Well, the Legislature passed something crappy.
The Legislature adjourned shortly after the Senate approved the new budget plan by a 42-6 vote. Gregoire had called for $2 billion in changes and a fully revamped budget by Christmas, but lawmakers settled on a plan that provides a $480 million fix through a combination of cuts, transfers and delayed payments.
Our Democratic legislature is still too chickenshit to even consider putting revenue in front of the people, let alone just passing a package outright.
Budget negotiators said it was impossible to get full consensus on a plan during a session that would last a maximum of 30 days.
I have to say, the we only had a limited time nonsense is stupid, stupid, stupid. I’m not suggesting it should have been easy, especially given the Republicans and Roadkills. I understand saying we didn’t get as far as we need because a significant portion of the legislature hates math. But to pretend nobody had any time to prepare? Please. They should have known as soon as they passed the budget that this was possible. And they definitely should have known several months ago when the revenue forecast that precipitated this session came about.
Anyway, kudos to Marko Liias for drawing a line in the sand.
“Not one bill came to the floor nor where there any committee hearings on revenue,” Liias says, explaining that he wants to “tax the one percent” and close corporate loopholes. “I know the high-earners’ income tax (Initiative 1098) failed before, but that was before Occupy. That was before people were occupying the Capitol asking us for revenue.”
And while I appreciate Josh Feit covering this aspect of the session that far too many reporters ignored, seriously, what the fuck is “Was Liias’ lone vote (among the Democrats) simply a bratty grandstand?” I mean really, “bratty grandstand” in an otherwise straight piece? I guess I can understand parsing out how serious he was and how much this is electoral stuff, bratty seems a totally unnecessary word.
According to what Andy Billig (D-Spokane) just posted on Face Book, he can’t see a way forward without new revenue.
Are the Seattle folks still going to line up behind Murray Hunter and say what a wonderful guys they are and what a good job they do?
Just for comparisons sake.
State 1998 budget 2009 budget
CA $120.3B $254.3B
NY $87.3B $163.7B
TX $50B $110.7B
FL $39.2B $75.6B
OH $39.2B $71.6B
NJ $31.7B $62.B
MI $37.4B $59.1B
WA $22.8B $43.4B
WI $19.1B $35.6B
SC $13.5B $28.6B
Lisa Brown, Gregoire etc etc created this mess, and OWEbamanomics has caused the bankruptcies of governement agencies across America. Revenue is not the problem people quit buying because they had no jobs or money. The Zero interest environment caused by Obama’s massive spending spree cost every household in America thousands in disposible income. No Money No Spend…Taxing more is not going to bring more revenue..DUH
@4
See #3
Well, that much of your rant is certainly true.
yd, just where do you get your “facts” or do you just make them up as you go?
@7
Not here: http://www.google.com/publicdata apparently.
# 4 I won’t speak for the Democratic party but much of this mess was caused by the war and an effort to keep the economy going so that taxes would pay for it and housing was the engine pulling that train until it derailed.
Every time we have had a war it has resulted in some form of economic disruption! Ya call the tune ya gotta pay the piper.
You think raising the sales tax brings in more money? See Craigslist popularity
You might find a whole new kind of sales tax free trading…
15,116 trillion and counting……
See Greece!
No point in blaming “it” on Democrats or Republicans if “it” is increasing state budgets. As I posted @3 states led by Democrats and Republicans both saw their budgets go up by roughly the same amounts. The states were simply responding to an increased cost of doing business.
Increased cost of doing business and decreasing revenues…
Maybe increased costs need to be investigated?
Sure and maybe the states can’t do everything they used to do. But, it’s not a Democrat or Republican thing as the costs went up about the same in Democratic and Republican controlled states.
Yes, the high-earner tax failed before, and it’ll fail again. The people of Washington will NEVER vote for an income tax, not even on millionaires, because they’re afraid it’ll expand to them. Besides, why pay taxes when you can get education, highways, prisons, and all that other good stuff for FREE! Everyone knows getting something for nothing is the American Way! Detroit figured out 100 years ago that the typical American will gladly pay $2500 for a $2000 rebate on a new car. (Bet you didn’t know rebates are a profit center, did you? Well, they are. And the average American consumer is dumber than hell — just ask the credit card manager at any bank.)
Proud Moments In Roger Rabbit’s Life – Part I
Which reminds me of a remark the local bank branch manager made to my wife a few weeks ago. As we were leaving, he confided to her, “Your husband HATES banks.” That’s almost as good as a Nobel Prize.
I guess my body language must have given me away. It’s my ears. You can always read a rabbit’s mind from the position and shape of his ears. I’ve busted my cute cottontail trying to overcome that, but I have no control over my ears, and because I don’t, I can’t get away with a damn thing. I’d make a lousy crook. I’d fail the lie detector test every time.
Take Jon Corzine, for example. Now there’s an accomplished liar. That guy lied his way into the chairmanship of Goldman Sachs, the New Jersey governorship, and the U.S. Senate — not to mention several hundred million dollars of personal wealth. He even got away with callign himself a Democrat. For a long time. And last week, he looked and sounded credible when he told a congressional committee (chaired by a bloodthirsty Republican) that he had no fucking idea where the customers’ money went. The problem for him is, it now turns out there was a witness …
See, I could never get away with that shit, and that’s why I’m only worth three-quarters of a million, which is about as much as you can get in this country if you have to actually work for it. It’s my fucking ears, they start twitching whenever I try to rip off Wall street …
Roger Rabbit’s Stock Market Forecast
… which brings us to Roger Rabbit’s Daily Stock Market Forecast. Actually, I don’t dream up these forecasts, I steal them from CNBC and other sources, and paste them here. But that’s not so bad, you’re getting the work product of the best financial minds in America! Okay, here we go:
“The negativity that’s driving the euro lower could keep pressure on stocks and commodities prices Thursday. Traders had been hoping that improving U.S. economic data would spark a year-end rally. But the gloom around Europe’s lack of progress in solving its debt crisis has investors raising cash and looking for safety in the dollar and Treasury market.”
Yeah. I noticed that oil and gold were down over 5% today, silver even more. That’s because big traders — hedge funds, etc. — are dumping hard assets to raise cash. They’re dumping stocks, too. That’s why we saw 3-digit Dow drops every day this week. My guess is the Dow will be down 80 to 120 points tomorrow.
It’s not enough. I want to see a huge selloff. That’s because I have over $150K of cash that isn’t earning a damn thing sitting in money markets and bank accounts that I’m itching to shovel intot the stock market. But I can’t just buy anything, you see. Price matters. There’s about 60 stocks I follow closely, and they’re all 5% to 25% above their recent lows. I think we have a pretty firm floor under this market — high quality blue-chip dividend-paying stocks are still relatively cheap by historical measuring standards — but I want to see a 5% to 10% selloff before I commit. Because I think we’re going to get it, and I don’t think we’re going to get more than that. A “Santa rally” is Roger R.’s worst nightmare. I don’t want no fucking stock market rally! With that kind of money to spend, I want the market to seize up and dump stocks for pennies on the dollar!
Here are Roger Rabbit’s current stock picks. I’ll give you two of them. Coca Cola and Novartis are both super high quality dividend paying stocks. They’re both within 5% of their lowest prices of the last 6 months. If you’ve absolutely gotta spend money in the stock market tomorrow, buy those two. Trust me on this. You won’t be sorry 5 years from now.
Okay, here’s what’s going on in the world:
“In fact, a 30-year Treasury bond auction was so strong Wednesday afternoon that investors accepted a record low yield of 2.925 percent. In contrast, Italy paid 6.47 percent, the highest rate since 1997, when it auctioned 3 billion euros worth of 5-year notes earlier in the day.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45677114
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Translated into English, this means people who have real money — i.e., millions or billions — are scared shitless. They’re leaving stocks, gold, oil futures, and other non-cash assets and fleeing into Treasuries that pay less than the inflation rate. Anytime Big Money accepts less than the inflation rate, you know they’re scared shitless. And don’t forget that Fitch, one of the three big ratings outfits, downgraded the five biggest European banks after the markets closed yesterday. All of this means stocks will be cheaper tomorrow morning. Which is exactly what I want them to be. I have bad news for all my liberal atheist friends: The Great Mother Rabbit Spirit isn’t something I made up, She’s real, and She’s looking after her favorite rabbit. Don’t believe me? Just sit back and watch the stock market go to shit right before Christmas, and then think of Roger Rabbit trading his trainload of zero-interest cash for blue-chip dividend-paying stocks selling for pennies on the dollar — there’s at least one fucking rabbit out here who’s gonna have a very fucking merry Christmas!
If the stock market goes up from now until New Year’s, I’ll be wondering what I did that offended the GMRS’s boss.
Roger Rabbit Forecasts Lower Gasoline Prices
Yesterday OPEC officially ratified the status quo by maintaining their official production ceiling of 30M bpd to allow slow rebuilding of depleted global inventories. My thinking is that as Libya comes back onstream, the Saudis (who recently ramped up to 10M bpd) won’t throttle back, and OPEC’s greedy price hawks (Iran, Algeria, and Hugochavezland) will leak oil above their quotas to collect more lucre, keeping prices below $100/bbl and pushing them into the high 80s. It takes about 8-10 weeks for weaker crude prices to reach the pump. You’ll see modestly lower pump prices in mid-February to early March as OPEC cheating heats up.
@13
I don’t know what the main drivers of the budget increases are, but with them going up fairly evenly across the board, I’d guess that it’s things like an aging population and medicare pass through money, growing populations, and inflation.
zgregoire trying to raise the Sales tax to 10% when people aren’t buying, is like what is going to happen to State run liquor stores with a union law suit in place.
Both will cause Sales, and ultimatly taxes, to be greatly diminished.
Simple economics that the Left just do not get!
Gregoire trying to raise the Sales tax to 10% when people aren’t buying, is like what is going to happen to State run liquor stores with a union law suit in place.
Both will cause Sales, and ultimatly taxes, to be greatly diminished.
Simple economics that the Left just do not get!
@25 yd on 12/15/2011 at 2:11 am,
As long as it is simple, it’s in your wheel house.
A sales tax isn’t the way to go because of all the reasons cited before, namely it makes goods more expensive for middle and lower income residents. The legislature will continue to wring it’s collective, impotent hands and vote for it though claiming that there isn’t anything else it could possibly do. Between their luxe per diem dinners at expensive restaurants and tending to their impotency, they refuse to look at sales tax on services. We all know that more wealthy residents use things like lawyers more. So if you want to implement a sales tax, it would make sense to shift it to where the bucks are spent. They won’t do that though.
Costs for things like caseloads have increased for the state. The more people you lay off, the more unemployment you have to pay. And as people run out of options like unemployment, more people have to rely on other social services like food stamps. Believe it or not, people still choose to move to Washington and so public schools have to make room for more students. While the state gets blasted for wanting more revenue, PSE, Seattle Light, et. al. have no fucking problem getting more revenue for their utilities. So things like lights and heat cost the state more as well.
And jackasses who claim knowledge about “simple economics” would probably sue the city they live in, or the state if their shitty car got damaged in an pothole that there were no public dollars to fix.
But jackasses aren’t really the problem. They really are mostly irritating mosquitoes of little consequence. The problem is that the legislature and the governor quaking like idiot waifs at the threats of jackasses. Goddamn. If it that difficult being in politics, fucking get out of the way.
@25
Wow, you really are a one trick pony, huh.
Got a news flash for ya, screaming about the governor wont fix anything.
@27
Good one.
@25.
Ok yd, how would you fix the deficit problem?
What’s your solution?
Seems like the democrats have rn the state into the ground….this is what happens when one party controls everything year after year…
@31
I think in someways what’s happened is our ability to lie about the condition we’re in has been taken away from us. Prior to the crap hole we’re now in we were in the largest finical bubble known to mankind. Prior to that we were in a crap hole. Prior to that we were in the tech bubble. Prior to that we were in a crap hole. Prior to that we were in the borrow and spend Reagan years. Prior to that we were in yet another crap hole.
It seems like you have to go back to before the Johnson Admin decided to put the Vietnam war on credit cards and to start shipping our jobs to Mexico to see America in a healthy economic state.
@31. What are you talking about?
It’s not being run the way YOU want. The last thing I want is a bunch of republicans offering even more grid lock, or worse a republican governor destroying the state like some junior romney or gynrich.
This state is not bad off compared to others. That’s a tired meme that has been “run into the ground”.
1. Mississippi
> Median income: $36,850
> Poverty rate: 21.3% (the highest)
> Without health insurance: 18.7% (8th highest)
> Unemployment rate: 10.4% (7th highest)
2. Arkansas
> Median income: $38,600
> Poverty rate: 16.5% (8th highest)
> Without health insurance: 18.5% (9th highest)
> Unemployment rate: 8.2% (25th highest)
Read more: America’s Poorest States – 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2011/09/1.....st-states/
@33
No Time For Common Sense,
apparently you failed reading comprehension 101..
try re-reading what I wrote, and if you still cant understand the point, get back to me and I will explain it to you.
LMAO!!! Hey yd(iot)!
What would a 30 year Greek bond yield???
That is, if you could find one…
@27,
very good one.
@35
I think Greece’s GDP is on par with something like the state of Maryland, except Maryland’s still growing (not by much) and Greece’s GDP is shrinking at something like -4.5%
37 – The yd(iot) is still gibbering that this country is going the way of Greece..
Yet creditors are competing hand over fist for Treasury debt..
Poor silly yd(iot)…
30 – Certainly your only solution (Greece Bankruptcy like) is not a prefered option!
35 Greek Bonds are at 9%. What’s the US going to pay in interest when their 15.3 trillion is charged 9% DUH!
yd(iot) – the creditors are giving the U.S. Treasury excellent rates right now..
The rest of world is in crisis and the flight to safety is U.S. bonds. Why aren’t those silly creditors listening to you?
The cause is simple.
You’re sick with a mental illness called Obama Derangement Syndrome.. You’re a crazy man shouting in the street.
@30 and @39
That is telling us what you don’t want. I don’t want to attacked by space ninjas. That all well and good, but it doesn’t balance the budget.
What would you DO?
On a state level, how would you handle the WA budget?
What would you cut?
Would you raise income? If so what kind?
To Hell with Greece, we have a major debt crisis brewing here under OWEbama! He’s had one commission he totally ignored the findings of, and another who couldn’t save a penny with a shopping bag! Talk about Bags!
42 – LMAO! You keep saying we’re headed there (towards Greece’s situation) and yields on new U.S. bonds keep heading lower.
There’s a crazy man in the street shouting the sky is falling, the end is near and he’s you.
Got a Kenyan birth certificate to sell us?
@42
We’ve had a debit crisis brewing since Reagan. It finished its brewing under Obama.
Confucius say “never listen to cheap castillians”
maximus asshat the racist say:
“we buy iranian oil”..
Why aren’t you OWSing? How come you aren’t hanging out with your peeps?
47 – I’ll get to that after I look at the shining prospects for importing Libyan oil:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16098511
Much better than iranian oil or at least until the Republicans are allowed by the asshats of the world to blow another couple of trillion on bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran..
Gee how much did the Libyan adventure cost? Awww only a lousy 1.5 billion – no way to run a war for damn sure..
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