I don’t necessarily disagree with the general sentiment of the Seattle Times’ recent editorials on higher education and fixing potholes; these both constitute important government services that demand public investment, as the Times appears to recognize. But if the Times’ editors are going to continue editorializing in favor of spending taxpayer dollars, they might want to start rethinking their seemingly knee-jerk opposition to raising them.
For example, in making the case for dedicating more city resources towards pothole repair, the Times correctly points out that in 2006, Seattle voters approved a roads and bridges levy that, amongst other things, promised to “pave and repair Seattle streets.” What the Times fails to recall is that its editorial board advised readers to vote “No” on the $365 million proposition.
Likewise, while the editors rightly insist that “among the many things Washington must do about higher education, none will be as important as returning its investment in the system to a stronger, more robust stage,” they were also among the loudest voices arguing against a high earners income tax that would have restored budget dollars for education, while reducing taxes for 98 percent of Washington households.
The Times editors like to smugly harrumph about “Tax and Spend Liberals” like me, and I don’t deny the label—I think our state currently invests too little in our public and human infrastructure to sustain and grow our economy and improve our quality of life. Disagree with that perspective if you want, but at least give me credit for enunciating how we might pay for my spending priorities, unlike those “Don’t-Tax but Spend Conservatives” at the Seattle Times.
toll all pothole-free streets bitches!
In my opinion, its far better to be a tax-and-spend liberal than a borrow-and-spend-more Republican.
I think looking for logical consistency in the Times editorial board is a futile hope, though.
Let’s embrace this no tax, new pay as you go world.
RDIF Tolls on every block or every mile. Get a pot hole or need road repair? Tolls for that section, go up till the pot hole fix is paid off. Existing roads would be cheap, new roads will be expensive.
City streets would be relatively cheap since they get a lot of traffic, long stretchs of rural road would be either very costly, or in very bad repair, their choice.
The “tax and spend liberal” has always been a false label.
The Republicans have always been more than happy to spend money on their own priorities, and finance it through increased federal debt rather than taxes. When they do address the tax issue, it’s almost always to decrease taxes for the wealthy and give the middle class a pittance so they can claim that the tax cuts benefited everyone.
Democrats generally prefer to finance their priorities through current taxation, with the wealthy paying a larger percentage of the total tax burden than the middle class. The Democrates are also willing to finance their priorities through deficit financing, but their record in this respect over the last 40 years or so is considerably better than that of the Republicans.
Somewhere in here is room for a rational discussion concerning what should be the proper priorities, and what level of taxation should be paid by whom. The false labeling and 30-second sound bites make that goal receed further into the distance.
So instead, we have Republicans using their Gingrich-inspired vocabulary ready for the network “sound bites”, alleging that every Democratic initiative is a “job-buster” or “explodes the national debt”. They know it’s false labelling, but they do it anyway because it’s served them well in the past. They count on the fact that the media doesn’t fact-check their allegations any more and call them on it when they tell an outright lie, and they rely upon the public not having the time or inclination to spend hours every day studying the various aspects of government fiscal policy to keep up with their false assumptions.
What do you expect from borrow-and-spend Republicans?
Nice post, Goldy, and nice follow-up, rhp6033. It is indeed about the priorities of the Republicans and their corporate enablers, fairness be damned. And indeed, rhp6033, these same groups (e.g., the Seattle Times) control the dialogue. Sigh.
@6 Goldy has done a lot to descredit the Times, although he doesn’t really need to, because they do a fine job of discrediting themselves. In any case, I believe the day is coming when HA will be as widely read as ST, as Goldy’s circulation continues to go up and Frank’s circulation continues to decline. It’ll take a while yet, but a day is coming when the ST pontificators will be shouting into the wind; they can write their insipid editorials until Kingdom Come, but no one will read them.
It wasn’t just Republicans who voted down the income tax, unless the state is now 60%+ Republican. We have to convince our fellow Democrats of the need for tax reform first; then we can work on the other side.
@8:
You’re assuming that the voting pool this time around had the same demographics as the the entire electorate. That’s not an assumption that I’d make.
I’d say that we had an unusual turnout of conservatives/Republicans and a unusually low turnout of liberals/Democrats. I think you’re clearly right in that some moderate Democrats bought into the right’s BS arguments about the inevitability of expanding the income tax, but I tend to think that the majority of the no on 1098 vote came from the right and right-of-center, not from Democrats.
@8, 9 — No problem. Build casinos and Republicans will come. A gambling tax works as an indirect income tax and only Republicans pay it. You get to the same place.
Funny how Republicans kick and scream about a tax they won’t have to pay, then go straight to a casino and drop the money they refuse to pay for things like education and jails into slot machines. I’m almost tempted to suspect these people are irrational.
Why not just Print up a few more Trillion from the Feds..
Thats what Pelosi has done 5.4 trillion in her short stay as spooker of the house
Nice Pay Go System
PS: And Laugh of the day:::
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,” [Obama] said on March 16, 2006. “Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership . Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”
Don’t tax and spend is what Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush did…increase spending (just on stuff they liked) and cut taxes. That worked out well (oh wait, each doubled or tripled the national debt…huh). The folks are just spoiled annoying children. They want stuff but simply can’t be bothered to pay for it.
“I WANNA INVADE IRAQ!”
“Now Timmy, that’ll cost $1,000,000,000,000 and we’re already in debt. How are you going to pay for that? And Iraq didn’t attack us (that was Saudi Arabian citizens trained in Afghanistan)…we were working WITH Iraq in their fight against Iran just a few years ago. Are you sure?”
“I’m not gonna pay for it. It will pay for itself magically! Deficits don’t matter! Whatever…just do all the stuff I want, I don’t care what it costs! I WANT I WANT! WAIT! Not only am I NOT going to figure out how to pay for this, I want tax CUTS at the same time! Yeah…spend LOTS LOTS LOTS more and CUT taxes too! YEAH!!!!”
@12: We weren’t in the Great Bush Recession in 2006. That makes all the difference in the world.
Though I agree it was a stupid thing for him to say at the time.