Goldy reports on a press conference on the possibility of getting a transit package in a special session.
Both Inslee and Constantine spoke about the importance of including additional tax authority for King County in the package to stave off a projected 17 percent cut in Metro bus service. But it’s not clear that even a November special session can come soon enough to prevent some cutbacks. The transportation package that passed the House—the one Inslee said he was ready to press the “go” button on if the Senate passed it—would give King County the authority to raise up to a 1.5 percent Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET), but only on approval of voters. A special election would take months to mount, and implementation would take months more. But Metro will run through its reservers by the end of June, 2014.
I hope we can get a transit package that gives King County a chance to tax ourselves as we want. I’m not thrilled with tying that to spending money on roads, but fine, whatever. And I hope it actually saves Metro from serious cuts. But if Metro is cut, I hope it’s disproportionately from Rodney Tom’s district. I want people to be in this together, but Rodney Tom has personally made the Senate an unworkable pile of bullshit. So yeah, the cuts should hurt his district more than the rest of us. As long as he has no incentive to be decent, he won’t be.
As I’ve posted before, I don’t like MVET because it taxes retired seniors on limited incomes exactly the same as high-mileage commuters, which is very unfair and places an additional financial burden on struggling elderly people who need a car for shopping and medical appointments but drive very few miles. Transit is a worthy cause, but we can’t keep piling regressive taxes and fees on those least able to pay forever. I could support this as a commuter tax if an exemption for over-65s is included in the bill.
Instead of raising the MVET why not just keep gas tax money we’ve been sending to red county ingrates and use it for transit?
don’t forget to include Tim Turncoat Sheldon. He is an obstructionist as well. However, his simple district doesn’t have much bus service to cut.
I like the idea of cutting Toms district bus service first.
Also, as RR spews. MVET is not the most fair method. Is it time to have a grown up talk about tolls? Is it not the most fair method? Toll the ones who use it.
Do they use much public transportation in Medina, Clyde Hill, Yarrow Bay, and Hunt’s Point? Probably not, so that wouldn’t affect Rodney Tom very much. But his 48th district seems to extend east to Redmond, which would use public transportation.
Problem is, it hurts the Metro uses there, and not the execrable Tom and his backers.
Republicans can’t help but hide behind their human shields.
The way to hit him is the same as how to run a state/county/city equitably….tax wealth. Unfortunately that seems to have been made politically unpalatable.
Come to think of it, Microsoft already has it’s own bus system in place, which transports employees to and from their residences to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond and other similar locations. So that reduces yet again the number of people in Rodney Tom’s district who would be hurt by a cut in Metro services.
The irony…a letter in this morning’s Spokesman-Review decried taxation and the Washington nanny state driven by tax and spend liberals of King County. We just got a new ferry for Hwy. 21 over Lake Roosevelt….$8. something million from the State DoT, $2 million from the Colville Nation and a bit from the feds. Oh, it’s also a free ferry. Thanks, you liberal wet-siders.
@7 Heaven forbid that an eastsider should have to pay a fare.
@3 The problem with tolls: A lot of poorer people have to use those roads and bridges, because they’ve been forced out to the burbs by unaffordable housing in Seattle and the transit service is so bad there, especially if you work irregular hours like nights or weekends. I’m all for tolls if it’s a discretionary expense, but for a fair number of people it isn’t – it takes rich and poor at exactly the same amount.
Since Medina doesn’t need buses, it clearly doesn’t need roads, either. A line item to jackhammer all the roads in Rodney Tom’s neighborhood sounds like an excellent idea – and so environmentally responsible!
@1 People can “retire” at 65? What century are you talking about?
@5,
The point is that bus riders are probably already going to have a certain amount of pain because of Rodney Tom. If that comes to pass, my point is that the pain shouldn’t be distributed evenly. Hopefully the pain can be forestalled for everybody.
@11 The one I lived in. Yeah, I know the economy sucks now, but that’s not my fault because I’ve been voting for Democrats since the first year I was eligible to vote. Are you suggesting the whole notion of “senior citizens” is antiquated? That everyone now works until they drop dead? Things are even worse than I thought.
Every form of taxation affects some group of people more than others. Consumption taxes (like gas and sales taxes) hit poor people the hardest because they spend a greater share of their income on necessary staples. Property taxes (like excise taxes) hit people with relatively more property than income, and that usually means older people. Progressive income taxes are usually hardest on the working middle class… if they’re so progressive that they aren’t they become unstable (see California, whose budget is dependent on the income of a fairly small number of rich people, a figure that varies a lot year-to-year). User fees are hardest on users, and who exactly they are depends on what’s being used (consider park fees, road tolls, transit fares).
None of this is a reason to throw out any of these forms of taxation. With property/excise taxes in particular, people that have accumulated wealth in the form of property (be it houses, land, or cars) clearly have assets they can draw against to pay taxes. Maybe the requirement that they pay taxes forces a change in lifestyle relative to a situation where they had to pay no taxes at all, but that’s true for almost everyone that pays taxes, and a society where nobody pays taxes is… a subject for libertarians.