HorsesAss.Org

* [EDITOR’S NOTE: The name in the headline is a pun (admittedly, not a very good one), and any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidence. Also, sheesh, give a guy a break before assuming a name in a random post is their’s. — 01/29/2021]
 

I was actually kinda with Ted Van Dyk on this one… up until the final few paragraphs:

Beck’s goofy brand of conservatism is harmful to serious public dialogue, but no more so than the various ideological rantings associated with the master of the schtick, Rush Limbaugh, or of their counterparts on the left-hand side.

Typical, wishy-washy, centrist, equivalency bullshit. I mean what counterparts on the left? How many lefty TV/radio personalities have the same sort of audience reach as Beck, let alone Limbaugh, and are there any of consequence who are even remotely as vile? Honestly, even here in liberal Seattle, we now have four conservative talk stations — KVI, KTTH, KKOL and KIRO-FM (and yes, given their lineup, I think it’s fair to characterize KIRO as conservative now) — compared to just KPTK on the progressive side of the spectrum. And of course, since the loss of my show, not a single local liberal talker.  Not one.

Their popularity and huge audiences reflect the cynicism of the broadcast groups which sponsor them and the general dumbing down and growing irresponsiblity of media in the United States. A recent Pew survey, as others in recent years by many reputable organizations, underscored the degree to which Americans increasingly distrust and even discount entirely the “news” they see in all media — from daily newspapers to network news broadcasts to cable-news shows to local-level print and electronic media. The same surveys show citizens increasingly turning for information (and thus forming their views) on the basis of what they see and hear from biased sources and from online blogs which often purvey information which is outrightly false.

You mean purveying outrightly false information, like when you repeatedly lie about the cost of light rail, and its margin at the polls? Are you putting Crosscut in that category of “biased sources”…? I’m just wondering.

Those writing for media — for even as moderate and responsible a venue as Crosscut — will attest to the large number of comments and communications received in response to their pieces from readers proceeding from anger, bias, or ignorance. Crosscut’s readership makes it less susceptible to such response than does that of many other sources. A reading of comments made in response to Seattle Times or online P-I stories, for instance, shows a high percentage falling into the angry/biased/ignorant category.

Oh, I see, you’re not putting Crosscut into the same category, because it is a special, magical place where anger, bias and ignorance are as rare and fleeting as your grounding in the facts surrounding transportation issues.

Beck is only a symptom of a far larger general problem in American society. Voters and citizens exposed to half-baked commentary and politically slanted “news” will increasingly be less able to make reasonable, informed decisions about the big issues facing them.

See, I think the issue for Ted here is, “informed” by whom? Van Dyk doesn’t seem to draw a distinction between the vile, racist, hate-mongering of a Glenn Beck and the occasionally hyperbolic, but largely civil rants of a Keith Olbermann. What really seems to bother Van Dyk is that they’re the one’s informing the public, rather than a wise old sage like, you know, himself.

Far be it from me to defend the likes of Beck, by lumping him in with bloggers, citizen journalists and the denizens of comment threads far and wide, Van Dyk displays an obvious disdain for the very same public he claims he’s trying to inform. And you wonder why folks choose to get their news and commentary elsewhere…?

Unfettered by the need to win votes from voters, interim King County Executive Kurt Triplett is making the tough budget cutting choices, choices that are unlikely to win him many friends outside of the local politicians who are currently using him as a human shield. Yet the toughest choice of all — what to do about the county’s chronic long term revenue deficit — well that, nobody’s allowed to even talk about, especially not during an election season.

Slashing budgets is hard, but not impossible, because unlike most tax increases, budget cuts don’t require the prior approval of voters, and there’s no automatic mechanism for vetoing them via ballot referendum. Sure, plenty of voters will be plenty pissed off by shuttering parks, eliminating animal control and raising Metro fares countywide, but there’s nothing any of us can do about any of it… at least not directly, and certainly not directly against Triplett. So with nearly three quarters of the county’s general fund dedicated to criminal justice, so-called “non-essential” services must necessarily bear the brunt of this year’s cuts.

And next year…?

The cuts would come on top of several years of cost-cutting. For 2009, the county executive had to close a $93 million general-fund deficit, and between 2002 and 2005 $137 million in deficits had to be bridged.

Without new sources of revenue, Triplett forecast general-fund deficits of $54.2 million in 2011 and $88.2 million in 2012.

“There’s nothing left to spare,” he said. “Counties have to be funded differently.”

Yeah, well, Triplett can say that, because he’s not running for office. But as for the rest of the county’s political and media elite…? Shhhhh… voters might hear you.

So if we’re not going to fix a revenue system that has been intentionally monkey-wrenched to prevent county revenues from growing as fast as even population-plus-inflation, let alone growth in demand for public services, what’s the solution?

Republican executive candidate Susan Hutchison is running on the tried and true “waste, fraud and abuse” platform, claiming she can save popular services simply by wringing greater efficiencies from bloated government bureaucracy, mostly at the expense of the evil unions. Whether she really believes this or not, I don’t know, because like most other issues, she’s not sayin’. But the point is it can’t be done, at least not to the extent necessary to keep county services anywhere near their current level.

It’s not that there aren’t inefficiencies in county government, and it’s not like our bureaucracies don’t need to be scrutinized, squeezed and reformed from time to time; that’s the nature of bureaucracies, both public and private sector. It’s just that, as I’ve pointed out before, expecting to address long term structural deficits via productivity gains is a losing and illusory proposition:

But researchers long have recognized that the services provided in the public sector, such as education, health care, and law enforcement, tend to rise in cost faster than many other goods and services in the economy in general. This analysis was first put forward by economist William Baumol, who pointed out that technology and productivity gains may make goods cheaper to produce, but the services that government provides are different. Baumol said public services typically rely heavily on well-trained professionals — teachers, police officers, doctors and nurses, and so on — and technology gains do not make these services cheaper to provide. It may take far fewer workers to build an automobile than it did 30 years ago, but it still takes one teacher to lead a classroom of children.

The problem facing county governments statewide is simple: they have been forced to rely on a tax structure that over the long run guarantees that revenue will grow at a slower pace than the economy as whole, at the same time that the cost of providing government services is virtually assured to rise faster than the cost of most other goods and services in the economy. No doubt there are some productivity gains to be had, and we should attempt to squeeze them out where they make sense, especially in these trying economic times. But relying on productivity to address our long term deficit is wishful thinking.

Since we can’t actually outsource parks, animal control, Metro buses and other services to China, that leaves budget writers with only two real options: cut services and or raise revenues, neither of which is particularly popular, but only one of which appears to be even possible given the revenue constraints placed on the counties by the Legislature, and of course, our friend Tim Eyman. Timmy and the rest of the anti-government crowd don’t really mind watching local governments slowly drowned in a bath tub… indeed, that’s their goal. But the majority of voters — you know, those of us who actually use and rely on these services (and admit it) — we’re going to be sorely disappointed if the budget debate continues to focus on spending priorities to the exclusion of tax reform.

County government simply isn’t sustainable, anywhere in the state, and no amount of focus on budget priorities is going to fix this over the long term.  At some point, voters are going to have to accept that the level of revenue they are providing simply isn’t sufficient to support the level of services they’ve come to want and expect. But we’ll never have that painful conversation until our elected officials are willing to start it.

A little while ago on my tee-vee, a cable reporter (and does it matter which one?) insisted that unnamed Senate staffers don’t think there will be a public option when a bill makes it to a floor vote, and the reporter left the definite Village impression that this is the reasonable and moderate thing to think. Real Dakota demands it!

Switching to Food Network now. Mmm, I should make a health care table scape out of baloney, in the shape of an unnamed Senate staffer who should STFU. Oh yeah, only libruls get yelled at about being team players. I forget.

Still waiting to find out more about how you too can pay shitty insurance companies for shitty insurance that goes to shit just when you need it most, or pay a fine. It’s like a grill and a cooler, it’s fines and insurance, it’s Finesurance.

As seen on tee-vee.

Here are some things that I’ve been too busy working on my fantasy football website to write about:

– Marc Emery is now in a Canadian jail awaiting extradition to the United States. Ian Mulgrew in the Vancouver Sun writes about how this is a monumental travesty that shows how Canada (like Mexico) lacks the courage to stand up to America’s policy makers when it comes to the drug war.

– While Marc Emery is expected to spend five years behind bars for selling marijuana seeds to Americans, the more extraordinary tragedy is that Dick Cheney is still a free man.

– The King County Deputy who was caught on a holding cell camera beating a 15-year-old girl was fired by Sheriff Sue Rahr.

– Rhode Island is preparing to set up its first state-sanctioned medical marijuana dispensary, hoping to learn from what has worked – and what hasn’t – in the two other states that allow them (California and New Mexico). Hopefully, Washington will be the fourth state to allow them. The Obama Administration’s hands-off approach is something that should allow for states to set up systems that have stronger regulations than what California has, where the Bush Administration’s no-tolerance approach discouraged transparency and led to a lot of shady characters getting involved.

I preferred to spend time with my daughter this weekend than covering the Glenn Beck rally, and really, why bother when I knew the coverage would be in the capable hands of Dave Neiwert from Crooks and Liars.

Dave showed up, camera in hand, asking folks if they agreed with Beck that President Obama hates white people. The answers are both illuminating and amusing, especially the rambling response from GOP Senate wannabe Sean Salazar. Hey, good luck challenging Sen. Patty Murray by pandering to the Beck crowd.

Anyway, if President Obama really does hate white people he would have surely hated Beck’s crowds, because as Neiwert points out, they were almost entirely white. Huh. I guess demographics don’t bode too well for the far-right base of the Republican Party.

Last week’s contest was won by Murgen in only 28 minutes. The correct answer was Abraham Lincoln’s tomb in Springfield, Illinois.

Here’s this week’s, good luck!

I agree 100-percent with retired Judge William W. Baker and and former US Attorney John McKay (a Republican) that Washington state should move away from directly electing judges, to a commission/retention election system:

Under a commission system, a commission of citizens and lawyers considers all applicants for a vacant court position and recommends three or more candidates to the governor. The governor must appoint one of the recommended candidates. Once appointed, the judge must periodically stand for a retention election without any opponent, in which the only question is whether to retain the judge for another term.

This is the only way to free our judiciary from the corrupting influence of big money — be it from corporations, the BIAW, trial lawyers or organized labor— and 60-percent of our judges already take office via a gubernatorial appointment alone. The commission system is a sensible, reasonable, pragmatic approach that already works well in many other states. But I don’t really expect to ever see such reform come before voters here in Washington, because quite frankly, I don’t think our legislature or our governor have the balls to lead on this issue.

No doubt, regardless of how responsible such reforms may be, opponents will brand supporters as elitist and anti-democratic, and no elected official wants to be branded by that. So once again, for the simple want of effective leadership, Washington will continue to just do what it does because that’s the way we’ve always done it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZa3hTGorxs[/youtube]

(There are some 60 other media clips from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)

Update: In celebration of Glenn Beck day in Mt. Vernon, WA, I’ve put together a collection of my favorite Glenn Beck video clips.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1B9Xs2QTmo&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Of course, Tim Eyman is an economic genius who knows better than everybody else, so you can pretty much ignore what the folks from Colorado are saying.

Meanwhile for all of Tim’s complaints about how our out-of-control government is crushing our state economy, it sure is strange how high Washington ranks in terms of business climate, according to even conservative sources such as Forbes (#2) and the Tax Foundation (#9). But then, as a successful novelty watch salesman, Tim knows better about business climate than these folks too.

The local coroner has confirmed that the federal census worker found hanged from a tree in rural Kentucky did indeed have the word “Fed” scrawled on his chest. The FBI has yet to rule the death a homicide, but considering the circumstances, not to mention the FBI’s involvement, that conclusion seems pretty obvious… as does the likelihood that this was an anti-government hate crime.

It is also obvious that with the extreme level of anti-Obama, anti-government rhetoric coming from the right since they lost last November’s election, violence like this is inevitable. Words have consequences, and those who insist on inciting the violent, teabagging hordes are at the very least morally culpable for the violence that ensues.

Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner…

Well, I guess that’s one way to address growing complaints about King County Animal Control and conditions at its Kent shelter… shut it down:

“This is a transition or evolution for regional animal care and control, not an ending,” said Executive Triplett. “We must phase out the county’s general fund support for animal control and sheltering because although protecting animals and protecting people from animals are both important, providing animal care and control as a contractor for 32 cities is neither a required nor a core business of King County, nor is it self-sufficient.”

Currently, providing animal care and control services requires $1.5 million of the county’s general fund dollars every year above the revenues collected from city contracts for those services.

“In an era where we are mothballing parks, eliminating human services programs and closing health clinics, we can no longer afford to subsidize animal care and control,” said Triplett.

Now if only King County would also get out of the business of providing roads, parks, libraries, courts, law enforcement, jails, elections, social services, buses, public safety, public health, emergency management and a few other things, we might eventually get county government down to the size where Susan Hutchison is actually qualified to run it.

Looks like I’m not the only one calling for an end to Metro’s inflexible 40/40/20 rule. Over on Crosscut, State Sen. Fred Jarrett (D-Mercer Island) echoes my complaint about the rule sacrificing efficiency for sake of political expediency:

There are a number of strategic and tactical steps Metro can take to use the crisis as an opportunity to shape the region’s future. First, the failed “20-40-40” service allocation formula must be scrapped. Originally put in place as a political way to make each region of the county feel there was some degree of equity in the allocation of service, it has instead created an artificial barrier to the county’s ability to shape regional mobility and support our growth management goals.

Meanwhile, Dow Constantine, the Democratic nominee for King County Executive released a reform plan today that also calls for the rule’s repeal. I guess great minds think a like.

Investigative journalist Max Blumenthal will be at Seattle’s Town Hall tonight at 7:30 PM, 8th & Seneca, reading from his new book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party. And afterwards, Max and a bunch of us blogger types plan to go out for drinks.

Tickets are $5 at the door. Hope to see you there.