It’s as if the editors at the Seattle Times live in a world entirely free of context:
The proposal now before the Seattle City Council is to double the existing property-tax levy devoted to parks, to $54 million a year, raising the annual cost for the owner of a $400,000 home from $76 to $168. It is not a backbreaking addition, but it would tighten the squeeze on middle-class families already struggling with Seattle’s cost of living.
And it furthers a trend of jumbo specialty property levies. The annual amount of dedicated “lid-lift levies” jumped over the past decade from $65 million to $146 million. The Families and Education Levy doubled in 2011 and the low-income housing levy jumped 50 percent in 2009.
Yeah, true. But you know what else has jumped over the past decade? The hundreds of millions of regular property tax levy dollars (those that don’t require a public vote) lost to Tim Eyman’s I-747, an initiative soundly defeated within Seattle. I-747 limits regular levy growth to an absurd 1 percent a year. So while voter-approved dedicated lid-lift levies may indeed be $81 million higher than they were a decade ago (if you can trust the Seattle Times editorial board’s numbers), I-747 will cost city coffers as much as $186 million in 2015 alone, the first year the proposed parks levy would take effect!
Is it great policy to move all this funding out of the general fund and into dedicated levies? No. It’s stupid. But thanks to I-747, the only other alternative would be to grow the $267 million parks maintenance backlog the editors already lament.
That is the context in which all these lid-lift levies have gone to the ballot. And unless we debate the parks district proposal within that context, it’s not really an honest debate at all.
Soundly defeated, but only carried 51.65% in the county.
http://www.sos.wa.gov/election.....2=&y=
King
No 234101
Yes 219093
Besides, levy growth of 1% would be bad in the traditional economy, but given our currently super low interest rates (what’s a 10 year T Bill, 2%?)
and wasn’t I-747 ruled unconstitutional and voided in 2007 ?
King County isn’t Seattle, and close counts in horseshoes, not elections. Yes, I-747 was ruled unconstitutional. And then cowardly Gregoire called a special session to reinstate it.
You know what is really putting the squeeze on middle-class families?
Job insecurity with trade deals sending our jobs to China and corporations sending local jobs to non union states. Companies unwilling to pay living wages. Do something about that.
But the initiative changed the state’s limit of 6% to 1% and if the levy goes to the voters, they can have it rise by more than 1%, right ?
Don’t most levies go before the voters already ?
“…it’s not really an honest debate at all.”
Honest debate gets in the way of received truth. I think that many non-conservative adults are now of the mindset that all opinions are equal and deserving of respect — so the ones that get the most ‘air time’ in their heads tend to carry the most weight.
Goldy’s point is reasonable but I think he misses the significance of this particular measure. The Blethen family has benefited immensely from tax benefits associated with the redevelopment of Seattle. A huge part of the family money that now supports the Times comes from real estate investments in South Lake Union. The growth in these investments reflects the subsidies that the city has given to Paul Allen to develop what some people are calling “Allenville.” My guess is that the Blethens think something like this should happen along the waterfront. In their view, if they did not need a levy to build South Lake Union, why should they need one to bury the viaduct and create a more economically viable waterfront? Put another way, what do they get out of a park?
This gets me back to other posts over on THE Ave about the boring design the city has presented for the waterfront. The major reason for that design is the lack of interest by today’s civic leaders in developing Seattle as a public space. The imagination, including local taxes, that went into development of the Seattle Center for preservation of the Pike Place market, is simply missing along the waterfront. Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen, and, I assume, the Blethens. really do not live here.
Their “homes” are in New York, London, Monaco or wherever their private yachts and plans can carry them. Seattle’s new money sees the city only in terms of what it can do for them.
If people don’t want to pay these taxes, all they have to do is vote against the levies. The Seattle Times seems to be criticizing the idea of putting it up for a vote, and criticizing voters who approve levies.
One outfit that doesn’t sweat taxes is Deere Company. A Senate report issued today says Deere dodged $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes over 10 years by laundering profits from its replacement parts division through a Swiss storefront. Deere claims its Swiss subsidiary is legitimate, but it employs only 65 of Deere’s 8,300 parts division employees.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101540226
Roger Rabbit Commentary: CEOs focus on maximizing profits for shareholders. They’ll tell you that’s their job. They may even say they have a fiduciary duty to increase profits by avoiding taxes by any legal means. And they do.
Conservatives argue a corporation’s job is to make money for its owners, not create jobs for workers or pay taxes to government. I agree with them. CEOs should focus on maximizing profits for shareholders because that is their job.
But conservatives also argue against what they call government “interference” with business, including all forms of regulation, and also believe corporate taxes should be abolished. They claim it’s double taxation — i.e. corporate income is taxed, and then when that income is paid to shareholders as dividends, it’s taxed again. But conservatives also want to abolish dividend taxes, so their real position is that business profits shouldn’t be taxed at all, only workers’ wages should be taxed. That’s not only bullshit, it’s offensive and obnoxious bullshit.
And conservatives are dead wrong about the role of government in business. It’s precisely because conservatives are right about what corporate management’s proper role is — maximizing profits for shareholders — that government must have a role in policing corporate behavior. The driver drives the car; the traffic cop enforces the speed limit. They’re too stupid to see this.
Right now, I own stocks of 39 different companies. I want the people running those companies to make as much money as they can. But I also want government to police the behavior of those companies — because that’s government’s job and companies need to be policed for the good of society as a whole. In resisting this policing role, conservatives are totally, completely, dead wrong.
Conservatives argue the bottom line, not somebody’s idea of moral behavior, should govern corporate behavior. I agree with them. It is government’s role to impose moral behavior on corporations on behalf of all of us in order to protect our collective well-being.
When conservatives argue the business world should have no traffic laws and no traffic cops, I say they’re full of shit.
(Full disclosure: I don’t own Deere stock, but I’m going to look into it, because a company run by crooks making shitloads of money for their shareholders by dodging taxes is the best investment there is, and until Congress makes it illegal to own stocks of crooked companies, I’m willing to take some of the loot and make it my own, because if I don’t take that money someone else will.)
If there is one thing that the early opponents of dedicated funding for parks maintenance and programming for seniors, youth, and people with disabilities have trouble with, it is being honest. The Seattle Times is jumping on the bandwagon, it seems, but you know what I don’t see? Any solutions.
Rather, there are constant calls to address the maintenance backlog, get community centers open and properly staffed, and make sure that everyone has equal access to becoming active members of their communities – but a refusal to pay for it. Typical Seattle Times, typical Tim Eyman.
Ben Noble, the current Budget Director for the City and former head of Council Central Staff was asked very clearly – if property tax revenue could increase with inflation, would we be talking about a separate dedicated funding mechanism? His answer: No. We would be addressing a backlog caused by REET funding declines during the recession, but nothing like what we have now.
The Parks District addresses and works towards elimination of the backlog. It ensures financial and performance audits of the entire department. It brings back vital programming for folks from Delridge to Laurelhurst; Bitter Lake to Rainier Beach. We have invested heavily in growing our parks system, and now it’s time to invest in taking care of our parks system.
michaelp says “[Metropolitan Parks District] ensures financial and performance audits of the entire department.” Not true at all! There is nothing in the law or the specific MPD proposal being considered by the City Council that guarantees auditing of the MPD, let alone of the Parks Dept itself. It’s been years since the Parks Dept was audited by the Office of City Auditor. How does permanently removing taxing oversight from the voters increase accountability? It won’t.
Toby – don’t misquote me, or change quotes to suit your goals.
Taxing oversight is called voting. Tim Eyman budgeting is putting up department budgets to the polls for M&O every 6 years. We elect people to make decisions about taxes. We pay them well. And, as this post clearly points out (and others before), we don’t actually pay that much in taxes.
If you don’t like taxes, or don’t want to pay taxes, then just say so. Stop hiding behind “it’s undemocratic to have elected officials make decisions on taxes”, because that’s Republican talk.
King County isn’t Seattle, you say. Damn good thing too, because when we crush the transit levy it’s going to be great fun to hear you whine about how King County isn’t Seattle.
Parks levy is about maintenance? What bullshit. It’s about pay raises, pensions, and a platinum plated waterfront homeless ‘n addict leisure world. Voting against that one too.
“$267 million parks maintenance backlog” — if one scrutinizes this list, its a pretty inflated number.
think of it this way – you can walk around your house and find MANY things that could be fixed, and come up with a pretty expensive punch list. but ya know what, you can live there just fine with most things as is.
when the priority item #34 (of hundreds) is to retrofit a spray park to recycle water, your backlog is padded…
the larger crisis is the inefficiency and large management overhead. the parks department has never been audited. yet we are at the top nationwide in funding per capita.
Goldy – take a look at the salary increases for the couple dozen top paid employees over the last couple of years. they sure don’t act like an organization with a budget problem. its a scandal what is going on there while they lay off people in the field and leave toilets uncleaned. and ask the city for millions more in funding…