How things change…
Last month, Gregoire issued her findings on the viaduct options, saying the state could afford the $2.8 billion elevated highway but said the finance plan for the $4.6 billion, six-lane tunnel didn’t pencil out.
The overall project is estimated at $4.25 billion, with $2.8 billion coming from state gas taxes and federal bridge funds. That is supposed to cover the tunnel construction, as well as most of an interchange and elevated segment in Sodo.
How can “not having the money” be grounds to spike a tunnel in 2007, but not in 2009? What has changed, other than time?
In any case, back in 2007, State Sen. Ed Murray (D-43) seems to have nailed it:
Murray said he doesn’t believe the idea of eventually building a tunnel is dead yet.
“We’re not done,” he said.
“tunnel in 2007, but not in 2009? What has changed, other than time?”
Probably the cost of a tunnel has edged upward. Other than that, not much.
Then again, maybe their hoping for some stimulus money. You have to have a project ready for it to qualify for infrastructure money.
I agree with Ivan. In early 2007, the massive federal budget deficit was deamed to prevent any federal involvement for the better part of the next decade, no matter who was President.
But with suprisingly fast collapse of the U.S. economy in late 2008 (layoffs announced two weeks before Christmas?????!!!!!), and with U.S. retailers posting a miserable Christmas nation-wide, it looks like the budget deficit will take a back seat to economic recovery plans, which will require some significant infusions of cash into the U.S. economy from the federal government.
Giving money to the banks and Wall Street clearly hasn’t worked – they are just using the proceeds to take over other banks, or keep from being taken over themselves. So the federal government will have to invest in projects which support the economy from the ground up. Highway, bridge, and tunnel projects privide high-paying jobs which can’t be outsourced to China, and “prevailing wage” laws make sure the money ends up in the hands of the workers, not as profits to a select few owners of large construction firms. Wages in the hands of workers provides the tide which lifts all ships.
There may be some winners and losers. We might have to cut back in other areas, such as military expenditures overseas, which might result in a substantial re-evaluation of our military basing strategy (which still is fundamentally based on 1950’s cold-war strategy). We might need to legalize pot, if for no other reason than to reduce the money sent overseas to fund both sides of the current drug war.
The 520 bridge isn’t going to get replaced until it falls into the drink some afternoon and hundreds are hurt, or worse.
“How can ‘not having the money’ be grounds to spike a tunnel in 2007, but not in 2009?”
Simple, Will. The way things are done in Seattle is if citizens vote against something because it’ll cost too much they have to pay for it anyway. School levies work the same way — if we vote them down, the school district keeps resubmitting it and we have to keep voting on it until we agree to pass it. In other words, the voters don’t count for squat in this town when guys in smoke-filled rooms want to spend our money.
Hey if Pelosi can pork SF, why can CantVoteWell or the Dummy in Sneakers get us funds?
Pelletizer@4: And you and your ilk keep voting for those fools in smoke-filled rooms.
So shaddapaboutit!
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
@6: Just saw the fool you voted for twice, GWB.
What a pathetic hack. He was sorry for the banner but not the hundreds of thousands of deaths for no reason?
He thought he protected America by lowering us to the standards of al Quaida and making us a laughingstock? He thought torturing people was the American way and then he lied about it. he treated the constitution like an inconvenient scrap of paper.
He kept saying the fundamentals of the economy were strong as the Titanic was sinking. he proposed and signed the largest budget deficit in history. He gave away 750 billion dollars with NO accountability. He hired cronies and incompetents like Brownie and Gonzalez – who broke the law for him. And racists in the dept. of Justice:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi.....ck_and.php
This was the same guy that said blacks die younger so voter ID laws only discriminate against old people, not blacks.
How does it feel to support racists?
Whoever voted for that moron Bush is responsible for the state of our nation today. Take some responsibility for YOUR mistakes Puddy.
Golly incorrectnottobright@7: I thought this was the tunnel thread.
Oh wait, your BDS forced you to throw that up there.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths? Using that strange fuzzy math again?
He gave away $750 Billion? I thought Congress writes checks. Who controls Congress? Why did Barack and McCain come back from the campaign?
So you not safer? Emigrate to Canada then!
BTW the support of racists is very apparent with Burris is not in the Senate right now. Put that in your pipe and smoke it with your touchhole!
Well since novercorrectnottobright left the reservation… Look what the friends of libruls are doing to the picture of Obama
Wow: I remember Linda Chavez had to withdraw from her nomination in 2001…cuz Puddy remembers.
“Geithner faced questions about a housekeeper whose work papers lapsed while she was employed by his family, and about several years when Geithner did not pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for himself.”
Yet libtards in the MSM are giving a pass. Typical so typical.
I know, I know…
Close down Gitmo and send the detainees to all the librul cities of the US.
Oh NO!!!! It’s PuddyBud! The man most responsible for the droves of wingnuts that fuck me senseless daily!!
Why PuddyBud, why must you fuck me several times a day!?
It is obvious from your ceaseless irrational posts on HA that you have been fucking me and my brethren for far too many years. Your brains have been turned to mush from goat raping.
Why don’t you just gather your fellow racist wingnuts together and fuck yourselves?
@8: If you actually paid attention to the news you would know that congress wrote in provisions for TARP and Paulson hasn’t followed them…oops again Puddy.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq (100,00 is the low count and 1,000,000 may be high):
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/19/iraq
Must be tough to shoot off your mouth without the facts – then again, maybe not.
Keep defending Bush, Puddy – it makes you look like a total fool…..
Nevercorrectneverbright:
Iraqi Health Ministry survey says: 151,000.
Regarding Henry Paulsen… do you ever pay attention to facts? I showed on this blog who Henry Paulsen is, you ignored it. This is why it’s so easy to destroy you here with facts.
The former Goldman Sachs CEO. Remember Goldman Sachs gave $884,907 to Obama
Paulsen contributed to Bill Clinton in 1992, Democrat Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign, and was highly rated by the feminist Emily’s List. Paulsen’s wife gave big bucks to Hillary.
Personal Friend of Eric Mindich, chairman of Eton Park Capital Management. Paulsen nominates Mindlich to head the Asset Managers’ Committee of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. Mindlich was with Sen. John Kerry’s inner circle in 2004 and backed Obama in 2008.
Supporter of Chuck Schumer against Alfonse D’Amato.
Brought in Bob Steel as under secretary for domestic finance. Friend of Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Personal friend of Chucky Schumer. Steel is Duke University Board of Trustees chairman big time Donkey contributor to Dan Blue and Erskine Bowles, Donkey.
You are such a fool nevercorrectstillnotbright.
Good night fool!
Sims Promises 1% Car Tab Tax For Tunnel
KPQS 13 News quoted Ron Sims as saying King County’s share of the tunnel cost will be paid for with a 1% car tab tax. That means a household owning two cars worth $20,000 each will pay $400 a year more to license their vehicles — and that’s in addition to new taxes slapped on them by the city and port.
If you have to pay $200 a year per vehicle just for the county’s share, which is only $190 million plus $15 million a year for operating expenses, you can imagine how much you’ll get soaked for the city’s share (over $900 million) and the port’s share ($300 million).
Now let’s do the Roger Rabbit Math calculation. The state has ponied up $2.4 billion for a replacement viaduct and would have to find another $400 million. The tunnel requires raising an additional $1.8 billion. If that cost is spread over 750,000 households, the average cost per household is $2,400. That’s on top of the $10,000+ that every household will pay for light rail plus whatever we get socked for 520 bridge replacement.
This is bullshit.
The politicians should get off their asses and get some of that darn stimulus shovel ready money billions from Washington instead of trying to think up reason why it won’t work like Seattle politicians and bloggers tend to do.
Lets build this sucker Seattle. Think about the union jobs brothers and sisters for years to come. Money into the economy and an a beautiful waterfront free of the hideous viaduct instead of having the usual Licata mental mouse milking contest.
The odious car tab tax is especially burdensome to people who own seldom-used second vehicles. For example, I have a beater pickup that I use once a year to hault oversized trash like old mattresses or broken furniture to the transfer station. Considering this vehicle is driven less than 10 miles a year, the $45 annual tabs are already damned expensive. Why should I pay an extra $2.50 a year for the tabs for this vehicle to pay for a goddam tunnel I’ll never use?
For retirees who own RVS they use a few days a year, it’s even worse! I don’t own a $150,000 motor coach, but some people do, and do you think these retirees will be happy about paying $1500 a year in additional license fees for a goddam tunnel they don’t use?
People will cheat. They will register their vehicles in Oregon or Thurston County like in the old days before Governor Locke and the Legislature repealed the hated car tab tax and instituted $30 car tabs.
This isn’t going to go over well with the public, wait and see. And just wait until POS* jacks up homeowner taxes!
When people see their car taxes going up several hundred dollars a year and their port taxes going up a hundred dollars a year, they will revolt! The city and county governments will be overthrown and replaced by collectives run by bolsheviks. This tunnel is asking for trouble.
And that’s before it starts leaking and the public is told they can’t use it unless they have amphibious vehicles.
* Stands for Port of Seattle or Piece of Shit, take your choice — these two phrases are interchangeable.
I’m still betting the surface streets option is the one that gets done. The money just isn’t there for the tunnel, there’s no engineering miracles to preform and you don’t have to convince anyone that they need the couple million yards (or what ever) of dirt that you have to get rid of.
When the funding for the tunnel doesn’t come though they can say they tried and then move on.
@16 Roger!!
That is an excellent post! I personally think the tunnel should be paid for with Tolls the same way the Tacoma Narrows bridge is being paid for and the same way that the proposed replacement for the 520 bridge has been suggested to be paid for. Those that use it should pay for it. I have only taken the viaduct North all the way to the Shoreline area one time in 13 years. If I take the new proposed tunnel I would gladly pay the toll as required but don’t tax my Car Tabs for something I normally would not use.
@8 Shut up. We could have paid for this tunnel 500 times over with the money you Republican idiots squandered in your Iraq sinkhole. You have no standing here.
@20 Think big, man! What we should do is apply this principle to all of our transportation infrastructure by replacing the gas tax and MVET with a mileage tax. We’ll have to do that anyway with the advent of electric cars, because you can’t collect gas taxes from owners of electric cars and we’re hardly going to let them use public highways and streets for free, are we? We should just go to a mileage tax right now to save ourselves the trouble later.
The mileage tax is fair because it charges people proportionately for their use of public roads. People who own multiple vehicles and retirees who drive only for their weekly grocery shopping and monthly doctor visits are treated fairly by a mileage tax. It also has the social benefit of discouraging urban sprawl and single-occupancy-vehicle commuting.
While the existing gas tax is more or less a mileage tax, the MVET tax is extremely discriminatory against people who do little driving, and there’s no way to collect gas taxes from electric vehicles or people running vehicles on home-brewed biodiesel. Owners of those vehicles are currently getting a free ride, and as those types of vehicles proliferate, there will be a serious revenue shortfall. As we’ll have to replace the gas tax eventually, we should do it now. And the unfair MVET shouldn’t even get off the ground. All an MVET tunnel tax will do is put Tim Eyman back in business and give him a whole new credibility just as he’s on the verge of fading back into obscurity.
They can talk about a 1% car tab tax, but I don’t see it happening. It’s too much of a red flag for the Eyman types.
Likewise, I really don’t see a toll working here, I-5 is just too close, and a lot of people will push over to I-5 (or surface streets) to avoid the toll. It’s not like a bridge, where the other alternatives are a considerable distance away.
I think this is really one of those things where payments from the general fund, from general tax increases, will be the only way to pay for it. So expect another half-cent increase in the local Seattle sales tax, or perhaps revenues will increase due to enforcement of the sales tax on internet purchases.
Or, we could just go to a state income tax…..
@20 (continued) Of course there should be tolls. As has been pointed out in this comment threads, its unfair for Tacomans to pay tolls unless Seattleites also pay tolls. If we slap tolls on the 99 tunnel and 520 and I-90 bridges, then Tacomans won’t mind paying bridge tolls. It’s all about equality, you see. People are willing to get screwed as long as everyone else is getting screwed along with them. The fact everyone else’s 401(k) got wiped out takes the pain out of your 401(k) getting wiped out. George W. Bush understands this principle. Trust me on this. He knows if he wants to steal someone’s Social Security, he can’t do it one victim at a time, he’s got to steal everyone’s Social Security because that lessens the pain and makes it socially acceptable. Equality is a core American value. It’s very important to Tacoma drivers that Seattle drivers suffer equal toll misery. The political significance of this can’t be overstated — it’s very important to our domestic tranquility in the region.
@24 Another half-cent increase in the sales tax will have people driving from Seattle to Portland for their shopping. Everyone south of Olympia is already doing it.
Ah, hell, let’s just bite the bullet and tax the downtown landowners who will profit from enhanced property values. This can easily be done by drawing the LID boundaries 10 blocks from the tunnel in every direction.
City Says It’ll Tax Electric Bills
According to KIRO 7 News, a city spokesperson suggested the city may raise part of its share of the tunnel cost by taxing electric utility customers.
If this tax is imposed utility-wide, it’s a sneaky way of shifting part of the city’s share of the cost to people living outside the city limits. So people living in the suburbs will not only have to pay county taxes for the tunnel, they’ll have to pay city taxes for the tunnel, too, even though they don’t live in the city!
Raising people’s electric bills for the tunnel on top of what they’re already gone up to pay for Enron will really put Eyman back in business. (Yes, Seattle City Light customers are paying for Enron’s market-fixing, thanks to ill-advised long-term electricity contracts foolishly signed by City Light’s former superintendent.)
This is insanity.
The centerpiece of the tunnel financing plan is that we won’t get to vote on it. No vote on $200 car tabs. No vote on higher electricity bills. They know damn well the public will never vote for these taxes, so there will be no vote. Wait and see.
Pro-Viaduct Group Files Initiative To Block Tunnel
According to the Seattle Times, “A group … wants to stop … the tunnel, and filed an initiative this morning to do so. The group has 180 days to gather 18,000 signatures to put their proposal opposing the tunnel before the Seattle City Council.”
(Quoted under fair use.)
Since when in America does not being able to afford something mean you can’t have it? Goddam commie. This is a free country. Love it or leverage it.
Tunnel Stopped by Oysters
(Seattle, 1 April 2011, SJnews)
@32: Pretty humorous stuff, SJ. But I think Rossi would be better served by trying to shuck the oysters and then blaming Gregoire for letting old seafood spoil. Then Rossi will want a recount of the oysters before underestimating the value of the oysters…
@31: good one!
What has changed is that we’ve had two more years of seeing that alternatives were inadequate, and this time Gregoire, Nickels, Sims and the Port all agreed, when they had not before.
Roger….
If you have a truck you use only once a year to haul garbage, you should get the hell rid of it. You can rent a truck for a day for a lot less than the $45 license fee, not to mention whatever you’re paying to have the thing on your insurance.
If someone can afford to shell out $20,000 or more for a nice shiny new (probably big, fast or slightly bling-y) car, they can damned well pony up a few hundred more a year for the privilege of driving it on a nice shiny new road. Otherwise, buy an old, $3000 pile of crap, pay less in taxes and don’t drive it as much. Better yet, don’t own a car at all. Ride a bicycle, take the bus, take a cab every now and then, rent a car when the relatives come to visit, or join Flexcar.
@33
It is sad isn’t it that a 1/2 Tlingit 1/2 Italian seems unable to live up to either heritage?
I am no fan of Gregoire’s and think she gets a D for the way this entire Tunnel affair is evolving, but all Rossi needed to beat her in November was a bit of Italian toughness an Tlingit truth telling. Instead he painted himself into a corner with the decrepit bulls of the elephant herd.