Goldy

93 loyal readers have now contributed $4,437 to our HA Fund Drive, an average of almost $48 per contribution. Thank you for your generosity. Combined with a $2,500 sponsorship pledge from SEIU 775, and we’re more than a quarter of the way toward our $25,000 target.

Two years ago, the last time I ran a fund drive, I set a $6,000 target over one week, and a flurry of last minute contributions took us over the top. This year I’m putting no time limit on the drive, understanding that some of the institutional checks I’ll need to hit the target just can’t be written at a moment’s notice. But so far, individual contributions are lagging behind the previous fund drive in both number and dollar total.

At the risk of repeating myself, a blog like HA, if done right, just can’t be done on a part time basis. Nobody paid me to cover today’s I-1077 press conference, and nobody will pay me for the extensive coverage of the initiative I’ll surely provide between now and November. So if this kind of coverage is important to you, I urge you to please give today and help keep me blogging.

Driving home from this morning’s I-1077 kickoff, I listened to KUOW’s The Conversation, as the Washington Policy Center’s Paul Guppy raised a familiar trope in opposition to a high-earners income tax, arguing that many high-earners will simply pick up and leave:

“People with high incomes are very mobile, so it’s easy for them to change their residence, to move their income or change their tax status in someway, so I don’t think that the supporters would realize as much revenue from this tax as they expect.”

Uh-huh.

A reporter raised this issue to Bill Gates Sr., who brushed it aside by asking “Where do you go?”… the point being that 43 other states already levy an income tax, so it’s not like I-1077 puts Washington at such a competitive disadvantage. “You could go to Alaska, I guess,” Gates continued, but even that level of dismissiveness takes the question too seriously, for the entire critique is predicated on the bizarre notion that we shouldn’t levy a tax on rich people because a handful of them might go out of their way to avoid paying it.

Guppy’s argument also ignores the fact that one of the advantages of being wealthy is that it enables you to consume and enjoy the finer things in life. For example, nobody forces anybody to spend $50,000 on a Lexus when a $10,000 Hyundai can get you from point A to point B just as well; wealthy folks choose to purchase luxury cars because they can afford them, just like they choose to raise their families in Medina or Mercer Island over, say, White Center or Gold Bar.

Likewise, I don’t expect a family earning a million dollars a year to move to South Dakota to save $30,000 in annual taxes. I mean, what would be the point of being rich?

As Gates explains, Washington is “a great place to live.” And it’s the folks who can best afford to live here who are actually least likely to leave.

That’s Bill Gates Sr., the father of the richest man in America, explaining what Initiative 1077 actually proposes, and why he’s taking the lead on instituting a high earners income tax in Washington state.

Class warfare?

A minor adjustment to the layout of today’s Seattle Times front page shows exactly why Initiative 1077’s proposed high earners income tax is going to do a helluva lot better at the polls than the conventionally wise expect, for while the Times chooses to put the tax in bold, above-the-fold type, most voters are at least as concerned with the potential for mass teacher layoffs as they are with protecting the wealthy from higher taxes.

Yes, I-1077 would raise taxes on the top 3 percent of households, but the rest of use would see a tax cut: $160/year for the average King County homeowner. And while yeah, the wealthy are an important part or our economy, I-1077 would actually improve the business climate in our state by exempting 80 percent of businesses from the B&O tax, while reducing B&O taxes on another 10 percent.

But just as importantly, I-1077 would raise an additional $1 billion a year, dedicated to education and health care, two sectors that have endured enormous budget cuts over the past two years.

Nobody likes to raise taxes, but this measure isn’t being run in a vacuum, and given the choice between further underfunding K-12 education and adding a little progressivity into our tax system, I’m guessing an awful lot of voters are going to choose the latter.

With a fat donor list left over from his two unsuccessful campaigns for governor, there’s no doubt Dino Rossi could raise a relatively large chunk of money relatively quickly should he choose to jump into the race against Democratic incumbent Sen. Patty Murray. But given Murray’s own fundraising prowess, and her $8.8 $9.8 million head start, it’s hard to see Rossi jumping into the fray without assurances of a substantial financial commitment from the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Yet given the electoral landscape and the status of their own fundraising efforts, it’s equally hard to see the NRSC being able to live up to the kinda commitment Rossi would require.

Indeed, the NRSC’s current cash-on-hand, about $15 million, actually trails its performance at the same point in both the 2006 and 2008 cycles, when it was sitting on $16.6 million and $17.3 million respectively. In case you forgot, those elections didn’t turn out too well for Republican incumbents and hopefuls, yet if you believe the NRSC’s tough talk, it’ll be spending its resources in even more competitive races than it did in either of those two cycles.

By comparison, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee continues to out-raise its Republican counterpart, and now enjoys $17.3 million cash-on-hand, a $2.3 million advantage.

Back in 2004, Murray ultimately raised over $13 million in her lopsided battle against the politically diminutive George Netthercutt, and with fundraising typically backloaded toward the final months of the campaign, there’s no reason to expect she won’t raise considerably more than that should she face a competitive challenger.

Can Rossi come close to funding parity in only five or six months? No. Can the NRSC afford to make up much of the difference? Not without drawing precious dollars away from more promising contests.

Rossi must know that. Thus as flattering as the NRSC’s attention surely has been, he must also know that he’s being asked to make a sacrifice for the good of the party, not the other way around. And I just don’t believe that’s a sacrifice — his gubernatorial ambitions — that he’s ready to make.

Conventional wisdom says that an income tax measure would not stand a snowball’s chance in hell of passing Washington voters at the polls. Well, it looks like conventional wisdom is about to be put to the test.

Later this morning a coalition of community leaders led by Bill Gates Sr. will announce their intention to move forward with I-1077, an initiative that would impose a high earners income tax on households earning over $400,000, while reducing the state property tax by 20 percent, and eliminating the B&O tax on many small businesses. Given the history of prior income tax initiatives you can be pretty damn sure that the decision to pursue this one wasn’t taken lightly, and that I-1077’s backers wouldn’t be making this announcement if they weren’t prepared to make a substantial commitment toward its passage.

In other words, I-1077 will qualify for this November’s ballot, and voters will have the opportunity to vote it up or down. And I intend to cover this historic campaign every step of the way.

Following up on my previous post, another comment from The Hill’s Aaron Blake caught my eye:

After former GOP governors passed on campaigns in Wisconsin and New York recently, Rossi is the last big prize on the GOP map.

That’s the GOP’s last big prize? A two-time gubernatorial loser, who just a year and half ago lost a 53-47 race to a governor whose approval rating currently stands at 35 percent? Could the GOP bench be any shallower?

And what does all this courtship of Rossi have to say about the other Republicans already in the race? Assuming Rossi doesn’t run (and that’s long been my assumption), how difficult will it be for party leadership to feign enthusiasm for, say, Don Benton or Clint Didier?

And speaking of party leadership, I can’t help but wonder about Washington State Republican Party Chair Luke Esser’s role in all this. Multiple sources confirm that Esser has encouraged Rossi to run against Sen. Patty Murray, and the fundraising numbers make it clear that he’s withheld state party support from the other candidates. Yet even as Rossi’s dithering makes a Republican victory less likely with each passing day, Esser refuses to swing party support behind a candidate who actually wants the nomination.

Why? Well, Esser is a Rob McKenna protege, and the last thing he and his boss want is a gubernatorial primary battle against Rossi in 2012… a bump in the road that would surely be avoided should Rossi run for senate, win or lose.

Forget Rossi v. Murray. Rossi v. McKenna is what these machinations are really about.

The Hill reports that NRSC chair Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is “getting antsy” over Dino Rossi and his supposed indecisiveness about a potential run at Democratic incumbent Sen. Patty Murray.

“I’ve been urging him to make a decision sooner rather than later because there’s a practical problem with not having enough time to do what you need to do before the election.”

Rossi keeps saying he has until the June 11th filing deadline to make up his mind, but with the election barely six months away, every day he delays diminishes his party’s prospects further. So what could possibly be going through Rossi’s head right now?

1. He’s decided to run.
   In which case he’s an idiot for not making it official, organizing a campaign, and starting to raise the millions of dollars necessary to make this race competitive.
2. He’s decided not run.
   In which case he’s an asshole for leaving his party hanging like this. I mean, talking about not being a team player.
3. He’s truly undecided.
   In which case he’s… well… he’s incredibly indecisive. Is this the kinda guy our state really wants to send to the other Washington… the kinda guy who can’t make up his mind whether he even wants to be there?

I’m already on the record suggesting it’s option number two — that he’s simply taking advantage of the attention and publicity in advance of another shot at the governor’s mansion. And Rossi’s comments to The Hill do nothing to change my mind:

“We have four children between nine and 19, so it’s not a casual decision,” he said. “I do have to say that I’ve been to Washington D.C. six times, and I’m not eager to head back into that snake pit.”

Cynical as I am, I don’t find either of those statements disingenuous. In fact, it’s exactly what I observed more than a month ago, when speculation about a possible Rossi senate run first started dominating headlines:

While Rossi would no doubt like to be elected Senator, insiders say he’s not so keen on the idea of running. Nor is serving in the other Washington all that appealing. … [T]he U.S. Senate is a full-time gig that requires tons of travel and the uprooting of one’s family…

Rossi wants to be governor. He believes he won the governor’s mansion in 2004, that it was stolen from him, and that, well, he’s owed it. So not only would the nitty-gritty of serving in the senate be unappealing, but an ass-whooping at the hands of Murray — a third straight statewide defeat — would pretty much end any dreams Rossi has of a triumphant return to Olympia.

So I can’t help but view Rossi’s very public dithering in that context.

Writing elsewhere on The Hill, Aaron Blake wonders if Rossi’s apparent indecisiveness signals the he does not have the “fire in the belly” necessary to run a viable campaign, but I think Rossi still has plenty of  fire… just not for this particular job.

Does this make you uneasy?

Sharp-eyed readers might have noticed something truly unusual in Gannett’s New Jersey newspapers. A new byline started appearing this month on articles about the New Jersey Devils hockey team, with a note under each piece stating that the author, Eric Marin, is employed by the Devils, not Gannett.

Newspapers struggling to plug the gaps in their newsrooms have been turning to outside organizations to supply articles, raising questions about their ability to vouch for the material they print. At the same time, professional sports teams, trying to make up for declining news coverage, have been hiring journalists for their Web sites.

Yeah sure, it’s only sports. But sports coverage and political coverage have so much in common, both in the character of the coverage and its gradual decline, so… well… it’s only a matter of time. Mark my words: candidates will start covering their own campaigns, and it will end up influencing coverage in the broader, legacy press.

And when that time comes, these professional editors — many of whom routinely dis the kinda activist journalism produced by openly biased bloggers like me — how will they justify this new business model?

“As long as it served our readers and we told them where that content was coming from, the readers were fine with it,” said Hollis Towns, executive editor of The Asbury Park Press, the largest of the state’s six Gannett papers. “I think journalists get hung up on certain lines of what’s ethical more than the readers.”

Welcome to my brave new world.

65 loyal readers have generously contributed $3,440 to the HA Fund Drive so far, plus one cynical donation of $0.33 from our friend Stefan at (un)Sound Politics. (I guess sucking off the public teat has only made Stefan even more ungenerous.) Not counting Stefan, that’s an impressive average of almost $53 per contribution, which brings us nearly a quarter of the way toward our $25,000 target when combined with SEIU 775’s $2,500 sponsorship pledge.

Noticeably light on the donor list so far are elected officials and other public figures, so I want to take a moment to reassure folks that I am not operating as a PAC or any other sort of regulated organization, and thus have no disclosure requirements whatsoever. Income from this fund drive will be reported as such to the IRS, but the names of my benefactors will remain confidential.

Is this legal? Absolutely. I’m nothing more than a crowd-funded, independent journalist. It’s a crappy business model, but a business of sorts nonetheless.

Is this ethical? You betcha. I’ve never, ever covered a story as part of a quid pro quo, and never will. Nor have I run away from an issue or an angle out of fear of the consequences, financial or otherwise. Everybody knows my bias, so if you’re one of those politicians or public employees whose candidacy or issues I’m biased towards, and you’d like me to continue in my role helping to shape the public debate, then please show your support by giving generously today.

Anybody else notice that the Seattle Times op/ed page has seemed to moderate a little bit in the wake of the reader backlash generated by their execrable and condescending defense of Rob McKenna’s grandstanding anti-HCR lawsuit?

Now I’m not suggesting that the Times editors consciously adjusted their bias in response to angry emails and canceled subscriptions, but then I’ve never believed that the bulk of media bias is conscious. But the page has seemed a bit more reasonable in recent weeks.

Or maybe, eternal optimist that I am, I’m just seeing what I want to see?

Apparently, the dozen or so declared candidates in the Republican contest to get one’s ass kicked by Sen. Patty Murray this November are just as much in the dark about Dino Rossi’s intentions as everybody else. Though a quick read between the lines sure does suggest that a Rossi v. Murray matchup is not likely to happen…

Among the people Republican Don Benton consulted before announcing his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in early February was Dino Rossi.

Rossi, a friend of Benton’s and arguably Washington’s most prominent Republican, gave no hint that he might have designs on running himself.

Chris Widener, a Preston motivational speaker and author, said he would drop his bid for the Senate if Rossi were to run. […] Widener and his wife, Lisa, have been friends with Rossi since they joined the same baby-sitting co-op as new parents in 1992. The two men have remained close, and Widener said he speaks to Rossi regularly.

Yet, Widener said, he’s just as much in suspense as anyone about Rossi’s intentions.

These are folks who know Rossi, who are friendly with him, and who are already in the race. So you’d think if Rossi really intended to run, he’d have the courtesy to give them a heads up.

And then there’s Clint Didier, who hopes to ride a mediocre pro-football career and teabagger anger through the August primary. His campaign offers a different kinda hint as to what the Republican rainmakers expect from Rossi:

“I am a true conservative Republican,” said Didier, who has recruited Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman Jr. as his finance chair.

Freeman and his wife gave $8,600 to Rossi for his two gubernatorial campaigns, and now he’s the finance chair for a candidate destined to be an also-also-ran? Doesn’t really sound like Freeman expects Rossi to run, and as a nutty as he might be, he’s pretty much a consummate GOP insider.

So, yeah, once again, I just don’t see it.

On this anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, it is important to note that, as always, the real threat of domestic terrorism comes from the left. Because unlike the peaceful, tea-sipping patriots above, we’re the ones constantly riling up our base with fantasies of armed marches on Washington.

So watch out America, we’re coming to take away your guns and turn your children gay, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us!

UPDATE:
My how quickly the teabaggers attempt to cover their tracks. The video quickly removed by the owner once he realized it was being used to show their true colors. Hopefully the folks at TPM downloaded a copy and will get it back online.

What Joel said….

Proverbs 11:25
The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.

Discuss.