenue at the county and state level.

Friends of Transit has a content-free website at the moment, but with endlessly energetic transit advocate Ben Schiendelman behind it, I’m sure that will be remedied in a heartbeat.

– Run on the ACA or at least Medicaid expansion, Democrats.

– I didn’t think Veep was as good as The Thick Of It, but I’m still glad it’s being renewed.

– 40% of Seattle’s greenhouse gas emissions are from road transportation, and 41% of trips are under 3 miles

– We know the real voters.

– More Bertha not going.

– Smart guns

After Rodney Tom dropped out of his reelection race, I quoted some speculation about who might run for what. And I hoped that the party wouldn’t push McBride into taking the House seat if she didn’t want it.

I don’t know the district as well as he does, but I’d be wary of the party trying to push her out for one of the current representatives. She got in the race when it was going to be a tough election. The party recruited her, and she stuck her neck out for them. I’m not saying if one of the House Dems runs, she shouldn’t run for their seat, but I hope the party will stay out of it if there is a primary.

I don’t know how much pressure there was behind the scenes, but Representative Habib is going to run for Senate, and McBride will run for the House seat he’s vacating.