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Hey, remember how just a year and a half ago the oh so wise Seattle Times editorial board vociferously (and dishonestly) backed up Rodney Tom’s call to shut down GET (the state’s Guaranteed Education Tuition Plan), deriding it as “too generous,” while arguing that “lawmakers should be seriously concerned about a projected $631 million future shortfall” in the program?

“Closing GET to new enrollees would cause a $1.7 billion hit to the state treasury,” the editors wrote in January 2013, back when they were editorializing in favor of, you know, closing GET to new enrollees. And yet just 19 months later, according to today’s Seattle Times, GET is now funded at 106 percent of obligations:

The state’s prepaid college tuition is no longer underfunded, and has fully recovered from the recession.

That’s right: following the editors’ sage advice would have cost Washington taxpayers an unnecessary $1.7 billion, while eliminating our state’s only college savings option that allows middle-class families to securely plan for their children’s college education. Oops. Not that this wasn’t entirely predictable. As I explained in my contemporaneous fisking of this insane editorial:

Why the fuck would we want to lock in a $1.7 billion loss that we’d never have to pay if we’d just fund higher education at the level we all say we want to fund it? I mean, that’s just crazy. Inflation has averaged between 2 and 3 percent over the past few decades. Limit tuition increases to 7.5 percent a year and the GET program easily outgrows its shortfall.

As it turns out, the legislature ended up freezing tuition for two years. That and a booming stock market predictably led to GET’s full and speedy recovery.

Seriously… where do these clowns get off telling us how to run a government? Nobody should ever, ever, ever listen to their budgetary advice.

I know, I know, some people just won’t link to a post with too many f-bombs in it, so for you faint of heart, here’s a non-foul-mouthed take down of what has got to be one of the most dishonest Seattle Times editorials ever. Which is saying a lot. Because the Seattle Times has an impressive track record of dishonest editorials.

NEWS that the last family farm in Issaquah is being sold for residential development is a reminder of one of the subtle ills of our tax system: a death tax that forces many farm families and business owners either to liquidate their assets, or go through enormous and costly gyrations to avoid it.

The story of the McBride family, recounted by Seattle Times reporter Erin Heffernan, shows us what we lose as a result of the estate tax — in this case, the last working farm in a fast-growing suburb. Twelve acres of open space farmed by a single family since 1883 will soon become a subdivision. The family had to sell, explained Jim McBride. “There wasn’t any other thing for us to do. All my parents’ wealth was in that land, and we couldn’t afford to pay the taxes that come with inheriting it at the current property value.”

Credulously read this Seattle Times editorial, and you would think the McBride family was forced off the land of “the last working farm” in Issaquah thanks to the death of their patriarch and a stupidly punitive estate tax. Except, everything about this editorial is wrong:

1. Working family farms are entirely exempt from the Washington’s estate tax, while 99.4 percent of family farms pay no federal estate tax at all; the number of family farms liquidated to pay the federal estate tax is estimated near zero.
2. The McBride property is actually not a working farm, and apparently has not been for quite some time.
3. Regardless of whether or not it is a farm, family patriarch Ralph McBride’s estate is too small to be subject to either the state or federal estate tax.
4. Ralph McBride is not dead, so there is no estate yet to tax.

You wouldn’t know any of this from reading the editorial. Because the editors don’t want you to know it. But let’s be clear, the McBrides did not sell the family farm to pay off an estate tax.

First of all, the federal estate tax exempts the first $5.25 million. So if, as Jim McBride is quoted, all his parent’s wealth “was in that land,” and they sold the property for $4.5 million (as the Seattle Times reports), then there would be no federal estate tax to pay. The US Department of Agriculture reports that only 0.6 percent of family farms end up paying any estate tax. And thanks to other provisions benefiting farms, such as a special use valuation and a 15-year payment plan, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates the number of family-owned farms forced to liquidate to pay the federal estate tax at “virtually none.”

But what about that pernicious Washington estate tax? Here’s what the Seattle Times has the audacity to tell its readers:

Washington state’s tax is especially punitive. The rate of up to 20 percent is the highest in the country — on top of a federal rate of 40 percent. The typical state exemption for the first $2 million of estate value is hardly enough for a farm or prosperous business, despite reforms by the 2013 Legislature.

Except, Washington state law exempts the value of working farms entirely. All of it. If this had been a working farm for five out of the past eight years, then the McBrides would inherit it Washington-estate-tax-free, whatever its value. No exceptions. Hard to see what is “especially punitive” about that.

Of course, as I’ll explain in a moment, the McBride property is likely not a working farm. Not that it matters, because 97-year-old Ralph McBride’s land holdings comprised only a portion of the $4.5 million deal, far below the $2 million threshold for non-farm assets subject to Washington’s estate tax.

It didn’t take more than a few seconds on Zillow to locate the four properties the extended McBride family sold to developer Wescott Holdings—here, here, here, and here—and according to the King County Assessor’s Office only one property was still owned by Ralph McBride, a 7.55 acre parcel with an assessed taxable value of only $666,000. The other lots were already owned by Ralph’s heirs.

“All my parents’ wealth was in that land,” Jim McBride told the Seattle Times. So a tiny bit of fact-checking would have demonstrated that Ralph McBride’s estate couldn’t possibly be subject to either the state or federal estate tax, regardless of its classification. If anything, the family increased their chance of paying the Washington estate tax by selling his property at a premium before his death (though I’m guessing the deal is structured in a way to avoid this).

So why did the McBride’s sell the farm? Here’s what they told the Issaquah Press:

Age, skyrocketing property taxes and nearby development caused the family to vacate the 660-acre [sic] section of land at the end of June, bringing an end to one of the final remnants of Issaquah’s rural past. … “The farm just kind of petered out as the development began,” [Celia] McBride said, referring to the build out of the Klahanie area in 1985.

Of course, the construction didn’t stop there. Residential neighborhoods sprang up to surround the farm, leading to complaints about noise from the animals and financial concerns.

“The property taxes became outrageous,” she said. “My dad got older, my mom got tired and now the land is going to be a development.”

The property tax on James McBride’s parcel was $7,575.38 for 2014. The McBride family’s combined tax bill was over $26,000 across the four properties. So, yeah, maybe they were just tired of paying it. Though looking at the parcels on Zillow, I’m guessing that the family got offered a premium to sell the four parcels together, rather than the per acre price they could have demanded for Ralph’s 7.5 acres alone. That’s the way these development deals often work.

Regardless, you can’t liquidate the family farm to pay the estate tax if you don’t have a family farm.

Look at the aerial map on Zillow. Two of the lots are heavily wooded, with maybe five or six acres of potential cropland between the four. According to the Agriculture Council of America, the average US farm is 441 acres, so it would be hardly viable to farm a plot this small in the midst of fast appreciating suburban developments. Indeed, King County characterizes all four parcels as “urban residential,” not “rural” or “agricultural,” and assigns “single family” as the properties’ “highest and best use.” The narrative in both the Seattle Times and Issaquah Press describes a 660-acre farm that was gradually divided and sold off over generations. Yes, Ralph McBride continued to raise chickens and tend a garden. But so do lots of people, and it doesn’t make them farmers.

The McBride property may in fact have been the last working farm in Issaquah—that’s hard to know for sure—but it clearly ceased to be a working farm years ago. So all Issaquah is really losing with the development of the McBride properties is some open space and a tiny fragment of its history. If you find this loss upsetting, blame the land use policies.

Still, “farm” or not, the Seattle Times thesis is demonstrably wrong. If it is a working farm, then it is exempt from the estate tax. If it’s not exempt from the estate tax, then it is clearly not a farm. There is simply no way the estate tax cost the McBrides the family farm.

But what else can the estate-tax-hating Blethens do but lie to their readers? “The McBride case ought to show us conventional thinking is wrong — the death tax really isn’t a whack on the wealthy,” the editors blather. Yet according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, 99.86 percent of estates owe no federal estate tax at all. So lacking an actual example of a family farm or small business being liquidated to pay off the estate tax, the Seattle Times had to cook one up.

Sound familiar?

How can anybody ever trust anything this editorial board writes?

There’s a lot to ridicule in this Freedom Foundation blow-job from the Seattle Times editorial board, but for the sake of brevity, I think I’ll just focus on this single sentence:

These agreements are among the reasons for the disastrous run up in state spending during the bubble years of the 2000s.

Forget for a moment the editor’s ridiculous assertion that our public employee unions are somehow to blame for our state’s budget woes. Instead, I’m just going to rip into the underlying premise. For in fact, there was no run up in state spending during the 2000s, disastrous or otherwise. And unlike those lying liars at the Seattle Times, I’ll show you the data to prove it:

The chart above was copy and pasted directly from the pages of the Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM), and while it does show a modest rise in spending from a low of $187.73 per $1,000 of income in 2000 to a mid-decade high of $205.75 in 2004, it only comes on the heels of a steep eight-year decline from a peak of $224.37 in 1993, followed by an immediate drop to $196.41 by 2006. Viewed through any reasonable time frame, this is nothing more than a blip.

But in fact, the “disastrous run up” the editors are really referring to is the 2007-09 biennial budget, in which Governor Christine Gregoire briefly restored voter-approved teacher COLAs, as well as COLAs for other state workers who hadn’t seen a raise in years. Squint closely and you can see it on the chart. That’s what the Seattle Times has been bitching about all these years.

Indeed, if there’s anything remarkable about the 2000s, it’s that state spending remained relatively flat compared to the more erratic oscillations of the previous two decades. State and local expenditures pretty much track the 50-state average (though slightly below) throughout the decade, fluctuating right along with the economy.

Seriously, take a look at that chart, and show me the “disastrous run up in state spending.” You can’t. Because it’s not there. And it’s not there for a very good reason.

The OFM chart above tracks Washington state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income, and not surprisingly, tells a similar story to state and local expenditures. Because, you know, one pays for the other.

In this case, taxes peaked at just below $125 per $1,000 of personal income in 1989, settled to about $119 over the next few years, before falling into an eight-year decline that bottomed out at $98.91 in 2002. Tax revenues did recover over the next few years to $109.43 in 2006, before falling off the cliff during the great recession. By 2011, the latest year for which OFM provides data, taxes had dropped to under $95 per $1,000 of personal income, the lowest effective average tax rate in the 31 years charted!

And again, throughout the 2000s, Washington’s state and local taxes largely track fluctuations in the 50-state average, if quite a bit below it. In 2011, Washington’s tax “burden” ranked 37th nationwide.

Now I know what some of you right-wing skeptics are thinking: lies, damn lies, and statistics, amirite? Goldy’s talking state and local expenditures and taxes as percentage of personal income in an effort to obscure some inconvenient truth.

Well, no. Taxes and spending as a percentage of personal income is a metric that inherently incorporates the impact of both economic and population growth, as well as inflation, thus presenting the most accurate picture of relative taxes and spending over time. And if you’re worried that OFM’s inclusion of local taxes muddies the picture, considering that the editors were only talking about state spending, well, you’re kinda right. When you break out just state taxes, the decline per $1,000 of income becomes even starker:

There’s your run up in state taxes for you—from a half-century low, up slightly mid-decade, and then off the cliff again. Disastrous! Just not in the way the Seattle Times implies.

And if you’re still not convinced that there hasn’t been some sort of secret hidden run-up in state spending that would prove the editors’ claim, just take a gander at this:

State workers are in fact the state’s largest expense, but do you see any sort of run up in state hiring during the 2000s? No you do not. In fact, the gap between population growth and state FTEs widened slightly throughout the first half of the decade before the state started madly shedding government workers during the Great Recession.

Go to the OFM website. Look at all of the charts. By any reasonable metric the “disastrous run up in state spending” that the Seattle Times has been pouting over for years, simply did not happen! The entire premise upon which the paper has built its relentless attack on public employee unions—that state spending is out of control—is entirely unsupported by the data. Indeed, what these charts actually show is a structural revenue deficit that has left state government unable to grow state services and investments commensurate with our needs.

McLeary, anybody?

And while none of these charts speak directly to the editors’ claim that public employee unions are bankrupting the state by extorting extravagant contracts through secret negotiations, given the context, where exactly are all these overpaid state workers? More than 45 percent of state general fund spending goes toward K-12 education, and yet the National Education Association reports that Washington state teachers—already paid well below the national average—actually saw their inflation-adjusted wages fall by 8.5 percent from 2002 through 2012. Are they really arguing that we should cut teacher pay even more?

And if it’s not the dastardly teachers union that is to blame, then who? Is it our state troopers who are overpaid? The men and women risking their lives fighting fires in Eastern Washington? The evil, evil members of perpetual Seattle Times boogeyman SEIU 775 NW, who now earn an extravagant starting wage of $11.06 an hour to wipe the poop off your grandma—a modest pay hike earned not through some secret back room deal, but through binding arbitration?

As I have said for years, there is a legitimate debate to be had over the proper size and scope of government, but the Seattle Times editorial board refuses to engage in it honestly. Instead, they obstruct debate through dog-whistle attacks on public employee unions and the relentless repetition of an out-of-control-state-spending meme that is entirely contradicted by the facts.

It is not state spending that is the problem, but state revenue. You could bust the public employee unions, convert their pensions to 401Ks, slash their health care benefits, and freeze their pay, and you still wouldn’t have enough money to fully fund McCleary. Even worse, in another ten years or so, we’d be right back to where we started. Because that is the nature of a structural revenue deficit. And no amount of lying or union-bashing can ever change that.

Socialists like Kshama Sawant like to argue that market capitalism isn’t working for the rest of us. But I’m beginning to wonder if it is actually working at all:

The American Trucking Associations has estimated that there was a shortage of 30,000 qualified drivers earlier this year, a number on track to rise to 200,000 over the next decade. Trucking companies are turning down business for want of workers.

Yet the idea that there is a huge shortage of truck drivers flies in the face of a jobless rate of more than 6 percent, not to mention Economics 101. The most basic of economic theories would suggest that when supply isn’t enough to meet demand, it’s because the price — in this case, truckers’ wages — is too low. Raise wages, and an ample supply of workers should follow.

But corporate America has become so parsimonious about paying workers outside the executive suite that meaningful wage increases may seem an unacceptable affront. In this environment, it may be easier to say “There is a shortage of skilled workers” than “We aren’t paying our workers enough,” even if, in economic terms, those come down to the same thing.

Adjusted for inflation, truckers are now earning 6 percent less, on average, than they did a decade ago. And yet trucking executives would rather leave business on the table than raise pay to attract more truckers. “It takes a peculiar form of logic to cut pay steadily and then be shocked that fewer people want to do the job,” observes the New York Times’ Neil Irwin.

So much for supply and demand.

And its not just the trucking industry. As the housing market recovers, the construction industry is facing a looming worker shortage, even against the backdrop of persistent six-plus percent unemployment. Here in Washington State, produce is left rotting in the fields for want of enough farmworkers at harvest time. Pay them and they will come, Econ 101 teaches. But in industry after industry, the masters of capital simply refuse.

Whether through collusion, or habit, or sheer ill will, a labor market that effectively suspends the rule of supply and demand isn’t really a market at all. And if there is no functional labor market, then capitalism really isn’t working for the rest of us. Really. In fact, it is fair to question whether market capitalism is working at all. For surely there must be more to the promise of capitalism than the mere accumulation of capital.

Minimum wage opponents like to argue that wage floors distort the natural efficiencies of the market. But you can’t distort something that doesn’t exist.

I certainly agree with the Seattle Times editorial board in lauding the work of Public Health – Seattle & King County director David Fleming, who is stepping down today after seven years on the job. Under Fleming’s leadership, Public Health has been one of the most proactive and effective agencies in the region.

But what I do take issue with is the editors’ envisioned role for Fleming’s successor.

There is much work to be done.

The department faces an estimated $15 million budget hole this fall caused by federal budget constraints. The next director will have to balance fewer resources with the demands of a fast-growing, diverse population.

Fleming’s successor should pick up where he left off by advocating for policies and funding in areas where data show the highest need and investment can have the highest impact:

That’s right: the editors want Fleming’s successor to “pick up where he left off,” but with “fewer resources,” despite the increased costs of serving our “fast-growing” population. It’s no secret that his department’s budget squeeze contributed to Fleming’s decision to step-down—the Seattle Times reported as much. And yet in the same breath in which they acknowledge the important work that Public Health does, the editors simply state as fact that the new director will have to serve a growing population with shrinking resources.

More sound public policy advice from the something-for-nothing crowd.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. Whatever the loss of federal funds, the city and county could backfill this money with local revenue—assuming I-747’s stupid fucking 101 percent limit wasn’t gradually drowning local government in a bathtub. About 45 percent of the county’s general fund revenue comes from the property tax, yet as I have previously explained, thanks to the 101 percent limit on growth in regular levy revenue, the property tax can’t even keep pace with inflation, let alone population-plus-inflation (not to mention economic growth, with is the most accurate measure of growth in demand for public services). To further complicate matters, another 14 percent of county general fund revenue comes from the sales tax, a tax base (the sale of goods) that has been steadily shrinking as a portion of the overall economy for more than 60 years.

What we have here should be familiar to anybody who is willing to honestly discuss Washington’s state and local tax system: a structural revenue deficit.

The editors’ advice—always—is that government must recognize this new fiscal reality and reduce the size and cost of its operations to match its reduced revenues. But it can’t work. For even if you believe that this new fiscal reality is more appropriate than the significantly higher relative revenue levels state and local governments enjoyed just a decade and a half ago, our ability to fund government services will continue to fall. That is the nature of a structural deficit.

If the Seattle Times really cared about maintaining public health, rather than simply urging the new director to magically do more with less (year after year in perpetuity!), the editors would take the lead in urging the repeal of the 101 percent limit, and replacing it with something more rational. The original purpose of the limit back when it was first imposed at 106 percent (or inflation, whichever was higher), was to prevent shocking annual increases in property taxes. But it was not meant to limit property taxes over the long run—that is the role of the statutory cap that limits the total amount of state and local regular levies to $10 per $1,000 of accessed value.

Tim Eyman’s arbitrary 101 percent limit is a perversion of this policy.

If Washington were a high-tax state this push for lower taxes might be understandable. But we’re not. As a percentage of personal income, Washington’s state and local taxes are now some of the lowest in the nation. And dropping. In this context, there is simply no rational argument for maintaining a 101 percent limit on local property tax revenue growth that is gradually starving local governments of the ability to meet their citizens’ most basic needs.

Everybody knows that Washington’s tax structure is immensely unfair. It is the most regressive in the nation. And by far. But it is also unsustainable. And we could really use some editorial leadership to help move us toward a solution before it is too late.

Revelation 13:1-2

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

Discuss.

It’s been almost two weeks since the audio of National Rifle Association lobbyist Brian Judy went viral, drawing broad condemnation of his comments equating universal background checks to Nazi Germany, and calling Jews “stupid” for supporting Initiative 594. “These people,” exclaims Judy, “you come to this country and you support gun control? … Hello! Is anybody home here?”

So far, neither Judy nor the NRA have had the balls to give an official response. But on her Facebook page, Judy’s co-speaker at the July 23 event, NRA campaign field representative Adina Hicks, has come to his defense, lauding Judy for “speaking the truth and giving a history lesson.”

Hicks herself has a prior history of buying into the NRA’s bullshit “background checks equals Hitler” meme. Introducing herself in a forum on WaGuns.org, Hicks wrote: “When I found out about [I-594] and read the initiative, my first thought was Nazi Germany, Hitler’s gun registration and eventual confiscation.” Because, of course, having to fill out a form to purchase a gun is the moral equivalent of the Holocaust.

But then, that’s the sort of sharp legal reading of I-594 that you’d expect from a disbarred attorney. Adina Hicks is actually registered to vote as Adina Atwood, who was disbarred in 2004 for “multiple acts of misconduct” including abandoning clients and failing to return their fees. Not sure what the circumstances are surrounding her name change, but it seems to be recent, as both names appear on NRA websites, but with the same phone number.

Whatever.

The point the “I-594 equals Hitler” crowd is making is that the Nazis used gun registration records to disarm the Jews, leaving them unable to defend themselves from the state. Which is both a perversion of history, and downright offensive.

First of all, it was the Weimar government that instituted tight gun registration laws after World War I, not the Nazis; Hitler actually loosened gun control laws for everybody but the Jews. The eventual confiscation of the few guns held by German Jews wasn’t an act of gun control as much as it was an act of anti-Semitism. Big difference. And to characterize it as anything but anti-Semitism is insulting.

Second, the very suggestion that disarming the Jews was a significant event on the timeline to the Holocaust is blame-the-victim historical revisionism of the worst kind. Forty-two million well-armed Frenchmen just rolled over in the face of the German blitzkrieg, as did 35 million Poles and much of the rest of Europe. The very idea that Germany’s 500,000 Jews—about 0.75 percent of the population—armed with handguns and hunting rifles, could have defended themselves against the Nazi regime is downright crazy!

Besides, German Jews represented only a fraction of the estimated 6 million European Jews the Nazis exterminated. So to argue that Nazi gun control laws led to the Holocaust is tantamount to arguing that all the horrors of World War II could have been avoided if only German Jewry had the guns and the balls to defend themselves. It is an argument that if taken to its logical conclusion essentially blames World War II on the Jews!

And finally, whatever their logic or their twisted view of history, what the likes of Hicks and Judy refuse to acknowledge is that the “I-594 is Hitler” equation is transitive. I-594 merely requires filling out some paperwork before purchasing a gun. So if I-594 equals the Holocaust, then the Holocaust must equal paperwork. Thus to rhetorically equate I-594 with the Holocaust is to equate the genocide of European Jewry with a mere inconvenience.

I don’t know if Hicks and Judy just lack the empathy to understand why Jews might find this over-the-top rhetoric offensive, or if they just don’t care?

Normally, I eagerly await King County’s 4:30 pm day-after-Election-Day ballot drop in order to spot election-changing trends in late ballots, but in a nod to the total lack of drama in Tuesday’s results, I instead chose to go hiking yesterday afternoon. And as expected, in the one race that was truly being decided in this election, Seattle Proposition 1 (Metropolitan Park District) slightly expanded its comfortable election night lead from 52.4%-47.6% to an even more comfortable 52.7%-47.3%.

That shift may not sound like much, but it pretty much plunges a stake through heart of any chance that the No side might prevail through a surge of late ballots. Of the 14,107 Seattle ballots tallied yesterday, greater than 54.9% of them voted Yes on Prop 1. And while two data points isn’t generally enough to plot a trend, given the fact that ballots are generally counted chronologically, first in/first out, these late-ish ballots (mostly arriving Monday and Tuesday) safely indicate that late voters were at least modestly more supportive of Prop 1 than those who mailed in their ballots over the prior three weeks.

In any case, there just aren’t that many ballots remaining. King County Elections reported 138,929 Seattle ballots had arrived by 8pm yesterday. That number won’t dramatically increase. Yet 113,928 have already been counted. That means the No camp would have to win better than 62 percent of the remaining ballots in order to overcome their current 6,158 vote deficit. Not gonna happen.

So, yeah, Prop 1 wins. And probably by about an eight-point margin.

No wonder the Seattle Times editorial board is almost aphasic in its apoplexy.

If the Seattle Times editorial board is going to put so little time and effort into writing this editorial, then I’m not going to bother to put much time and effort into fisking it.

SEATTLE Proposition 1 appears headed for passage. No surprise, since the campaign to form a Seattle Park District was heavy on the “everyone loves parks” rhetoric and light on the governance details about the creation of an entirely new taxing authority.

As opposed to the No campaign, which was heavy on the lies and light on the… wait… what’s so wrong about a Park District campaign being heavy on the “everyone loves parks”…?

Taxpayers must remain vigilant.

Against dishonest editorials.

This new taxing authority is permanent. Voters will no longer be asked every few years whether they approve of how their money is being spent on parks through levy renewal measures.

Like they had been since Seattle was founded back in 2000.

Prop. 1 hands oversight of the district and about $48 million in its first year — twice the amount of the expiring parks levy — to the Seattle City Council, which will serve as the Park District’s board.

Oh no! We’ll be handing oversight of the parks over to the same people who already have oversight of the parks!

If City Council members want to raise property taxes from the initial rate of 33 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value to 75 cents per $1,000 for parks, they may do so without asking voters. The current levy rate is about 20 cents per $1,000.

It’s called representative democracy. Look it up in the Constitution.

An agreement preserves at least in annual general-fund dollars for parks, but the city’s obligation can be reduced or diverted in an emergency.

For the life of me, I can’t parse this sentence.

Voters should demand that the mayor and council keep their $89 million general-fund promise to parks.

I’m guessing this sentence was supposed to be set up by the previous incomprehensible one?

The transparency, specific asks and expiration dates contained in previous park levies are why 59 percent of voters passed the last parks levy in 2008 and 55 percent supported a similar levy in 2000.

That’s three one-sentence paragraphs in a row.

Wednesday’s ballot count showed about 53 percent in favor of the Park District.

And another one! Jesus, I know print loves short paragraphs, but try stringing a couple coherent thoughts together for a change.

Voters, take a look at your neighborhood parks. Are those dirty bathrooms and leaky pipes getting fixed? Or is the money going to public-private ventures such as the Woodland Park Zoo, the Seattle Aquarium or the planned waterfront park?

The fear-mongering didn’t work before the election, so I don’t see how it’s going to work after. But at least they’re done with the one-sentence paragraph thing.

The council gets to decide.

Spoke too soon.

“Woodland Park Zoo has paid lobbyists. How do you as a citizen or a community organization compete against that?” warns Don Harper, a parks advocate who opposed Proposition 1 and supports a levy.

Don Harper also warned that Prop 1 would build an airstrip atop Cal Anderson Park. Because he’s a lying liar.

A citizens committee is supposed to provide nonbinding recommendations to the district. It must act independently and serve as a vocal counterbalance to the council.

A council composed predominantly of members the Seattle Times endorsed.

The only other tool left for citizens to voice their displeasure is City Council elections. Beginning in 2015, most members will be elected by district instead of at-large. Incumbents will be vulnerable to challengers.

Um, the Park District doesn’t even begin to start collecting taxes until 2016, but the editors threaten to hold council members accountable for their misuse of funds in 2015. Because they’re from the future!

Remember that if the Park District fails to live up to its many promises.

That closing sentence might have been stronger if it didn’t read like it was left unfinished. But in their defense, after such a bitter campaign, I can understand it if they just ran out of.

This isn’t Socialist firebrand Kshama Sawant, or “near insane” zillionaire Nick Hanauer, or tour d’ivoire economist Thomas Piketty, or even some do-gooding liberal thinker at some do-gooding liberal think tank talking—this is Standard & Fucking Poor’s, the non-partisan for-profit ratings service whose job it is to provide reliable research to big-money investors! And they’ve concluded that extreme inequality is hurting the US economy:

Our review of the data, as well as a wealth of research on this matter, leads us to conclude that the current level of income inequality in the U.S. is dampening GDP growth, at a time when the world’s biggest economy is struggling to recover from the Great Recession and the government is in need of funds to support an aging population.

[…] The challenge now is to find a path toward more sustainable growth, an essential part of which, in our view, is pulling more Americans out of poverty and bolstering the purchasing power of the middle class. A rising tide lifts all boats…but a lifeboat carrying a few, surrounded by many treading water, risks capsizing.

Modern capitalists are producing their own gravediggers. The question remains whether mainstream politicians and journalists can admit what mainstream economists have already concluded—that trickle-down economics has failed—before it’s too late to save our economy from steady decline and eventual collapse?

We can argue over the numbers—what kind of rate is too high or too low—but it is now clear that it is in all of our interests to both raise the minimum wage, and to raise the top marginal tax rates on income and wealth, as well as invest in the public infrastructure necessary to support and maintain economic growth.

Yesterday morning I tweeted out a photo of an overflowing trash can at a neighborhood park, admonishing my fellow Seattleites to hike out your own garbage when the park trash can is full. Because honestly—be a mensch. Well, this morning my dog and I arrived at the park to see a Seattle Parks & Recreation pickup truck driving away, and the weekend’s mess completely cleaned up.

Your tax dollars at work!

I mention this because one of the memes in every anti-tax campaign is that government needs to prove that it can be less wasteful with taxpayer money before we give them any more of it—and when we hear that relentlessly coming from the likes of the Seattle Times editorial board, what they really mean is “fuck those lazy, overpaid, unionized public employees.” You know, the lazy, overpaid, unionized public employees whose job it is to pick up our trash.

The problem with increasingly relying on voter-approved levies to run our parks is that these levies must be written in a way to attract voters, and “Pick up the trash after voters’ lazy asses” is not exactly a winning bullet point. Yet routine maintenance is the bulk of what the parks department does. And so rather than writing budgets based on what our parks really need, we’ve been writing them based on what might appeal to voters at the polls—and that, along with our city’s structural revenue deficit, is what has led to the parks’ $270 million deferred maintenance backlog.

Let’s be clear: voter-approved levies represent a relatively new way of funding our parks. Seattle’s first parks levy wasn’t until 2000, and that maintenance backlog has exploded since. So how’s all that “direct democracy” working out for you, Seattle?

If anything, Seattle voters have had too much of a say in how we run our parks, not too little. Give our parks department the stable revenue it needs to do the unsexy everyday work of maintaining our parks. Vote “Yes” on Prop 1.

Mental Floss: 26 unusual occupations.

Sam Seder: Dick “I’m Never Right” Morris wants you to trust him with your money.

Honest Political Ads: Kentucky, my new home:

Jimmy Dore gets a call from Rick Perry.

Do-nothing Obstructionist, Litigious Congress:

• Jon: Who has armed the Middle East?
• Steve Kornacki :Borderline INSANITY in the House
• Sharpton: G.O.P. toddlers stuff themselves with Obama lawsuit
• Ann Telnaes: Congress is on break AGAIN.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: House Republicans bail on their border vote
• Jon: Congress is the ‘Sharknado 2’ of government.
• Sharpton: Dazed & confused GOP bails on border bill
• David Pakman: The Republican lawsuit against Obama backfires.

ONN: The Onion Week in Review.

Sam Seder: Ewwwwww….Ben Stein has a sexting scandal.

Jon: A Midsummer News Dream.

Chris Christie stars in Minor League.

White House: West Wing Week.

Jonathan Mann: Ridiculous Laws.

Farron Cousins with Howard Nations: Cliven Bundy ignited a hellstorm of right wing hate.

Ed: Why Republicans have zero credibility on the U.S. Economy.

Impeach!

• Young Turks: Whose idea is it?
• Sharpton: Ridiculous Republican claim on impeachment.
• David Pakman: Boehner rules out impeachment, claims impeachment talk is a Democratic scam.
• Ed: The GOP’s miserable ‘Impeachment PIT’
• Chris Hayes: The GOP’s stupid denials echo 2013 government shutdown.
• Sam Seder: The insane push to impeach Obama.
• Sharpton: The Republican ‘comical’ Obama impeachment whiplash

A Congresswoman’s poem: “Do I dare be interviewed by Dr. Colbert?”.

David Pakman: K-K-Krazy-ass Michele Bachmann believes Obama wants migrant kids for medical experiments.

The Koch Bros’ Anti Obama “Care”nival.

Maddow: Mississippi GOP Gov. Phil Bryant sabotages ObamaCare then blames Obama!

Sam Seder: Sorry conservatives, polls show US is center-left.

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Stephen: On the Sarah Palin Channel.

Barely Political: The Washington Redskins new name revealed.

David Pakman: More undocumented immigrants came into the U.S. under Reagan than Obama.

Ana Kasparian and friends: ‘Modern Family’ actor stands up to anti-gay Rick Santorum.

Conflict in Gaza:

• Mark Fiore: Not equal—Gaza in over 1000 frames.
• Jimmy Dore calls Peter King to talk about the war in Gaza:

• Stephen: Why it’s so difficult to cover Israel-Gaza conflict
• Jimmy Dore gets a call from Bibi “Eat it Gaza” Netanyahu

Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.

Young Turks: Meet Seattle’s #1 anti-pot cop.

Sam Seder: Rand Paul lies about his support for Civil Rights Act.

David Pakman: Crazy-ass Republican equates EPA rules with “Terrorism”.

Thom: Will the GOP sabotage of ObamaCare backfire?

Liberal Viewer: Neil deGrasse Tyson and Maher on anti-Neil deGrasse Tyson article.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

If the No on Parks folks think it was just clever gamesmanship to spoof “911” in the caller ID of their recent robocall, they’re gonna have to make their case to the police. From SPD Blotter:

Dozens of confused Seattle residents have called Seattle police over the last 24 hours after receiving hangup calls, which appeared as if they came from 911.

In fact, these calls—which appear on caller IDs as “911-9111″—are the result of caller ID fraud, or “spoofing,” and are not coming from SPD’s 911 Communications Center.

The 911 Communications Center is researching the origin of the calls and is referring the case to detectives for investigation.

SPD blogger Jonah Spangenthal-Lee confirms that emergency operators saw a surge in volume yesterday as worried residents called 911 in response to these spoofed caller IDs. He was not familiar with the apparent connection to the No on Parks campaign. But now SPD is. According to an internal email sent out to volunteers yesterday, No on Parks committee co-chair Carol Fisher claimed “100,000 robo calls went out today.”

So, hey, thanks, Carol Fisher, Don Harper, Jon Hansen, Faye Garneau, Alyne Fortgang, Jim Coombes, and the rest of you anti-tax lying liars for creating a public safety hazard in the service of spreading your lies.

Contrary to the scare tactics being employed by opponents, Proposition 1 is not about “accountability” or “new stadiums” or “caged zoo animals” or “waterfront hotels.” In fact, the truth is, Prop 1 isn’t even really about parks. It’s about taxes. And to understand why it’s so important for Seattle to tap into the taxing authority available to a Metropolitan Park District (MPD), you need to understand the way property taxes work.

From a budget writer’s perspective, the property tax is the best tax ever, because if done correctly, it always brings in almost exactly the amount of money projected. That’s because, unlike the stupid, stupid sales tax, budget writers don’t actually set a rate and just hope the money comes in, they request a dollar value—for example, $47.9 million a year for the first six years in the case of the interlocal agreement that accompanies Prop 1—and then the county assessor adjusts the property tax rate annually based on current assessed value, and subject to statutory limits, in order to generate the requested revenue. If property values rise from year to year, the rate goes down; if property values fall as they did when the real estate bubble went pop, the rate goes up. But the MPD is almost guaranteed to generate that $47.9 million a year.

Over the long run, nominal property values will almost certainly rise. So while the voters guide projects an MPD tax rate of $0.33 per $1,000 of assessed value in year one, even a relatively modest 5 percent average annual rise in home values would leave the rate at less than $0.26 per $1,000 of assessed value by year six.

But unfortunately for city budget writers, as reliable as the property tax is, it is subject to two very important limitations. The first is known as the “statutory dollar rate limit”: the City of Seattle’s property tax authority is limited to $3.60 per $1,000 of assessed value. That is the maximum theoretical rate the city can levy without voter approval. But thanks to the second limit, known as I-747’s “101 percent limit” (or more accurately: “Tim Eyman’s Revenge”), the city’s actual regular levy authority falls far short of the statutory dollar rate limit.

Under the growth limit factor first enacted in the 1970s, and then punitively reduced to 101 percent under Eyman’s I-747 (and later reinstated by a cowardly legislature after the state supreme court tossed the initiative out), the dollar value of property taxes collected may not exceed 101 percent of the taxes collected in the highest of the three most recent years, plus an allowance for net increased property value in the district resulting from new construction.

I know—that’s very complicated. But suffice it to say that thanks to the 101 percent limit, revenues generated from Seattle’s regular levy generally don’t even keep pace with inflation, let alone rising property values. As a result, the actual maximum levy rate available to the city council has been steadily falling as I-747’s 101 percent limit has ratcheted down revenue growth.

Fortunately, state law does allow for 1 to 6-year “lid lifts,” enabling the city to raise revenues in excess of the 101 percent limit, but within the $3.60 statutory cap, subject to voter approval. That’s what the expiring Parks Levy is—a lid lift—as is the Library Levy, the Families and Education Levy, Bridging the Gap, and so on. When you add up Seattle’s regular levy together with its various lid lifts, Seattle is currently levying a combined rate of just under $2.91 per $1,000 of assessed value (although about $0.26 of this expires at the end of 2014 with the Parks and Pike Place Market levies).

Got it? Okay then, so why do we need the additional taxing authority of the MPD if we still have so much room available under the statutory cap? Why not just go to voters with another parks levy as the Seattle Times disingenuously contends? Because we don’t really have that much room.

First, remember how I said that a property tax almost always generates the revenue requested, if done correctly? Well, doing it correctly requires accounting for the possibility that property values might fall in the short term. Seattle property values fell about 12 percent during the real estate bust. Had Seattle been levying within 12 percent of its statutory cap it would have resulted in a budgetary disaster. So it would be imprudent to go beyond $3.20 per $1,000 of the $3.60 cap available.

Second, this limited cap space leaves little room to fund other pressing needs. For example, voters will be asked to approve a Preschool Levy in November, generating about $14 million a year in revenue. But it will eventually cost much more than that to fully implement the program. Likewise, our current Parks Levy was never enough to both operate parks and chip away at the growing deferred maintenance backlog. Even with the levy, we’ve been underfunding our parks for years. But to fully address parks via another lid lift would limit the city’s ability to adequately fund preschool and other pressing needs.

So if you really, really, support universal preschool, you should really, really support Prop 1.

That’s the primary attraction of an MPD: it comes with its own separate $0.75 per $1,000 of assessed value, meaning that we no longer need to pit parks against other crucial services like libraries, roads, and preschool in a competition for precious cap space. With the MPD, parks will finally have a reliable revenue stream sufficient to address its maintenance backlog over time. But the tax-averse amongst you can rest assured that for all the same reasons that the city can’t access its full $3.60 rate, the MPD could never access its full $0.75 either, even if the mayor and the council were the evil bastards MPD opponents make them out to be.

Finally, I want to address the opponents’ claim that “for a hundred years Seattle citizens have supported voter-approved levies that give each neighborhood a legacy voice” in blah, blah, blah. That’s bullshit. For a hundred years parks have been primarily funded through the city’s regular levy, which requires no direct voter approval. It wasn’t even until the 1970s, when a growth limit factor was first imposed, that a lid lift even became a thing. Indeed, the city’s first parks levy wasn’t passed until 2000, and the shift in funding to lid lifts didn’t take off until after 2001, when Eyman’s absurdly unsustainable 101 percent limit kicked in. Bond levies aside*, this voting on maintenance and operations levies for parks, libraries, roads, and whatnot is a relatively new phenomenon. And an incredibly stupid way to budget.

That said, the MPD won’t change how we fund these other services. While it would leave more room for other lid lifts to meet other pressing needs, these lid lifts would still have to go before voters.

Opponents present Prop 1 as some sort of sinister plot to privatize our parks and build stadiums for jillionaires. That’s crazy. Or incredibly dishonest. I’m not sure which is worse. But all it really is is a modest tax increase dedicated to parks, that provides an adequate and stable source of funding, while leaving voters the option to tax themselves to pay for other needs.

If you simply hate taxes (hello, Seattle Times) vote “No.” But if you support essential services like parks, libraries, preschool, and roads, vote “Yes” on Prop 1.

 

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* There is also the option of rarely-used voter-approved “excess levies,” which get around the statutory cap entirely, but since they are limited to 1 year, they’re not really practical for dealing with anything but an emergency.

If there’s anything that pisses me off more than lying in politics, it’s a political lie that is easily refuted by math. Take, for example, this whopper from a recent No on Park District campaign mailer:

“Your property taxes would increase by 20%!” Omigod, that’s awful! If my $4,448 property tax bill were to increase by 20 percent, it would cost me an additional $890! That’s outrageous!

But it’s also bullshit.

In fact, if Proposition 1 passes, my property tax bill would only increase by about 60 bucks. That’s because the current Parks Levy of $0.19 per $1,000 of assessed value would bump up to $0.33, a $0.14 increase. And $0.14 is only 1.36 percent of the total $10.29168 per $1,000 of assessed value property tax that most Seattle homeowners are paying in 2014.

That’s a 1.34 percent increase, not the absurd 20 percent that parks opponents preposterously claim.

And even if the mayor and the city council are evil bastards who are just totally fucking with us—as the parks opponents seem to imply—and they immediately levy the full $0.75 per $1,000 the RCW allows, your property taxes would still only increase by 5.4 percent. That’s not nothing, but it’s still far short of that bullshit 20 percent claim.

So how do these lying liars justify their lying lie?

Carol Fisher, vice chair for Our Parks Forever, said the group based its numbers on Seattle’s levy cap of $3.60 per $1,000 assessed value. The park district would, in essence, add a maximum of 75 cents to this cap, she explained, which is how the group calculated the 20 percent increase.

Except that’s not what their mailer says. “Your property taxes would increase by 20%!” the lying liars claim in big bold print. But it won’t. Because that’s just a big bold lie.

So if they’re lying about something as easily refuted as math, how can you trust any of the other assertions they make? (Hint: you can’t.)