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According to a new study, Washington is the 10th healthiest state in the nation, up from number twelve, but…

Washington has some problems: Low rates of immunizations of young children and of high school graduates. There is also a high disparity in health outcomes associated with where someone lives.

And I’m guessing the best way to deal with these disparities isn’t to cut 7,700 low income people from our state’s Basic Health Plan.  But, you know, if it helps the governor stick to her no new tax pledge, I suppose it’s worth it.  Um… right?

From the P-I:

The state’s incoming superintendent of public instruction says Washington lawmakers are about to get a wake-up call about what it means to do their work during an economic downturn.

Randy Dorn predicts the Legislature will be forced to think about raising taxes to meet the needs of the state, especially because he says cutting one of Washington’s biggest dollar commitments — education — should not be on the table.

As a former state lawmaker, the new school chief knows few things may be sacred during a major economic downturn.

And he plays the “paramount duty card:”

“It’ll be a real choice of — what are the priorities. And to me there isn’t a choice on what is a priority. The priority’s already been determined by our constitution. That’s the paramount duty. They take an oath of office. It’s pretty simple to me,” Dorn said.

Look, we all know it’s going to be an insanely tough session. Nobody wants to see health care pitted against education, or corrections and law enforcement. Or whatever.

But the broader public is going to need to understand that their neighborhood schools are going to be affected, possibly in significant ways. I’m not so certain that is sinking in around the state.

Education is a point of contact with the state for many folks who otherwise have little interaction with it, other than routine trips to license vehicles and such. Frankly a lot of parents may not understand exactly how education is funded in this state or what could happen with drastic cuts.

Dorn is right to start making noise. It’s probably unrealistic to hope that no cuts will happen, but parents and students involved in both K-12 and higher education better start making plans right now to fight like hell.

Yeah, I know. Gov. Chris Gregoire made a promise not to seek tax increases. Well, a hell of a lot has happened just in the last four weeks, and a hell of a lot is likely to happen in the next four weeks. From a macro-economic standpoint a tax increase is about the last thing that should happen, but then again, the consequences of major damages to education are also severe.

Our stupid, regressive tax system has us boxed in big time.

Kansas leads candidates for bio-defense lab:

Kansas emerged Wednesday as the leading contender for a new $563 million federal biodefense lab also fiercely pursued by Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and other states.

Federal officials said that a Manhattan location was better than five other finalists and nearly 30 spots considered overall for the home of the new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, according to documents obtained by The Kansas City Star.

Research expertise at Kansas State University, particularly in its College of Veterinary Medicine and Biosecurity Research Institute, an available work force of scientists and state financial support topping $200 million helped push Kansas to the top.

Kansans were wise to ultimately reject the assault against their education system by Seattle’s Discovery Institute, which repeatedly sponsored efforts to impose creationism in the guise of “intelligent design” on Kansas children. Back and forth battles over control of the Kansas School Board eventually led to Discovery’s defeat there.

You can’t have a quality state university system if the high school graduates are hamstrung by ideological balderdash sponsored by stink tanks like the Discovery Institute. Now both Kansas and all of America will benefit from actual science that will help defend us. It could have been different, if the religious extremists had won. But they didn’t, and we should all be thankful.

Next year’s MLS season will be starting right here at Qwest Field. The expansion Sounders FC will be hosting New York on Thursday, March 19. Want tickets? You might not want to wait too long.

Gov. Chris Gregoire and AG Rob McKenna have just issued a joint, bipartisan statement on Bill O’Reilly’s manufactroversy over the atheist display in the state Capitol:

“Last year, after a federal lawsuit was filed against the state of Washington by the Alliance Defense Fund, the state’s Department of General Administration set forth a policy allowing individuals or groups to sponsor a display regardless of that individual’s or group’s views.

“The Legislative Building belongs to all citizens of Washington state, and houses the state Legislature, as well as the offices of several state-elected executives, including the governor. The U.S. Supreme Court has been consistent and clear that, under the Constitution’s First Amendment, once government admits one religious display or viewpoint onto public property, it may not discriminate against the content of other displays, including the viewpoints of non-believers.”

So there you have it.  I guess my pseudo-legal analysis of the issue was basically right.

It’s a shame that even their communications staffs had be distracted by bullshit like this when there are issues of so much greater import to address, but apparently the’ve been fielding hundreds of phone calls—mostly from out of state—after O’Reilly attempted to bully the governor by posting her phone number on national television.

Whatever.

Both Gregoire and McKenna have more important things to do, and if I were them I wouldn’t pay any more attention to Billo and his annual War on Christmas bluster.

Robert Reich sounds the alarm nationally about the fact we are bailing out Wall Street even as our education system faces drastic cuts.

Frankly I’m a little disappointed Gov. Chris Gregoire didn’t seem to really mention education while at the National Governor’s Association meeting. Or maybe she did and it just wasn’t widely reported.

Granted, infrastructure and health care funding are important, too, but why not stress to the president-elect the serious threat to “human capital,” as Reich refers to well-educated workers? If we wind up yanking a couple of billion out of K-12 and higher ed, as certainly seems possible, that’s a deferred disaster of monumental proportions.

Former Republican state chair Chris Vance, writing at Crosscut:

Dino Rossi lost because voters realized Republicans don’t have a freaking clue about economics.

Pretty much.

If you’re wondering how I earned the “honor” of going up against Bill O’Reilly last night, well, it turns out I have Dan Savage to thank.

Ken Schram from KOMO gave my name to a producer from Bill O’Reilly’s show who was looking for someone to come on tonight and defend the sign put up by atheists near the nativity scene in the state capitol. The producer added that O’Reilly wanted to “broaden the discussion out to include observations about Washington being a very liberal state.” Uh-huh. I declined and when the producer asked if I could suggest someone who might want to come on, I gave him your name Goldy.

So I guess I should just think of Billo as Dan’s sloppy seconds.  (Bet that’s an image that sticks in your head.)  But, hey Dan… when do I get my shot at doing Bill Maher?

In the end, O’Reilly really wasn’t all that.  Sure, he did that cutting me off and talking over me thing he does, but that’s not really all that different from a typical dinner table conversation in my family, and, well, I’ve spent enough time on both sides of the mic to have been there and done that.  Watching the video, I thought I did okay given the context… got in a couple good lines… didn’t embarrass myself or anybody else.  And now that I know what to expect, I’m confident I’d be more relaxed and forceful given another shot at going up against Billo.

Speaking of which, the process of taping the segment is probably not what most people imagine.  Both Anne and I appeared from studios at Fisher Plaza, but were taped in separate rooms.  Throughout the interview I sat alone in a small studio with a fake skyline behind me and a robotic camera in front; there was no TV monitor on which to view the proceedings.  Except for having to stare at the camera, it was pretty much like doing radio, except with a tinny piece in my ear instead of a set of good headphones.  In the end, having Bill O’Reilly’s voice in my head wasn’t all that scary—there are way more frightening demons in there—but it would have been easier if I could have heard him more clearly.

As to the story itself, well, it’s total bullshit, and it’s hard to believe that was Billo’s top story of the day.  In fact, after taping what I thought was a pretty uncontroversial segment, I almost feared they might edit it, bury it or cut it entirely.  But then, I’m not a real journalist like Billo, so what do I know?

My DSL stopped working sometime last night.  The modem says it is connecting fine, but I can’t connect to anything.  Anyway, expect some light posting while I sort this out.

UPDATE:
Qwest called me back within a couple hours and fixed the problem.  So I guess I’m satisfied with the customer service.

A floating pirate ship shooting pepperoni would look pretty killer if you ask me. Call Sea-Tac.

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some of us will show up even earlier to enjoy the fine cuisine.

Tonight we’ll tune in to The O’Reilly Factor for his annual War on Christmas™ comedy special. Perhaps we’ll construct some “hard left” holiday tree munitions decorations at the same time. And we’ll catch the tail end of the War in Georgia.

Not in Seattle? Check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

I guess I did kinda sorta okay before getting bogged down in his bullshit, but mostly O’Reilly just wanted to call Gov. Gregoire names, and that’s what he did.  We’ll see how it comes out in the edit.  (And yes, unlike almost every other show, O’Reilly pre-tapes, and edits out the truly unflattering—or boring—stuff.)

The thing is, it’s hard to imagine folks getting riled up once again about the so-called War on Christmas, when they’re more worried about how their going to pay for any Christmas celebration at all.  This sort of divisive rhetoric is a luxury I’m not sure many Americans can afford during these tough economic times.

Oddly enough, I’ll be doing the O’Reilly Factor tonight, defending Washington state from charges of being a far-left extreme commie-fascist-atheist sanctuary.  In other words, Billo doesn’t much like the Atheists sign that was put up in our state Capitol, but he somehow sees it as part of a pattern of secular decadence that includes Death With Dignity, naked bicycle riding, and the Fremont statue of Lenin.

Whatever.

In fact, none of these have anything to do with each other (I-1000 was libertarian, the statue of Lenin is kitsch, and naked bicycle riding seems, well, just plain uncomfortable), but you know, if religious groups insist on putting holiday displays in public facilities, they can’t much complain when competing groups do likewise, and since freedom of religion also means freedom from religion, Atheists have just as much a right to promote their solstice greetings as anybody else.

That’s America.  Love it or leave it.

With K-12 education accounting for about a third of state general fund expenditures, and a $5 billion-plus revenue shortfall projected over the next biennium budget, there’s little doubt that there will be at least some cuts in state funding of basic education… possibly as much as a billion dollars or more.

That could amount to over $1,000 per student, maybe two to three hundred thousand dollars a year out of your typical elementary school budget, a devastating cut that would result in larger class sizes and the elimination of “extras” like the arts, physical education, teaching assistants, tutors, counselors and other programs.  But it doesn’t have to happen that way.

The state could raise additional revenues by eliminating billions of dollars in special purpose tax exemptions, and by extending the sales tax to some personal and business services (something the state will eventually have to do if it refuses to adopt an income tax).  But if, as many observers assume, the Legislature and Governor lack the balls to do what’s necessary to give voters the services they want, they should just let local school districts raise the taxes themselves.

Currently, the maximum local levy for about two-thirds of the state’s school districts is limited to 24% of state and federal funding, with the remaining schools grandfathered in at a lid as high as 33.9% (Seattle is capped at 32.9%).  There are a lot of sound reasons for maintaining this policy, and I’m not opposed to the school levy lid in theory.  But in these desperate economic times we need to let local communities choose to adequately fund K-12 education if the state proves unable (or unwilling) to fulfill its obligation.

A temporary lid lift of say, an additional 10%, would give local school districts the flexibility they need to weather this economic downturn without cutting basic education services.  And of course, local voters would always have the final say.  Districts in areas of the state that oppose higher taxes might choose not to seek a higher levy, or might have any increase rejected at the polls, but there’s little doubt that the vast majority of districts here in the Puget Sound region would stand a good chance of passing a temporary levy hike if a compelling argument can be made to voters.

Governor Gregoire ran on a no new taxes pledge, and I don’t doubt she plans to try to keep it, but that shouldn’t keep her or the Legislature from granting local taxing districts the authority they need to ask local voters to tax themselves to make up for any cuts in state funding. It is simply unfair and unreasonable for anti-tax sentiment in the rest of the state to dictate local tax policies, or to impose a lowest common denominator approach toward something as crucial as K-12 education.

As we saw once again in last month’s election, Seattle voters have proven themselves extremely generous when it comes to funding the services and infrastructure projects we want.  Given the opportunity to ease the impact of proposed state K-12 funding cuts, I’m confident Seattle voters will prove generous once again.

That is, assuming, the Legislature and the Governor gives us that chance.