Search Results for: 10,000

Bruce Ramsey, the Seattle Times editorial board’s resident libertarian (you know, the one who hates government on principle), chronicles the travails of a would-be gentleman farmer who has given up his dream of tilling 89 acres of Snoqualmie Valley hillside and bottomland due to excessive King County rules and regulations. And while it’s hard to defend the permitting hassles Ramsey cites, at least offhand, there was one paragraph that kinda jumped out at me (the emphasis is mine):

To pave a driveway, the blueprint — one sheet — cost $1,000. The county, which funds its permit department through fees, wanted $22,000 to review the one sheet. Capeder hired a lawyer, and they settled for $10,000.

A thousand dollars for a one sheet blue print? Another $22,000 to review it? That sounds rather outrageous, and it doesn’t take a libertarian to realize how such steep upfront permitting costs can discourage entrepreneurialism.

But this anecdote also demonstrates the delicate balance that government must strike every day in protecting and promoting the commonweal, while levying the costs of the services provided relative to the individual and communal benefits enjoyed, as fairly, pragmatically and efficiently as possible.

Still, setting aside those who would argue for little or no government regulation of private land (there’s no arguing with ideologues), let’s start from the assumption that the community as a whole benefits from land-use regulations and the permitting process it necessitates. After all, even Tim Eyman would object were I to purchase the house next door, knock it down, and propose to replace it with, say, a Hooters, or an auto-wrecking yard or something similarly out of place in the midst of a residential neighborhood… and rightly so.

On the other hand, Tim might also object were I simply to buy the house next door and propose to live in it, though in this case he would have no moral or legal right to stop me. So hyperbole aside, I think most of us can safely agree that there are limits to both the rights of the landowner, and the rights the community to limit the rights of the landowner.

With that established, let’s get back to the woes of our gentleman farmer. $22,000 to review a permit for a driveway sure does sound excessive, though given the size of the property, I’m guessing were not talking your typical, 40-foot residential driveway here, but rather something more akin to a private road through agricultural land, with all the environmental impact that implies. So whether the fee was $22,000, or the $10,000 figure on which the department finally settled, let’s just assume that this represents the actual cost of reviewing the permit in a manner thorough enough to actually meet the intent of the rule that requires the permit in the first place.

Now, who should pay for this?

There is an awfully strong argument to make that developers should pay for the cost of permitting and inspecting their own projects, as they’re the ones who enjoy the most immediate economic benefit from their developments. And make no mistake, that’s what Ramsey’s gentleman farmer is — a developer — for the permits in question are not for farming, but rather for the development he proposed to build processing, retail and tourist facilities on his property, and the private road driveway to get there. Ramsey’s column is titled “Rules and roadblocks make farmland difficult to farm,” but that’s a bit misleading, as it’s the agribusiness related land development that is the subject of permitting, not the farming itself, and the question of whether farming such expensive land is economically viable without this development is still an open question.

I’m not arguing against this guy’s integrated farm/processor/retail/tourism concept; I think it’s a brilliant, creative approach to turning expensive exurban farmland into an economically viable operation, and I’d love to see him succeed here in King County rather than Skagit. But the concept requires building stuff, building stuff requires permitting, permitting costs money… and somebody’s got to pay for it. If it works, our gentleman farmer stands to make a pretty penny off his venture, so shouldn’t he pay for the costs of starting it up, rather than shifting the cost to taxpayers like me and Ramsey?

On the other hand, by requiring the permitting department to recover the costs of its operations solely from its users, perhaps we’ve made the upfront costs of development too high, discouraging such innovative projects that would ultimately prove an economic boon to the surrounding community, while keeping precious farmland in use as such? Perhaps the benefits to the community of such development are so great, that we should all bear the costs? Perhaps by shifting the cost of an essential government service to the individual user, we’ve made the service unaffordable, and tipped the balance too far in one direction?

For example, as homeowners, we all pay a not insubstantial portion of our property tax each year to fund the local fire department, a government service most of us will never use. But were we to shift the cost of firefighting to the individual user, few would be able to afford the service; imagine losing everything you own in a fire, only to have the fire department hand you a $50,000 bill for snuffing out the flames. Yet like the land-use permits, we can’t make firefighting optional, as failing to fight your fire would put my property at risk as well.

That would be ridiculous, of course, and so we socialize the cost of firefighting and other essential services by forcibly collecting it from the community as a whole in the form of taxes. Nobody likes to pay taxes, not even tax-and-spend liberals like me. But we all benefit from the services and infrastructure they fund.

So perhaps, if the cost of permitting a “driveway” through 89 acres of Snoqualmie Valley farmland is too high, and the benefits to the community of such development are so great, then perhaps we should shift some of the costs incurred by the permitting process away from the individual user and onto the community at large… you know, us taxpayers? I’m not arguing for this shift, just that these sort of equations are part of the delicate balance between the needs and rights of the individual and the needs and rights of the community that every functioning government must strike.

And that is the irony of Ramsey calling out the self-funding nature of the permitting department, for while he no doubt would prefer that such permits weren’t required at all, this anecdote only serves to illustrate the broader nature of government and the inherent flaws in the libertarian agenda as a whole. For when we devolve government services and infrastructure, shifting the costs from the community to the individual users, either  through “user fees,” or ultimately through privatization, much of what government provides ceases to be affordable to all but the wealthiest consumers.

The costs of some government services should be borne directly by users, and I’d argue that permitting fees generally fall into this category, though since my position is based on pragmatism not philosophy, I’m willing to consider the alternative. But while Ramsey is happy to lay out the $22,000 driveway permit as an example of government regulation run amuck, judging from his oeuvre I’m guessing he’d be unwilling to consider raising taxes on the rest of us — including himself — to help make such innovative development more affordable. Nor does he even attempt to engage in the question of whether there should or should not be a permitting process for paving a private road through agricultural land, or who, if anybody, should pay for it.

No, as the Times’ resident libertarian, Ramsey is content merely to grab a couple of anecdotes out of context and present them as an example of, well, of government regulation run amuck. And considering how little popular support there is here in King County for the kinda regulation-free, libertarian dystopia that would be the logical conclusion of the philosophy Ramsey appears to espouse, I’m just not sure that this moves the conversation anywhere.

For the third time in as many weeks, the Seattle Times editorial board is advocating that Congress drop their efforts at health care reform for the foreseeable future.

Given the shrinkage of the economy since 2007, this is not the time to promise every American a new benefit. And that is what these bills want to do. By their attempt at generosity, they would raise the cost of creating a job, especially by small employers.

Spoken like somebody with decent health care coverage.

I, on the other hand, am not so fortunate. For all but a few scattered years of my adult life I have purchased my own health insurance coverage via individual plans, and every year I have seen my costs rise, my benefits fall, and my security ebb away. As of now I spend over $200 a month for a $1,900 deductible and zero preventative care. It is a “catastrophic” coverage plan that, should I ever become seriously ill or injured, would supposedly limit my out of pocket expenses to about $10,000 a year… plus the cost of prescription drugs.

That said, for the tens of thousands of dollars I have paid into the system over the past couple decades, I have never had a claim paid, and when I do seek medical care I am always billed the full retail rate… as much as four or five times higher than the negotiated rate my insurance company would have paid had they covered the service. If I had the income, I could spend more each month for more generous coverage, but as an individual it would always cost me much more and cover much less than the type of plans one can buy through a group. And even this expensive option would be closed off to me should I first develop a chronic illness or injury, which under current law would forever prevent me from purchasing adequate coverage due to a preexisting condition.

And to top it all off, as an individual, with no group or corporation to fight for me, I am exactly the type of person for whom insurance companies are notorious for dropping coverage once a claim is made.

I have never, in my entire life, had a lapse of coverage. I, my parents or our employers have faithfully paid into our health insurance “system” on my behalf for every single one of my 46 years. And yet with each passing year the likelihood that I will be left permanently destitute by a serious illness increases. And this is the broken system the Seattle Times would leave in place, possibly for another generation should our current attempt at comprehensive reform collapse?

But then, I guess, if you already have adequate coverage, reform must seem less urgent.

UPDATE [Lee]: Bumping up to the top.

4 Pierce County police officers shot dead outside Parkland:

The officers were sitting in the coffee shop with their computers out when the shooter came in. The officers were targeted, and it was not a robbery, investigators believe.

[…]

“It looks like a flat-out ambush,” Troyer said. “Some one came in and opened fire.

The baristas who were inside the shop are “stunned and shocked, traumatized,” Troyer said.

A $10,000 reward has been offered for information in the killings. The amount is expected rise, Troyer said.

“The first one to call with information gets it,” he said.

Sorry to use so much of the Trib’s post without adding much but I thought there ought to be a thread.

… The tip line if anyone reading has any information: (253) 591-5959

Ten days after the election the votes are still being tallied, but the outcome only grows murkier with every passing day, setting the stage for a constitutional crisis that could grind our nation’s capital to a halt. What looked like a comfortable margin on election night has been shrinking steadily ever since, and with over 7,000 ballots left to count, and more arriving everyday, the lead could still changes.

That’s the sort of nightmare scenario that Secretary of State Sam Reed and his surrogates argue could only happen here in Washington state with our allegedly “absurd” postmarked by election day ballot deadline, but in fact it’s exactly what is happening in New York state in the hotly contested election for NY-23, only sorta, and not really as dramatically as the headline writers imply.

Trailing by 5,335 votes on election night, with 93 percent of the ballots counted, right-wingnut Doug Hoffman conceded the race, prompting Democrat Bill Owens to be swiftly sworn in to the House, just in time to cast a crucial vote in favor of healthcare reform. But as ballots continued to be tallied and errors were uncovered during recanvassing, Owens lead has shrunk to little more than 3,000 votes, with as many as 10,000 ballots remaining, raising the specter that the wrong man has been sworn into Congress.

Of course, the chance of Hoffman making up a 3,000 vote gap with so few ballots remaining is just shy of nil, but that hasn’t stopped the media from playing up the drama of what admittedly would be a really juicy story… you know, in the unlikely event it turned out to be true. Nor would this be the first time House leadership rushed to swear in the alleged winner of a special election before the results had been officially certified; the Republicans set that precedent.

But I find the hyperbolic coverage of this story most interesting, not just because it once again illustrates the point that shit happens, regardless of your election deadlines, but because it also clearly demonstrates how Reed and his surrogates are just plain wrong on one of their most basic “facts.”

Yesterday on KUOW, Reed once again stated that “most states” require ballots be received by election day, an assertion that has been repeated in media reports, but which is simply not true. New York state, for example, requires that ballots be postmarked the day before election day, and received no later than seven days after. But ballots from overseas citizens and uniformed service members are accepted as late as 13 days following the election, meaning that valid ballots will continue to arrive in NY-23 as late as next Monday.

Yes, there have been a couple excruciatingly close and drawn out contests here in Washington, but as rare as they are, they’re far from unique to our state and our mail-in voting system. Democracy is messy. Deal with it.

A lot of you have probably already seen the photo of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) heckling President Barack Obama, but did you notice that carefully coifed head of silver hair just beneath him? Why that’s Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA) of course.

And apparently, Reichert isn’t just close to Wilson in terms of physical proximity. A quick search of OpenSecrets.org finds Reichert has received three contributions totaling $5,000 from Wilson, via his Carolina Majority PAC.

So considering his close relationship with Wilson, I’d be curious to hear what Reichert has to say about his patron’s inappropriate outburst, and whether he too believes that President Obama “lied” in stating that his plan would not insure illegal immigrants?

UPDATE:
You know what else Reichert and Wilson have in common? The uncommon ability to inspire unprecedented generosity… for their opponents. Since heckling the President last night, over 10,000 individuals have contributed over $350,000 to the campaign of Wilson’s challenger, Rob Miller, over $179,000 of it coming via Daily Kos alone, prompting elections analyst Charlie Cook to downgrade Wilson’s reelection prospects.

Send a few bucks of your own Miller’s way, and send a very loud message back to Rep. Wilson.

Yesterday I took a break from my all-too-frequent analyses of the R-71 signature counts. I didn’t even look at the numbers until this morning. When I did look, a Spock-esque twitch afflicted my left eyebrow. “Curious”, I though. “But maybe it’s just a one-time fluke….”

The analysis of yesterday’s data showed the probability of NOT making the ballet increased from a nearly impossible 0.04% to an almost-interesting 0.91%. In fact, this slow increase in the probability of not qualifying has continued a trend begun after 13 August.

Well, if you like that result, hold onto your sou’wester, because today’s result will blow you away. I’ll present the results in three parts. First, the basic results for today, then we’ll explore the trends in the daily data dumps. Finally (and below the fold) we’ll look at the micro-level volume data to divine what this trend suggests.

Today’s R-71 data release has the signature count up to 79,195, (about 57.5% of the total). There have been 9,208 invalid signatures found, for a cumulative crude (non-duplicate-corrected) rejection rate of 11.63%.

The invalid signatures include 7,805 that were not found in the voting rolls, 703 duplicate signatures, and 700 signatures that mismatched the signature on file. There are also 38 signatures “pending”; I’ve ignored them in the analyses. The 703 duplicate signatures suggest a final duplication rate of about 1.90% for the petition. This continues the trend we’ve seen this week of the projected duplicate rate growing faster than the mathematical predictions under the assumption of random sampling.

Using the V₂ estimator, the number of valid signatures is now expected to be 120,777 leaving a thin surplus of only 200 signatures over the 120,577 needed to qualify for the ballot. From the cumulative data to date, the overall rejection rate is projected to be 12.28%.

A Monte Carlo analyses consisting of 100,000 simulated petition samples suggests that the measure has an 80.48% probability of qualifying for the ballot, assuming the only “error” is statistical sampling error.

Here is the distribution of valid signatures relative to the number required to qualify.

The red bars on the left show the times R-71 failed to qualify among the 100,000 simulations; green bars show the counts of signatures in which the measure qualified. Compare this to the results from just two days ago. Quite a difference!

Let’s examine the history since the SoS office started releasing accurate data a week and a half ago:

The red line shows the number of signatures needed to qualify, and the blue symbols show the daily projections of valid signatures, surrounded by 95% confidence intervals.

Clearly, since the 13th of August, the projected number of signatures has declined–and, as of today, declined more than we could expect by chance alone. Something is going on.

Tomorrow will be interesting…if the trend continues, success of the measure may dip below a probability of 50%.

The analyses I’ve done here are based on two assumptions: (1) that the signatures evaluated so far are just like signatures that remain to be evaluated, and (2) that the signature validation process is “stable” (the people validating signatures are not changing their standards over time). Today we see some pretty good evidence that one (or both) of these assumptions is (are) violated.

The supporters of R-71 will, no doubt, focus on the second assumption. If the measure fails, Secretary of State Sam Reed will likely take much abuse from fringe homophobes for “personally pushing a homosexual agenda.” To me, the simplest explanation is that the volumes being examined in serial order are chronologically correlated with the signature collection order. ( I don’t know if this is true; but, I cannot rule it out either.)

My thinking is that later-collected signatures (and therefore, later volumes) should have a higher duplication rate, just because there is an increasing chance with time early signers forgot whether or not they signed earlier. Additionally, with the last push of getting as many signatures as possible with an approaching deadline, it seems plausible that errors would increase. I’m thinking errors like collecting more out-of-state signatures, underage signatures, and signatures from people not active on the voter rolls.

Below the fold, I examine the fine-level data to see just what types of errors are increasing as the process proceeds. If you are still interested, click through…

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A new batch of signature data for Referendum 71 has been released. The number of signatures examined is 58,493 which is 42.5% of the total signatures submitted. To date, 6,348 invalid signatures have been found, giving a raw rejection rate (uncorrected for duplicates) of 10.85%.

The invalid signatures include 5,502 that were not found in the voting rolls, 345 duplicates, and 501 that did not match the signature on file. There are also 30 “pending” signatures at various states of processing for a missing or illegible signature cards. I don’t count these among the invalid signatures.

With 345 duplicate signatures found so far, we can anticipate a final duplication rate of about 1.69%.

The V₂ estimator projects the number of valid signatures to be 121,648 giving an excess of 1,071 signatures over the 120,577 needed for the referendum to qualify for the ballot. The projected (duplicate-corrected) rejection rate is 11.65%.

A Monte Carlo analysis consisting of 10,000 simulated samples give a 95% confidence interval for valid signatures of from 121,175 to 122,415, well above the magic number. Here is the distribution of valid signatures:

There are a few “losses” in red on the left, but the overwhelming majority of outcomes in green have the referendum qualifying. In fact, the referendum failed to make the ballot in only 11 of the 10,000 simulations.

With the results to date, it is pretty clear that, come fall, we will be voting to accept or reject the “Everything but Marriage” law.

Since the Secretary of State’s office started releasing final numbers this week, it has become clear that R-71 is headed for the ballot. Short of some scandalous revelation—you know, like finding out that the numbers being released are not the final numbers—the measure should make the ballot using standard statistical inference.

(I kid the SoS with that “scandalous revelation” quip. In fact, they have done a remarkable job turning last week’s data disaster around. The data are now provided in excruciating detail and they have carefully described the meanings behind the numbers, both on the official release page and on their blog. David Ammons has been kept busy answering questions in both blog posts and the comment threads. And now Elections Director Nick Handy has a nifty R-71 FAQ.)

Back to the projections. One point that has repeatedly come up in the comment threads is that the signatures sampled so far may not reflect a random sample of all signatures. Thus, the statistical inference may be wrong.

The point is valid because the statistical methods do assume that the sampled signatures approximate a random sample. One can imagine scenarios where the error rate uncovered would change systematically with time. For example, if petition sheets were checked in chronological order of collection, the duplication rate might increase if early signers forgot they already signed, or if the pace and sloppiness of collection increased toward the end.

For R-71, we don’t know that the petition sheets are being examined in anything approaching a chronological order. The SoS FAQ states:

Signature petitions are randomly bound in volumes of 15 petition sheets per volume.

Rather than speculate on the systematic error, let’s examine some real data. The SoS office releases data that give the numbers of signatures checked and errors for each bound volume in the approximate chronological order of signature verification. As of yesterday, there were 209 completed volumes covering 35% of the total petition.

After the fold, I give a brief section on analytical details, and then show graphs of the trends over time in error rates and projected numbers of valid signatures. But first, I give an update on today’s data release.
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The full numbers from Wednesday’s counts were released this morning by the Secretary of State’s (SoS) office. They’ve driven another nail in the coffin of R-71.

A total of 23,457 signatures have been checks, which is 17% of the total. Overall 3,054 invalid signatures have been found and eliminated, including 68 duplicates, 2,764 individuals not on the voting rolls, 221 signature mismatches, and 69 signatures for which the corresponding signature is missing.

The cumulative error rate is 13.3%, if the signatures with missing signature cards (hereafter “missing”) are thrown out, or 13.0% if the missing signatures are fully counted. As Goldy has explained, the cumulative error rate for the sample is misleadingly low. This is because duplicates are exponentially underrepresented as the sample size goes down.

Given the number of duplicates found in this sample, the best estimate is that is about 1.7% of signatures are duplicates on the petition. That gives an estimated total rejection rate of 14.7% (treating all “missing” signatures as valid). A rejection rate over 12.4% keeps R-71 off the ballot.

Rather than focus on percentages, we can use the number of good and bad signatures to estimate the expected number of valid signatures. This figure shows the daily estimated number of valid signatures on the petition (red line) and the number of signatures required (blue line) for the measure to make the ballot:

These estimates are conservative because I am assuming all “missing” signatures will be treated as valid. (I’ve changed my methods a bit since yesterday—a journey through the methodological details begins below the fold).

The important things to notice here are:

• The estimates are stable rather than bouncing around from day to day. This means that there is little evidence for non-sampling error. Such errors can arise if batches of petitions showed widely different error rates (more generally, from non-independence among signatures on petitions and in batches of petitions).
• The 95% confidence intervals are now so small that sampling error is no longer relevant. If God plays dice, she clearly doesn’t want R-71 on the ballot.

The trends, so far, indicate that, short of a miracle, this measure will not qualify for the ballot.

At this point, I am going to totally geek-out and discuss methodological stuff. If you’re interested, venture below the fold.

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From today’s Seattle Times:

A man suspected of shooting his 4-year-old Rottweiler and abandoning it to die off a Forest Service road near North Bend has turned himself in.

[…] Intentionally shooting a dog and leaving it to suffer is a Class C felony, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Curiously, the Times fails to name the identity of the dog shooter, which just struck me as an odd editorial decision. I mean, what kind of an asshole would shoot a dog?

Oh.  Yeah.

Earlier this week, Josh Marshall at TPM posted up some thoughts on Mexico:

Clearly, there’s a lot of violence in Mexico tied to the Mexican government’s attempted crackdown on its drug cartels. And the Mexicans are quite legitimately pressuring us to limit the number of guns being smuggled from the US into Mexico, which are fueling the fire. And if Mexico degenerates to the level of Colombia where for many years the key cartels have operated as rivals to the government — clearly beyond the legitimate government’s ability to bring them to heel — then that’s a big problem for us, given our proximity and long border, etc. But I keep hearing these stories about violence spilling over into the US, questions from whether we may need to deploy the US army to our own border, vague stories about death squads in the US. I’m not saying there’s nothing to it. But a lot of this has the feel to me of one of those stories ginned up by politicians and restless news outlets where there ends up being much much less there than meets the eye. Part of me wonders whether it’s a recrudescence of the illegal immigration hysteria of last two years.

There are three separate points being addressed here: (1) The issue of guns being smuggled into Mexico from the U.S. (2) The issue of Mexico’s inability to defeat the drug traffickers and (3) The issue of violence spilling over into the U.S.

Josh looks at these three issues and concludes that the third issue is being “ginned up by politicians and restless news outlets.” He’s right about that, and he later posts a link to a good piece in the Texas Observer about how the media is over-hyping the level of violence on the American side of the border. But the reality is that it’s both the first and third points that are being “ginned up by politicians and restless news outlets.”

Recently, a number of politicians and news outlets have been claiming that 90 percent of the guns that get used by Mexican drug traffickers come from the U.S. In actuality, that figure is wildly inaccurate. And Obama repeated the mythical percentage this week when meeting with Mexican President Calderon.

A certain amount of guns do cross the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and it’s possible that the amount of high-powered weapons bought on the illegal black market from the U.S. is higher than we can accurately measure, but to say that the flow of guns is “fueling the fire” in Mexico’s drug war is buying into a large amount of spin. What’s fueling the fire in Mexico is not the weaponry itself, but the money that the drug traffickers are making that allows them to spend so much money on weapons.

Radley Balko, in a column this week in The Daily Beast, gets to the heart of what’s going wrong in Mexico:

When Barack Obama visits Mexico today, the drug war, and the violence it has spawned south of the border, is expected to dominate the agenda. Since 2006, more than 10,000 people have been murdered in Mexico as a direct consequence of the drug trade. This bloody outbreak began when, with the blessing of and funding from the U.S. government, Mexican President Felipe Calderon ordered the Mexican military to aggressively crack down on the drug cartels. Such crackdowns often ratchet up the level of violence, as the elimination of one major drug distributor provokes those who remain to war over his territory. That’s a pattern as old and predictable as Prohibition itself, yet politicians never seem to learn.

Last month, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Mexico, she expressed gave concern over the escalating violence… and then heaped praise on Calderon’s crackdown, promising to support it with more funding and more military hardware. Obama appears poised to say much the same thing. According to a recent preview of his trip in The Washington Post, the president is expected to promise swifter delivery of drug-war aid and increased efforts by the U.S. to stop the flow of American weapons to Mexico. But the best solution to what’s plaguing Mexico right now is the one topic that will almost assuredly be off the table: legalizing marijuana. Marijuana makes up 60 to 70 percent of the Mexican drug trade. Lifting prohibitions on it in the United States would eradicate a major source of funds for the cartels.

I’m not saying that the first and third issues mentioned above – guns traveling across south of the border and increased violence north of the border – aren’t happening at all. What’s happening is that politicians and media outlets are using both of these issues as distractions in order to avoid dealing with the central issue that Balko is discussing right there. This is a problem of organized crime, and the fuel for that fire is the billions of dollars (I’ve seen various estimates of between $10 billion to $100 billion per year) that Americans spend on drugs. It’s not going to be solved by stricter gun control measures. And sending law enforcement to secure the border would only escalate the amount of violence in our border communities. The only way to solve this problem is to cut off the drug trafficker’s income. But that’s something that Obama and a large part of the news media still can’t bring themselves to regard as a serious issue.

One of the stupider arguments in the comment threads and elsewhere against implementing a state income tax—especially a high-earners income tax on millionaires—is that if we tax the wealthy, they’ll all move out of state.

Huh.  Really?  To where?  Across the border to Idaho, where the top bracket is currently 7.8 percent?  Or perhaps we’ll see economic refugees pouring into Oregon, seeking shelter under its 9 percent top rate?  Or maybe nearby Montana at 6.9% or California at a whopping 10.3%.

In fact, apart from Washington, there are only six other states with no income tax—Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nevada, Texas and Florida—all either unbearably hot or unbearably cold for much of the year.  So it’s hard to image that a top rate of between 1 and 5 percent would be enough impetus to prompt the wealthy—who have the luxury of affording to live whereever they please—to pick up and leave our temperate clime, natural splendor and vibrant cultural scene for, say, Sioux Falls or Las Vegas.

Even maintaining a second home for tax purposes doesn’t make much economic sense when you look at the actual numbers across a range of incomes.  For example, under the Kohl-Welles plan, a family earning $2 million a year would pay an additional $10,000 in state taxes, and the higher you go up the income scale the less the marginal utility of the money paid. Meanwhile, extending the tax downward to the lower income wealthy, while having more of a real-world impact, hardly costs them enough money to make a move financially worthwhile when a family earning $300,000 might pay only an additional $1,000 annually.

But in fact, I think even this analysis misses the point.  In general, the wealthy aren’t as inherently selfish as some on the right suggest, and neither are they purely economic animals who make every decision according to the bottom line… both notions that put the most vocal critics of an income tax squarely in the philosophical camp of Karl Marx.

Humans are incredibly complicated creatures, and money is far from our only motivation.  Some moved to our state for jobs, some for the music scene, some for nearby access to recreation and wilderness.  (I moved here for love, and stayed because this is my daughter’s home.)  To argue that a person earning $10 million a year, who chose to set down roots in our region for any number of reasons, would simply pick up and move his family to Texas to save a mere $90,000 in taxes a year, is absolutely ridiculous.

Furthermore, it is based on the false assumption that the wealthy as a group have no sense of social obligation and no understanding of or gratitude for the public investment that helped make their wealth possible, and that helps to protect and maintain both their property and their quality of life.  Look at the Seattle precinct maps from the last time an income tax was on the ballot and you’ll see that the measure did best amongst those who were being asked to raise their taxes the most.  In reality, it is the Frank Blethens of this world who are the exception to the rule, not ultra-wealthy fair-tax advocates like Warren Buffet and William Gates Sr.

Thus when Republicans and their surrogates insist that an income tax—any income tax—would drive wealth and jobs from our state, they show an incredible amount of disrespect for the integrity and intelligence of the wealthy, who for the most part, would be willing to pay a little more of their fair share, if they can be convinced the money would be put to good use.

Everything that’s wrong with Washington state politics can be summed up by today’s smirk of an editorial in the Seattle Times, “Gasp! Another try at an income tax.”

STATE Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, is reaching for fairy dust in her proposal for a state income tax. It’s not going to happen.

That’s right, the Times ridicules Sen. Brown, not for being misinformed or unserious or on the wrong side of a policy issue, but for merely trying.  You wanna know why we elect so many mediocre politicians, incapable or unwilling to display even an ounce of leadership?  It’s editorials like this.

See, we hate leadership here in WA state.  We hate boldness.  Oh, we like to whine over the lack of it, but the minute a politician dares to assert it, or even (“Gasp!”) tries to start a fucking conversation about a difficult issue, we heap scorn on them for their arrogance or giggle at their foolish stray from executing the paramount duty of government:  taxing poor people to build more roads.

And as for the Times’ blunt statement that an income tax is simply “not going to happen”…? Oh, you mean like last year’s rail-only Prop 1?

A graduated income tax would require an amendment to the state constitution, meaning a two-thirds vote of both legislative houses and a majority approval of the voters.

No it would not!  Jesus… have you even read the goddamn Gates Commission report? (Or, for that matter, your own paper?)  The consensus conclusion is that the 1933 decision would likely be overturned.  Where did you go to law school?  What makes you think you’re a more qualified constitutional scholar than Williams Gates Sr. or Prof. Hugh Spitzer?

Stop lying to your readers.

Even if a 1-percent, flat-rate tax would be constitutional, it would still require approval by voters, who are the very people expected to pay it. Voters have rejected income taxes several times before by landslide margins, and in a time of job cuts and economic worry, would almost certainly do so again.

Actually, a millionaires tax would fall on only 0.1% of the voters asked to approve it, and if precinct results from the last income tax measure are any guide, a majority of these fortunate few would likely vote yes too.  And a broader tax on incomes over $200,000 would only fall on 4% of households.  But let’s not let details get in the way of your scare tactics.

Advocates have long promoted an income tax as a way to tax fairly, and the people have long suspected that the real motive was to tax more. Here the cynics are admitted to be right. The obvious motive of this proposal is to raise more money for the state.

I mean, God forbid we try to tax people more fairly, right?  And who in their right mind would want to raise more revenue at a time we’re slashing hundreds of millions of dollars from K-12 education, eliminating 10,000 slots from our colleges and universities, and kicking 50,000 people off the health care rolls?

Certainly, the state is having a money problem. But people who have lost their jobs or taken deep losses in their retirement investments also have money problems. Their interest is in a quick and vigorous business recovery, which is made less likely by new taxes.

But we’re not talking about taxing people who have lost their jobs, or about taxing people’s retirement investments.  We’re talking, under your scenario, about a one percent tax on household incomes over $1 million a year.  That means, if even in this economic downturn, you earn $2 million, you’d pay an additional $10,000 in state taxes a year.  $10,000 out of $2 million.  And we should feel their pain?

Some advocates say they would tax only the high earners. But it doesn’t raise enough money: a 1-percent tax on joint incomes above $1 million would raise less than one-half of 1 percent of state revenues. The state makes its big money in taxing the broad mass of people, which is also the broad mass of voters.

No, a 1-percent tax on millionaires doesn’t solve our budget crisis, but it’s sufficient to maintain outpatient senior care and save a few thousand higher education slots, while still leaving more than enough money left over to pay for that B&O tax reduction on newspapers for which you lobbied so aggressively.

Sen. Brown is said to be interested in being elected governor some day. She might recall the last such candidate who championed an income tax. It was Ron Sims, who was beaten in the Democratic primary by Christine Gregoire.

Hear that, Sen. Brown?  The editors at the largest newspaper in our state, our alleged watchdogs of democracy, are cautioning you to choose personal political ambition over taking a bold stance on principle.  No, you wouldn’t want to do anything potentially unpopular would you, even if you believe it the right thing to do, because it might cost you the governorship.  Just look at Ron Sims.

Like I said, this editorial is an example of everything that’s wrong with Washington politics.  Its attitude is a recipe for timidity, gridlock and stagnation, which, not surprisingly, is exactly the situation we find ourselves in today.

So you know what? I say be a leader, do what you think is right, and just tell the Times to piss off.  It’s not like you’re  going to get their endorsement in four years anyway—that’s going to Republican Rob McKenna—assuming there still is a Seattle Times in four years.

Be bold.  A 1-percent tax on millionaires doesn’t raise enough money to satisfy the Times?  Then expand it to those households earning over $200,000 a year; at the rates suggested by the EOI, that raises a substantial $2.5 billion per biennium, but still only falls on the top 4% of households.

And then, be creative:  put this high-earners income tax on the ballot tied to a half-cent reduction in the state sales tax.  96% of voters would see their taxes go down, even while saving crucial government services.  As for the millionaires?  Fuck ’em!  They’re the Wall Street fatcats who sold out our nation and got us into this mess in the first place, so let them pay to pick up the pieces.  (And don’t worry about whether that sentiment is grounded in reality or not, that’s the sentiment that’s out there, so you might as well use it to your advantage.  That’s what your opponents would do.)

And the icing on the cake is that our friend Mr. Eyman has made your sales job all the easier, his reprehensible I-960 totally deflating the Times’ inherent slippery-slope argument.  Voters don’t trust the Legislature not raise back the sales tax or expand the income tax to reach into the pockets of middle class families?  I-960 won’t let you!  At least not without a two-thirds majority in both houses, or the approval of voters at the polls.  Hey… thanks Tim!

In fact, the Times’ fact-free prognostication to the contrary (they apparently haven’t seen the polling data that shows a high-earners income tax surprisingly popular), now is the perfect time to put such a measure on the ballot.  Now is the perfect time to offer a stable social safety net and a cut in the sales tax to struggling families who currently hold little charity toward the wealthy who will be asked to pick up the tab… you know, the same wealthy who benefited most from the bubble that set up this devastating bust.  For as the election of Barack Obama and his continued popularity proves, voters are in a mood to take a chance on politicians who are willing to actually do something, even in the face of smug mockery from status quo defenders like the Seattle Times.

Be bold, Sen. Brown.  Be creative.  Shove this editorial back in the Times’ face, and be a leader, whether you’re ultimately rewarded for it or not.

It’s B-Day in Olympia, and not likely a happy one, as the Senate introduces its general operations budget at 10:30AM, while the House introduces its transportation budget at noon.  The smart money is on an all-cuts budget coming out of the Senate, with, of course, Seattle and light rail getting screwed by House transportation planners.

We’ll soon see.

UPDATE:
The TNT’s Political Buzz blog wins the local prize for first word on the Senate’s budget proposal:

Senate Democrats just unveiled their budget proposals, documents that proposed to close a $9 billion gap between tax collections and planned spending by freezing public school and state workers’ pay, closing a prison, eliminating 7,000 state jobs and lowering enrollment at colleges by more than 10,000 students.

Still waiting to see the specifics.

Now.

The bankrupt holding company for Washington Mutual has sued the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., alleging the agency has improperly denied potentially billions of dollars in claims against WaMu’s former banking unit.

The suit, filed late Friday in federal district court in Washington, D.C., also claims the FDIC improperly sold WaMu’s banking assets to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion, rather than conducting a “straight liquidation” that could have produced more money for creditors — including the holding company.

And then (late last year.)

According to these accounts, pressure to keep lending emanated from the top, where executives profited from the swift expansion – not least, Kerry Killinger, who was WaMu’s chief executive from 1990 until he was forced out in September.

Between 2001 and 2007, Killinger received compensation of $88 million, according to the Corporate Library, a research firm. He declined to respond to a list of questions, and his spokesman said he was unavailable for an interview.

During Killinger’s tenure, WaMu pressed sales agents to pump out loans while disregarding borrowers’ incomes and assets, according to former employees. The bank set up what insiders described as a system of dubious legality that enabled real estate agents to collect fees of more than $10,000 for bringing in borrowers, sometimes making the agents more beholden to WaMu than they were to their clients.

WaMu gave mortgage brokers handsome commissions for selling the riskiest loans, which carried higher fees, bolstering profits and ultimately the compensation of the bank’s executives. WaMu pressed appraisers to provide inflated property values that made loans appear less risky, enabling Wall Street to bundle them more easily for sale to investors.

Earth to Congress, come in Congress. You got a bunch of regular people turning blue out here.

While it’s great fun to grandstand over AIG, and lord knows AIG has deservedly been a flash point, this is pretty nuts, too. The Banksters are now going after the surviving New Deal financial regulations. I honestly don’t know how much more the American public will take.

As Barry Ritholtz writes:

At what point do you just liquidate every last one of these sons of bitches — and throw their management in jail?

Everyone has the right to due process, of course. While conservatives spent decades disparaging “trial lawyers,” the corporate world is full of them and they are just fine with going to court. But justice requires that bad actors be held accountable, no matter their class or philosophy.

Justice often happens when people are charged with some kind of crime, to put it simply. So far only the most obvious individual Ponzi scheme offenders are being dealt with. The institutional corruption endemic to corporate America has received a complete pass.

The Obama administration and Congress have now been issued an historic challenge: either let the Banksters try to destroy the FDIC’s authority, or stand up on behalf of the American people. Obama has been pretty cautious to this point, but this would seem to force the issue. Either we have a government of, by and for the people, or we don’t. It’s really that simple.