More on what this chart means, over at Slog.
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Boy, that sure shows how King County is the 800-lb economic gorrilla in Washington State. Nobody else is even close in terms of comperable revenue receipts.
You know, this is the same county which the wingnuts like to say is a “failed economy” due to leftist Democrats being in control of it’s politics.
Great piece, Goldy.
Speaking of ignorant self-entitled wingnut welfare, ran across this:
Investigators baffled as wheat fields wither
No where in the article does it mention that chemical weapons are being incinerated close by:
Umatilla Chemical Depot
And these fuckers were all for it.
Pyrite,
First off its from and “D” Rep. so I’m not sure what to believe.
Also what I’m to make of this statement:
“These are complicated numbers, compiled at Rep. Carlyle’s request by the Office of Financial Management, and I need to analyze them in detail before I comment more thoroughly. But I put together the above chart to provide a little glimpse into what the data reveals.”
Whats complicated about these numbers?
From what I see the graph tells us that the well to do are funding those who are not so well to do. Is that correct?
Oh, and we subsidize our guys across the river to spray poison on our food to the tune of about $60-80 million from a sales tax exemption for “chemical and fertilizer sprays”.
That’s a lot of poison when you consider the total dollar amount purchased.
Once again, Republicans and their small town “rural lifestyle choice” has to be paid for by the big city. Once again their beliefs are the exact opposite of reality. These idiots think big-o-liberal Seattle is “taking their money”. No you idiots, you’re taking OUR money! King county is where all the money is (the jobs for Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, Nintendo, Starbucks, etc). We generate the for-profit taxes. You want to live in a little town of 3,000 for your “rural lifestyle choice” but you still want schools, sewage treatment, cable, electricity and all those other ‘big city’ services. Do you REALLY think the houses in your little town of 3,000 are generating all the taxes to pay for this stuff? NO. You’re welfare bums and your “lifestyle” is paid for by me. You’re welcome!
Glenno @3,
What’s complicated about the numbers is that it’s not always easy to discern where tax dollars are being spent. Should they be credited to the county in which the benefits are received or the county in which the expenditures are made? For example, higher education spending? Does Whitman County really benefit from the entire $190 million in higher ed money spent there, or should all or part of the benefit be distributed to the counties from which the students are drawn?
That’s why I chose K-12 for my initial post, as state K-12 expenditures are granted to individual school districts, meaning that place of expenditure and place of benefit are one and the same.
Pyrite, #7
Point taken…
I think you need to drill down and go by school district. That would give you a more accurate analysis then by county. I think county can be very miss leading and I think chart does that.
i.e. How many school districts are along the seattle water front or next to the two stadiums?
Goldy, you should give the Rethug @8 the raw data and let him do the work, instead of complaining, which he seems so good at.
Eskimo @8,
Be careful what you wish for…you must be getting nervous!
BTW to all the Lib’s…
If you want to go county by county on funding, do you want federalizes to do the same on a national basis?
@9: I like YLB’s name for him: Coprolite, i.e., fossilized shit, because it’s just plain apt.
Not of you, you piece of Coprolite. Not of you.
And by the way, you dumb fuck, my post was at 9. What a retard…
Coprolite @ 10
Why did you concede a point to a “lib”, someone you call “pyrite”..
Didn’t you get the memo that right wingers are always supposed to win, that they’re never wrong?
Yes to both. With the first King county will come out way ahead and with the second Washington state would come out way ahead. Blue counties and blue states would be net losers.
Yep.
Almost without exception, the cracker states and flyover country get way more back in funds than they pay in taxes.
In 2005 (latest): Washington received $.88 in fed funds for every dollar sent in taxes.
I feel the Love of Nobama right now…
My wallet just got thinner…
@10: Absolutely, I want federal funds to go state-by-state based on which states provide the most income to the federal government. Someone at Daily Kos put together a great map a few years ago of beggar (receive more than $1 in federal funds per $1 sent to the feds) vs. donor (recieve less than $1 in federal funds per $1 sent to the feds) states. He then overlayed it with the results of the 2004 presidential election. Surprise surprise, the only red states that pull their own weight at the federal level are Texas and Alaska (and maybe one more). Virtually all of the blue states are donors.
Someone updated this recently–I’ll see if I can find it again.
Zotz @ 15
Come on with “Almost”…it is or it isn’t!
Let’s give thanks for Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Starbucks, Costco, etc. that allow this to happen!
@18: Texas is at ~parity: $.95 received/dollar paid.
Goldy’s a regular Sherlock Holmes. He’s discovered that King County, with about 1000 times the population and personal income as, say, Ferry County, also pays more into the State coffers?
@20: How about this, dipshit:
If you live in or represent Ferry County and you bitch about the gummint and taxes and get all huffy about what a rugged individualist you are (and they do), then you’re a fucking ignorant piece of shit that doesn’t deserve to live, let alone be subsidized more than 2-1 by the taxpayers west of the Cascades.
@21
So you’re saying people who pay taxes should not be allowed to criticize the government? So North Korea is an example of how things should be, in your mind?
Good for Skagit, Whatcom and King for putting more in the coffer than they take out. I know Skagit and Whatcom have fairly small surpluses, but surpluses none the less.
Imagine how great this state would be if each county had a small surplus and paid its way, while putting aside a bit of money for a rainy day fund.
The roads would be paved, the water and sewer maintained, the schools funded. The Republican idea of hell – a comfortable life for people that aren’t rich.
@22: Stick yer strawmen up your ass. There’s plenty of room up there…
@22: once you pull your head out.
@22: once you pull your head out.
But Troll hasn’t gotten done eating his own shit.
Troll @20,
I’ll be gracious enough to assume you’re not an idiot, so I guess you’re just intentionally misstating the facts. It’s not that King provides a disproportionate amount of state revenues. It’s that compared to the taxes its residents paid, it receives a disproportionately small amount of the benefits.
Considering that King county also has the highest costs for education, can we really afford to be paying for the education systems in other counties?
I think you guys are implying the guys on the left are the ones paying the taxes. Sure, King County is the bastion of big government, liberal types, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the big government, liberal types are the ones making the money and paying the taxes in King County.
What we need is a break-down of who pays the taxes in whatever county. Could it be that others rather than Democrats are earning substantial salaries, have the accumulated wealth and are paying the most in taxes in King County? Could it be that money is the controlling factor here, regardless of political viewpoint?
The data are interesting but don’t tell us the full story.
@29
Since we don’t have an income tax, exactly how are the rich being taxed at such high rates???
@29
There is a reason Sales Tax is called a Regressive Tax – ‘A tax that takes a larger percentage from low-income people than from high-income people.’
@29,
They pay taxes on their property and purchases. Presumably they have a higher life style than the riff-raff and thus pay higher taxes.
@31,
Yes, when a poor person buys a new plasma TV he or she pays the same sales tax as a rich person would. However, since the essentials like food aren’t subject to sales tax, the poor and rich pay exactly zero tax on those items. Moral of the story – the poor should concentrate on buying necessities only and let the rich enjoy the plasma TVs and Porches. After all, it does suck to be poor.
It’s no secret that King County has the greatest income – that’s where a lot of the jobs are, and a lot of people from surrounding counties are forced to commute to King County each day for work.
Why don’t we have total wealth re-distribution in Washington. Let’s start with King County!
Yeah, that’s the ticket!!
To each according to their need, from each according to their ability.
@33
TP, soap, light bulbs, tooth paste, towels… All necessary and all taxed.
A lot of “the rich” pay for those TV’s, fancy cars & big houses with credit and are every bit as fucked as the poor folks. Maybe more so.
@34
Again we have NO Income Tax, so great income producer has very little to do with it.
As for out of county commuters, unless those folks are buying in King county or own property, they get a free ride on our tax supported transportation infrastructure to get to their jobs in King county.
The really rich can spend their money all around the world, they’ve got the time and money to do so. Except for property tax, I wouldn’t count on them spending that much in the county.
@33
Living in Gig Harbor I see plenty of “rich folks” that are living well beyond there means. I’ve known plenty of, allegedly, less well off folks that did live within there means.
So, who’s the rich person and who’s the poor person?
Oops, the rich folks are probably living beyond their means…
I probably shouldn’t be quite so surprised that people don’t understand marginal concepts, but I am. It’s not like the concepts are difficult.
Wealthy people spend a lower percentage of their income on items that are taxed than relatively poorer people do. The terms economists use for this are “marginal propensity to consume” and “marginal propensity to save”.
People at or near the poverty line save almost none of their income, because they generally have to spend all of it to simply stay alive (that’s the definition of the word “poor”). They have a zero marginal propensity to save. As their incomes increase, their propensity to save increases. Thus, the “marginal propensity to save” is directly proportional to one’s income.
The term “marginal” here comes from looking at the income distribution as a mathematical function, and considering the change in savings or consumption for each additional dollar (or whatever unit you want to use) increase in income.
The marginal propensity to consume is the inverse of the marginal propensity to save, because those are the two alternative courses of action: you either save money or ypu spend it..
Now, for the effect of a sales tax, because the marginal propensity to consume rises as income falls, people at a lower income levels end up paying a higher percentage, indeed often a much higher percentage, of their income on sales taxes than do people who are in the upper income levels.
“Moral of the story – the poor should concentrate on buying necessities only and let the rich enjoy the plasma TVs and Porches.”
Great. You believe that the poor are poor because they all live extravagant lifestyles and that poverty can be distilled down to a single-sentence morality lesson.
“After all, it does suck to be poor.”
Yes, it does. But you bring a kind of, “It sucks to be you because of you morals.” Hmm, I’d bet that it’d suck really big-time to have a poor person beat the holy fuck out of you for saying that to them.
@40 Don Joe,
Ummm…have you been to HA before? Calmly reasoned, technically detailed and accurate posts are only going to make the right wing trolls’ heads melt. I doubt many of them got any further than the word “difficult” before launching into their next straw-man-filled, all- caps, Beckism-laced comment.
@42: I was going to say something a bit more genteel, like “casting pearls before swine.”
Your’s is better.
@41
People are so beat down and demoralized that if he told poor folks that they’d probably agree with him. It’s some F’d up shit.
Who’s richer: a guy making 10 buck an hour with no no cash and no debit, who can grow food and things or a guy making 100K a year with two house payments, three car payments, private school payments for his 3 kids, a couple of jet skis that he bought on payments 15K on the credit cards and is completely reliant on other people for food and to fix things?
Oops,
Should read:
@45 Who’s richer?
Kind of an apples to triangles argument.
That depends, does the $1100 after taxes a month guy need to pay for cancer treatments? How about day care or elder care? Does he have gas money? How much is is rent? Did he want to buy a home? What if he has kids but he lives in a district with a lousy public school, can he pay for a private school? (there are seattle districts that scored an 18 out of 100 on the WASL )
Sure he’s more self reliant, but there are times when self reliance is not enough. Then it really helps to have money. you think Paris Hilton would have got the reduced sentence she got, if she had been poor?
@46
I’m not so much trying to say that the poor guy isn’t really poor as that the rich guy really isn’t rich.
@46
That and that if you’re -200K in the hole and I’m +1K, my net worth is higher than yours.
We have some really F’d up ideas about wealth and class in America.
“Who’s richer”
It’s only poor money management for the 100K guy to be in over his head while it’s obviously a lack of morals for the poor person.
“does the $1100 after taxes a month guy need to pay for cancer treatments”
Maybe they’d tell the poor person that they should go get cancer treatment for free in the ER Room. What they really mean is, “Tough shit. Now go somewhere out of my sight and die”. They don’t care. But they’ll be glad for a little socialism when they have to call the cops after the poor person has had enough of that shit and decides to slit the 100K Randroid’s throat.
Here’s one way to look at it. …After the collapse of civilization, and we devolve to a the Road, The Postman and Book of Eli, Somolia world, when money doesn’t mean much, then the guy with fixit skills and a garden is rich, so long as he has some serious guns and ammmo. But that’s a bleak world. We didn’t bring the poor guy up the rich guy levels, we destroyed civilization to the point where the fixit guy is rich by comparison.
We have some really F’d up ideas about wealth and class in America.
Yup, that’s why the banksters make millions and school teachers are being attacked for making too much.
If you were in charge, if you could change American society, how would you change our ideas of wealth and class?
@50, 51
My posts really were meant questions, not statements. I don’t know the answers to this stuff. I do think we need to find the answers.
Well, what do you know … King, Skagit, and Whatcom counties are the only net payers in the state. All the red counties are takers.
@10 That’s already been done. Long ago. Everyone in this country except you knows by now that red states are net takers and blue states are net payers. You must have been the class dunce.
@35 No, living in King County, I’m for making everyone pay their own way so I can pay lower taxes.
@22 “So you’re saying people who pay taxes should not be allowed to criticize the government?”
No, but a case can be made that people who don’t pay taxes shouldn’t be allowed to criticize the government, which in this state is anyone making over $200,000 a year.
@32 Fuck you, asshole. The rich have a GREAT deal in Washington state. They pay 3% of their income to state and local taxes. The poor pay 17%. How is that fair?
Michael @ 44
That’s a great question. I’ve been both. I’ve had enough money to pay my bills, and that feels good; I’ve also not had enough to pay my bills. My income has been enough at times that I incurred bills I shouldn’t have incurred. Credit, readily available, can be quite tempting. Then, your house value, and any other investments you might have (Welcome to Bush’s America) drop. Now, you look at a shitload of debt.
Sometimes, I think that when I was hitchhiking with a guitar and playing for coins in train and bus stations so that I might get a beer and a room in whatever town I was, I was richer.
Goldy, do you have an opinion on this data?
At slog, you presented the data well, but without any definitive comment or opinion on if you like/dislike the current county tax revenue distribution.
I guess you summarized your analysis a bit in the last sentence:
“And, ironically (though not surprisingly), the more a county benefits from this redistribution of wealth, the more likely that county is to vote Republican, and vice versa.”
Would you like to see current tax revenue distribution by county changed? If so, how?
Looking forward to hearing you play, Michael.
@ 42
Ummm…have you been to HA before?
Yes. It might help you to know that I am the one who got Puddy to boldly proclaim that Alan Greenspan was a liberal. Even more amusing–Puddy’s claim was based on the idea that Greenspan was an Ayn Rand acolyte.
Several of us attempted to point out that Libertarians aren’t Republicans–well unless your last name is Paul and your first name begins with the letter R. Puddy’s been pretty much off the rails since.
Regarding the multiple posts about how rich people aren’t really rich because they owe so much money:
As the authors of “The Millionaire Next Door” explained, their definition of a millionaire was someone who had a net worth of over a million dollars. They sought these people out to get them to explain how they got to that point of financial security. What they found out was that they couldn’t go to the neighborhoods having impressive homes, because most of those people were “property poor” – so in debt because of their mortgages they would be hard pressed to ever accumulate a million dollars of net worth, despite high salaries.
Instead, the millionaires they found lived in relatively modest housing and abhored debt. The lessons they related dealt with savings and investment, regardless of income level.
But this wasn’t a scientific study, and it failed to account for a great deal. For one thing, while quite a few of the millionaires they talked with came from “modest” circumstances, few came from real poverty. Secondly, they didn’t talk to the highest level of income producers and wealthy in this country, because they didn’t have access to them. Those people mostly accumulated their wealth through luck, inheritance, or social connections. As such, their sample was pretty limited.
But it is, perhaps, a bit revealing as to why seemingly prosperous “upper middle-class” people are at times so incoherent when it comes to income taxes. Many live a bit on the edge, trying to balance high debt to buy bigger houses and more expensive cars, and to get their kids into private prep schools, etc. They see those expenses as “necessary” to remain in their social circles and to give their families a lifestyle they deserve. But taxes, on the other hand, they consider to be a “discretionary” expense, to be cut or eliminated unless it directly benefits them.
Let me amend that slightly.
The “fiscal” (anything goes when it comes to money — “don’t tax me bro”, I’ve got mine — fuck the rest of you) libertarians: Hard Core Republicans (add in the christianist conservatives who think of themselves as “libertarian” and you’ve pegged the Teahadists).
The “social” (reproductive rights, drug legalization) libertarians: Typically Democrats
The “Libertarian” (incoherent, maladjusted — will always be adolescents no matter how old they are) libertarians: Typically Republicans (when they vote at all)
@63
I don’t know the original attribution, but the following tends to capture the the Libertarian ethos:
What this entire thread is about is the residents of King County and their imagined superiority over every one else in Washington.
Do you know why the rest of the state hates you? It’s YOUR FUCKING ARROGANCE,stupid!
King County is such a center of commerce and industry that is is accountable for huge tax revenues for the state. Never mind that many people from surrounding counties go to King County each day to make these revenues happen.
Fucking asshole King County butt-fuckers – stop claiming credit for the taxes collected in King County because a lot of it comes from the unfortunate fact that geography and the location of physical facilities works in your favor.
No, Libertarians are those who believe that government is best that governs least and that the Constitution was written to keep the government off the backs of the people.
Libertarians also beleive in personal freedom and personal responsibility. Where “progressives” live, it’s always somebody else’s fault: there is no personal responsibility, just government, government and more government.
Fuck you and what you stand for.
From your side of the aisle all we get is a lot of hot air about EVERYBODY ELSE taking personal responsibility, but you never take any yourself — the shooting in AZ being just the latest example.
The government that governs least would be no government at all — so I guess that makes you an anarchist — which is truly politically incorrect.
The pablum that you spew is recycled Ayn Rand — but I never hear you reference John Locke or his Second Tratise on Government — which is the philosophical basis of our democracy.
You are just another know-nothing putz who thinks he has all the answers.
“Fuck you and what you stand for.”
Fuck you, Randroid, for your hating on the poor.
@67 On ignore list.
re 66: Oh, and:Fuck you and what you really stand for — not what you think you stand for..
@65
What this entire thread is about is the residents of King County and their imagined superiority over every one else in Washington.
No. This entire thread is about you trying to justify your mental image of King County residents as having some imagined superiority.
And, frankly, I don’t give a shit if the rest of the state hates me. I’d just prefer that you get your fucking hands out of my wallet.
PI@66:
See, that’s where you’re wrong. You’re talking about the Articles of Confederation, not the Constitution.
When the non-government government created by the Articles proved to be a recipe for national fragmentation and collapse (abundantly clear within less than a decade), the Constitution was written to strengthen and empower the federal government. Under the Articles of Confederation, it’s doubtful that the States would have remained United long enough to see the 19th century.
@71
And, frankly, I don’t give a shit if the rest of the state hates me. I’d just prefer that you get your fucking hands out of my wallet.
Amen to that.
Re 73: After all, we in King County are the PRODUCERS and we don’t need a bunch of unproductive beet farmers taking away OUR money.
@74 It’s our money and we should be allowed to keep it, dammit! At least that’s the wingnut refrain. Unless it’s progressive money. Then they want to get their little grubby hands on it. Fucking hypocrites.
The prominence of the sales tax as a revenue source would pretty well explain why Clark and the other counties within a short drive of the Oregon border are on the negative side in the chart.
@62 There are a lot of us in my age group who are (or at least, were) theoretically worth a million dollars or so simply by virtue of having bought a modest residence a few decades ago that they’re still living in after retiring the mortgage. Right now, since the meltdown that house isn’t all that much of a liquid asset. There might even be a few folks went over their heads early on in the new-millenium runup of housing prices and still theoretically have enough equity, combined with their other assets, to put them over the million-dollar mark, even though they’re still paying through the nose and in constant danger of the bank finding an excuse to foreclose on them. Having a million dollars’ worth of total assets and pulling in a million dollars’ annual income are two completely different things.
@65: The facts are the facts, dimwit.
BTW: I live in Mason County.
@66 “Where “progressives” live, it’s always somebody else’s fault: there is no personal responsibility, just government, government and more government.
Fuck you and what you stand for.”
@78 “I live in Mason County.”
Too funny, Zotz. Yeah, me too, as you know. Sigh! These wingnuts and their fantasies of themselves being rugged individualists and, heh- us as a bunch of wimps. I bet we could round up every one of these dumbfuck trolls and not find a real man among the lot of them.
Republicans have had the house for a week and they’re already plummeting in the polls. Palin is now less popular than Cheney at his lowest. heh- There go our troll’s dreams down the fucking drain. Sucks to be them, I’m sure. No wonder they’re so cranky.
@79: I reckon I wouldn’t question their manhood so much as they just seem to be immune to the plain facts and the yawning chasm between what they’ve been programmed to believe and reality.
And they turn into whiny assed titty babies when you point it out.