It is nice to know that at least somebody is willing to speak honestly and openly about both sides of the budget equation:
The chairman of a legislative task force exploring how to improve the way the state pays for K-12 education says a tax increase is the responsible way to pay for the roughly $3 billion worth of ideas in the group’s final report.
Dan Grimm, a former state legislator from Puyallup as well as a two-term state treasurer, said Thursday that he was inspired by a phone call and letter from Gov. Chris Gregoire to propose an extension of the sales tax to services. That would make things such as doctor’s visits and financial advice subject to sales tax.
On Tuesday, the task force voted to approve a proposal that asks for more state money to pay for things such as a longer high school day, smaller class sizes in the younger grades and regionally adjusted pay for teachers. Cost estimates range from $2 billion to $3 billion over each two-year state budget cycle.
[…] Grimm said Gregoire made it clear in their brief phone conversation that if task force members suggested a plan for raising taxes she would support putting that proposal before the voters as a referendum.
Too often we’ve had a one-sided conversation when voting on budget issues, with a rash of statewide initiatives over the past decade that have either mandated new spending or cut existing taxes, with little or no debate about the budgetary intersection between the two. And recently, editorialists have pressured legislators and the governor to ignore the revenue side of the equation in attempting to close our state’s looming $5 billion shortfall. But it’s time to start treating voters like grownups, and have a grownup conversation about education funding and other budget priorities.
The fact is, we spend too little on basic education, and the sorts of increases the panel is suggesting would prove widely popular. But the money has to come from somewhere, and while I don’t dismiss the notion of re-prioritizing existing funds as part of the solution, it would be totally irresponsible and fantastical to attempt to address this issue without at least discussing the revenue side of the equation.
Extending the sales tax to personal and professional services is certainly a reasonable proposal, as year over year these activities make up a larger portion of our economy as opposed to the sale of goods, the ever shrinking segment on which we currently rely for the bulk of state revenues. Raising taxes is never popular with voters or politicians, but if we’re going to talk about increasing spending on education, increasing taxes needs to be part of the conversation.
And perhaps in this context it is also time for elected officials to start talking about an income tax, as either a dedicated tax or part of a broader restructuring that both increases education funds while lowering the overall tax burden for the vast majority of Washington families. For example a Graduated High Income Tax of 3% on joint incomes over $200,000 per year ($100,000 for individuals), and 5% on incomes over $1 million, would raise about $2.6 billion per biennium, while exempting 96% of households. (Yet it would still leave us with a highly regressive tax structure that largely favors the wealthy. Imagine that.)
The point is, there are two sides to the budget equation, and it is both silly and childish to insist on talking about one without talking about the other. Any substantial tax increase or restructuring is going to come before voters, one way or another, so if the anti-tax folks truly represent the sentiment of the majority, they have nothing to fear from an open and honest debate.
The rich people that wingnuts worship are just as dumb as they are:
http://www.reuters.com/article.....IK20081212
Imagine some schmuck with a name (former NASDAQ Chairman) taking rich fools for 50 BILLION Dollars!?!
The idiot was so brazen that his own sons turned him in!
Go on wingnuts. Keep up the great work. Keep trash talking workers. Keep slavishly worshiping rich assholes.
And recently, editorialists have pressured legislators and the governor to ignore the revenue side of the equation in attempting to close our state’s looming $5 billion shortfall.
————-
Pressured the governor? Gregoire led the way with her solemn pledges throughout the campaign that raising taxes was the wrong thing to do during a recession. Indeed, even as recently as three weeks ago she repeated this mantra at the same time she was talking about a possible 6 billion dollar shortfall:
http://www.theolympian.com/sta.....71181.html
Gregoire was elected because of her leadership and judgment on the economy. A mere 5 weeks later and this leadership is being questioned by some of the very people who were singing her praises.
Actually Goldy, the Budget Deficit for the next biennium is currently projected to be $5.1 BILLION (what’s an extra $100 MILLION for a big tax-and-spender like you Goldy, right?) and Gregoire herself said it may grow to $6 BILLION.
Folks will not forget that it was Gregoire who approved $8 BILLION of spending increases the past 4 years. They will not forget it was Gregoire who said REPEATEDLY now is not the time to raise taxes….seems like she has significantly changed her tune).
Hey Goldy…why don’t you post who is on that Education Task Force? Of course educators and Union Reps and their minions will come up with endless costly ideas claiming they will improve Education. They have done it before….highly unsuccessfully.
I anticipate yet another boring IT’S FOR THE CHILDREN campaign by the Teachers Union.
WE ARE IN A MASSIVE RECESSION. WHEN THE AUTO INDUSTRY TANKS IT WILL BE WORSE! You do not come with all these new spending proposals at a time like this and beg for more money under the guise of anyone opposing it is a Child Hater!.
Time for State Government to function like the taxpaying families they represent. Cut back and make do.
Sorry, Goldy, but I can’t support extending our nearly-10% sales tax to doctor visits or to other services, for that matter. Making our unfair and regressive state tax system even worse by hitting those least able to pay with even more sales taxes is not the solution. This idea does nothing to remedy to tax inequities in our existing system nor does it tax those who have the most money and the lowest relative tax burden. Sales taxes on services hopefully will be a non-starter but if this turkey does make the ballot I will be a “no” voter. I will support a state income tax that replaces the state sales and B & O taxes, and as a concession to get it passed, I’m willing to vote for a non-progressive, flat-rate, revenue-neutral income tax.
I make $60K a year. I spend $100K a year on housing, food, clothing, and other expenses.
Goldy, is the only solution for me to make more money? Can you think of any other way for me to balance my budget?
@3 Get your terminology straight, Cynical! There is no budget deficit in Washington. Our state is, however, facing a possible future revenue shortfall based on current economic projections, which of course attempts to predict the future and therefore are both inexact and speculative in nature.
@3 Get your terminology straight, Cynical! There is no budget deficit in Washington. Our state is, however, facing a possible future revenue shortfall based on current economic projections, which of course attempts to predict the future and therefore are both inexact and speculative in nature.
@3 Get your terminology straight, Cynical! There is no budget deficit in Washington. Our state is, however, facing a possible future revenue shortfall based on current economic projections, which of course attempts to predict the future and therefore are both inexact and speculative in nature.
@3 (continued) What new spending proposals? All anyone is talking about is trying to keep the schools and cops we have now.
Since Goldy won’t make this a topic on its own:
Major Democratic Donor:
Biggest. Fraud. Ever.
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....od=testMod
@3 (continued) As for the auto industry failing, all I see there is Republicans doing the same thing that brought McCain galloping into D.C. on his white charger, namely, refusing to save their own country from the economic catastrophe they themselves created! These self-same House Republicans sure as hell didn’t have any scruples about spending $14 billion a month on Bush’s recreational war in Iraq, or using taxpayer money to pay private mercenaries $150,000 a month to kill innocent Iraqi civilians, so their abrupt spending scruples in the face of economic collapse seem rather strange. Can the Republican Party get any dumber or more suicidal than it already is? Yeah, right, let the auto industry fail … let millions of workers be thrown out of work … and it’ll be 100 years before any Republican gets elected to anything again.
Bunny Boy @ 6,7,8
YOU get your terminology straight, too.
BUDGET: “a summary of intended expenditures along with proposals for how to meet them”
As in… Washington has a BUDGET deficit of over $5 BILLION.
Which translates to: “Governor Gregoire has much greater intended expenditures than she has proposals to pay for them.”
The state sales and use tax should not be expanded to services. It only is 6.5% – raise it. The people wouldn’t notice. They are willing to tax themselves with more sales tax, so might as well just up a popular tax. It is a voluntary tax – just buy less expensive kinds of the same thing, or don’t buy stuff you don’t need. How do you think we’ve remained so Dem. for so long? NOT pissing off businesses, that’s how. Put an income tax in place and Microsoft will leave, Boeing will leave, Amazon would leave, and then we’d really be in a world of hurt.
@10 This is a liberal blog, asshole. We do liberal propaganda here. If you want to copy-and-paste rightwing propaganda from Rupert’s Wingnut Journal, try Drudge. He goes for that kind of crap.
@12 Show me the budget “deficit” dummy. Show me a state budget, any state budget, that has a deficit. There isn’t one, never has been, and never will. Repeating a lie to yourself over and over doesn’t make it come true, numbnuts!
@13 “Put an income tax in place and Microsoft will leave, Boeing will leave, Amazon would leave, and then we’d really be in a world of hurt.”
And go where? Guam? If they want to situate themselves in a place that doesn’t have an income tax, that pretty much eliminates the United States.
I read the entire article, Real Mark, and didn’t see anything about him being a big Democratic donor.
The Real Mark–
Did you see this?
Notice Ponzi-schemer Madoff’s Political Contributions:
MADOFF, BERNARD
NEW YORK, NY
10022 SELF EMPLOYED/INVESTOR $2,300 04/24/2008 P JEFF MERKLEY FOR OREGON – Democrat
Madoff, Bernard L
NEW YORK, NY
10021 Bernard Madoff Investment/Chairman $5,000 07/20/2007 P LAUTENBERG NJ VICTORY COMMITTEE – Democrat
Madoff, Bernard L
NEW YORK, NY
10021 Bernard Madoff Investment/Chairman $2,300 07/20/2007 P LAUTENBERG NJ VICTORY COMMITTEE – Democrat
Madoff, Bernard L
NEW YORK, NY
10021 Bernard Madoff Investment/Chairman $300 07/20/2007 P LAUTENBERG NJ VICTORY COMMITTEE – Democrat
Madoff, Bernard L Mr.
NEW YORK, NY
10021 Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securi $5,000 05/24/2007 P SECURITIES INDUSTRY AND FINANCIAL MARKETS ASSOCIATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
MADOFF, BERNARD L
NEW YORK, NY
10022 BERNARD L. MADOFF INVEST.-SEC./CHAI $25,000 05/04/2007 P DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE – Democrat
Gee, seems like another case of the Dems spewing hatred about Wall Street…yet taking the money gladly!
Oops. go back a couple years and find these!
MADOFF, BERNARD L
NEW YORK, NY
10022 BERNARD L. MADOFF INVEST. SEC./CHAI $25,000 09/30/2006 P DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE – Democrat
MADOFF, BERNARD L
NEW YORK, NY
10021 BERNARD L MADOFF INVEST SEC $25,000 05/09/2005 P DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE – Democrat
The Senate Democrats LOVE the Ponzi-Man!!
Maddoff a big Dem contributor? So f’ing what? I bet he gave to Republicans too.
Who’s been in charge of the White House and Congress for most of the last 8 years?
50 BILLION Dollars. Enron was 63 BILLION! This was one guy. And only the rich people YOU WINGNUTS believe can do no wrong were hurt.
They’re as DUMB as YOU!
Somebody took the other side of those of those dumbass trades. I hope some of that money flowed back to pension funds and whatnot. Fat chance though.
An income tax is not the “silver bullet” that will cure our budget woes.
Simply look around at all the income tax states that are in the very same budget cruch as Washington….
Our state is “projected” to take in more tax revenue than in 2007…
http://dor.wa.gov/Docs/Reports.....able02.xls
It’s the increased spending…….
I love this:
Another Leftist, Elitist company falling prey to competition! When are we going to be called to bail-out Starbucks?
@19
not on the federal level…
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/qind/
All Democrats.
@21
The bailout will come out of the CRAP funds….
(coffee related asset protection)
Right Stuff-
I love seeing Leftist Companies like Starbucks (now under $10/share) and Jones Soda (@ 46 cents/share) getting pummeled.
Let the Leftists pay $4 for bitter coffee and twice as much for a shitty bottle of pop!
I call it, THE POLITICALLY CORRECT PREMIUM.
You have to apy extra to be Progressive!
What a joke.
Wise up KLOWNS.
Wingnuts:
Spending on what? Education? That’s over 50 percent of the budget.
Spending, spending, spending. That’s your knee-jerk mantra.
You don’t give any specifics – ever!
Take a line item out of the budget and tell us how much you want to cut it and why.
Wingnut dumbass @ 24.
I always spend less than 2 bucks when I go to Starbucks. We’ve only bought Jones soda once.
I was surprised when my wife told me you can get a grande drip for less than two bucks and a Venti is only a little bit over $2.
I always get a tall. And it’s not very often.
Screw you Montana man.
@25
Hey man,
I could say the same thing with regards to Democrats…
Tax, tax, tax….
I would start by a state hiring freeze, roll back salaries to 2007 levels, Roll back staffing to 2007 levels. no COLAS. That is just the start. As linked above, the state will take in more revenue this year than last…Cut spending to at least 2007 revenue levels.
27. Well that’s a big improvement over Cynical Idiot’s remedy which was 2004 or earlier.
Yes, hiring freezes are more or less in effect now. And COLAS are not far behind.
All anyone wants here is fair taxes. An income tax like 43 other states have so we don’t have the titanic crises we have in this state every 6-8 years and a commensurate re-adjustment in property, sales and business taxes and that’s a re-adjustment DOWNWARDS.
Spread the burden as fairly and as thinly as possible.
Other states pare back their spending during a downturn. Ours takes a meat axe to the problem.
That’s bullshit.
Cynical @3:
You clearly, and completely, have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.
The chair, Dan Grimm, was openly hostile to the WEA throughout the process. He wanted to see collective bargaining taken away from the districts and moved to a state-level model.
Fred Jarrett, recently reformed Republican, came out strongly against the per diem/TRI pay that some districts give out in addition to the base contract. I can’t tell you off the top of my head if that proposal is going to make the final cut of the report, but it would be revolutionary.
Skip Priest is probaly the most knowledgeable person in the House on education issues, he’s GOP, and his fingerprints are all over the report from the 6 legislators that took over the discussion at the BEF meetings.
If this was a union rubberstamp, it would look a hell of a lot different than what it is. Fact is, there’s not a WEA representative on the committee, and the report they presented was in conjunction with the principals and superintendents associations.
Ryan–
Are you saying the Union gave no input to the Democrat majority of this Committee???
Gimmee a break-
People are tired of “wish-lists” by Committees that take off on a life of their own.
Good luck selling the voters on a massive tax increase to fund all this stuff.
@5 If you can’t live on $60,000 a year, something is wrong with you. Yes, you might have to give up the leased Porsche, and perhaps you can’t even make the payments on the condo-with-a-view, and maybe you should cut back on how many mistresses you have in your harem, but believe me bub, you can live on $60K if you’re motivated.
@18 The Democratic Party isn’t responsible for who sends them money. Cripes, for all we know, you sent them a check for $2 just so you could say the Democrats take money from goatfuckers.
@25 If they want to screech about spending, they should screech about how much their recreational war in Iraq is costing.
@29 “You clearly, and completely, have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”
Applied to Cynical, that’s the understatement of the year.
@30 What’s your problem, C? Afraid workers might get something from the taxes they pay? We didn’t hear you bleating like this when your Republican government was giving billions of the workers’ tax money to CEOs, bankers, and Wall Street brokers. As long as our Republican government is printing money like crazy and shoveling it out of pickup trucks into duffel bags, why shouldn’t workers get a little of it, too? What’s your fucking problem, dude?
I’d like to gently remind our trolls that this is what elections are for, and YOU FUCKERS LOST!!! Suck on it.
@3
I have a sneaking suspicion when the auto industry tanks many of the auto plants will be bought up for pennies on the dollar and people will be back making shit in under a year.
@31
You just made my point. The solution isn’t for the government to get more money from higher taxes, it’s for them to spend less.
@1 Liberals worship rich assholes otherwise
who would feed them? God you’re retarded.
No income tax for Washington, never, never, ever!!