Comments

1
Good rant.
2
Throw Goldy, throw.

Last line. After growing up in eWa. this is my favorite rant.
3
Seattle property owners are deadbeats.

They won't pay a fair rate on "Best Use".

The situation is like rent control...a lot of long timers sitting on really valuable property, hogging it up, but not contributing appropriately to infrastructure.

Meanwhile, there is this whole phalanx of paid mouthpieces who rant on and on about rural towns people and "spawl" just because we don't need a half mile tunnel that costs $6 billion of our Federal tax dollars.

Ya Hingey!!
4
While your arguments are sound, the Deep Tolled Tunnel, which would have SUBSIDIZED TEN DOLLAR TOLLS each way, makes no sense.

Lower capacity.

More GHG.

And twice as expensive for half the cars, trucks, or tax-exempt "non-profit" electric limos driven to the cushy stadium boxes and private jets from SLU and Queen Anne.

With no downtown exits.

Something has to give. And this .. is what will be thrown out.
5
I presume they hate Seattle because they lack the ambition to hate New York. I imagine that some of them can only reach high enough to hate Spokane.
6
@5, thank you for that. That was the best laugh of today.
7
I'm confused, and granted, bad at math, but $25 million is not enough to close the tunnel gap which is $235 million ($400m-$165m)...?
8
Also, note that the bad revenue projections were made by WSDOT, not Seattle nor Seattle residents (many of whom didn't want a tunnel anyway).
9
@7 Are you kidding? The project is bonded over 30 years. That's $750 million at $25 million a year, and probably closer to a billion dollars as sales tax revenue climbs.
10
@3 You don't know fuck about the way property taxes work. Or you do, and you're just being dishonest about it.
11
@3 you guys should just use his comments as a new Q&A column. Someone asks a rational question, say about cooking or dog ownership laws in the city, and you copy/paste and random answer from him. It would make as much sense.

Just do a comments database search for all comments by him containing the words Seattle, sprawl, or *urban. It will write itself.
12
I suggest that legislation be introduced in Olympia to require "county equity," a statewide version of the "subarea equity" that Sound Transit uses to divvy up local tax revenues. Guarantee that tax revenues stay in the county in which they are generated. That's a nice, conservative point of view -- let's see how many rural legislators sign on to it.
13
King County is Rich.

Yakima is poor.

King County SHOULD pay more. Much More.

Why are you such unpatriotic stingy fucks?
14
Care to put it up to an initiative, Goldy?

Not a lawyer so this is just not-a-legal-opinion back-of-an-envelope type stuff, but maybe something like @12's idea about "county equity". Title it something like the "No Redistribution of Wealth in Washington Act" and make it a simple punchy piece that talks about "monies collected in one county may only be spent in same unless used by a special purpose district or as part of federal obligation". I'm sure a lawyer could make that legit to protect things like Sound Transit and cross-county water districts.
15
@3 Not sure why "spawl" is in quotation marks in your comment, but I do appreciate the Word of the Day. Nice image results, btw, although a dearth of spitting for some reason.
16
@14: Unfortunately, I would foresee any such law being challenged and defeated on 14th Amendment equal protection grounds.
17
Yep, the red counties take more than they give. So you've got the whiners on the east side of the mountains vs. the whiners on the west side of the mountains. And the paramount duty is to shove more money at corrupt, underperforming schools, while the gas taxes are segregated for roads.

And we've got solid majorities in every county against income taxes, and for a two-thirds legislative requirement for tax increases. So, Goldy, given all of this, you know the end game: give to the schools, take from the safety net. That's the way it'll go.

Maybe it would've been better if the brilliant minds in Seattle would've watched their pennies a little more diligently. You know, like spending $800 million to repair the viaduct instead of $4 billion on that tunnel. Or like not giving Hansen and his bondholders $350 million for a basketball arena that most people will never see because the ticket prices will be too high. Or not committing multiple billions for light rail and streetcars that won't do a goddamned thing to ease congestion.

The list goes on, but the brilliant minds in Seattle think the money source is endless. The news for them is bad: The voters have erected a series of flaming crosses between you, Goldy, and their wallets. Hell, even Jay Inslee knows it. He got elected on a promise to oppose tax increases.

So now the brilliant minds of Seattle are going to have the opportunity to face the music in the next few years. The Whinefest has barely begun!
18
I wasn't a big fan of the tunnel but if republican's hate it I love it! :p
19

Are Municipal Bonds Headed for a ‘Train Wreck?’

The problem facing municipal bond investors is a double whammy. First, an investor who buys a municipal bond at a premium over face value (which is common in this price-inflated environment) only gets back face value at maturity, and the difference reduces the total return of the investment.
Second, municipal bonds are callable by the issuer (unlike U.S. Treasury securities and many corporate bonds). When a bond is called, it is redeemed prior to the maturity date and the stream of interest payments is cut short. That reduces the yield that would be expected if the bonds were held to maturity. In muni bond lingo, the measure of this double whammy is called the “yield to worst.”


http://www.pageperry.com/blog/are_munici…
20
Yep, #18, and those idiots on the east side of the mountains are so blindly tribal. Buncha knee-jerk wingnuts, unlike the people here, who consider things on their merits.
21
@17: Governor Gregoire chose the tunnel option for us. Seattle voted against the tunnel. That was not our choice to spend the money on a tunnel that doesn't even serve downtown Seattle. As to the arena, the plan should end up costing the city nothing in the long run, and should even bring revenue to the city. I love how you so quickly dismiss plans for mass-transit as doing nothing to ease congestion despite failing to support such an assertion with anything other that your statement. Our city is aching for more transit, and that's what we are doing. It is not wasteful at all.

You know what abortively will not help improve our schools? Withholding funding.
22
I somehow combined "absolutely," "certainly," and "positively" into one word. Whoops.
23
@19 that post is so clueless I hardly know where to begin. For starters, the yield that investors buy is ALWAYS the yield-to-worst. The amount of money that they pay for the bonds ASSUMES the worst possible yield is the yield that they will get - if the issuer chooses not to call the bonds, they basically get free money in what in "muni bond lingo" is called the kicker.

"...only gets back face value at maturity, and the difference reduces the total return of the investment." The reason the price declines over time is because they're being paid an above-market interest rate over the time they hold it. The amount of extra interest they get is exactly proportional to the amount the face value of the bond declines, so at the end of their investment they will have received the same total return as someone who bought a bond for exactly its face value received.
24
@21 and @12 tied ftw
25
@20: Man, it is killing you that you cannot keep sarcastically saying "progressives" on here because that would really blow your cover huh? "Brilliant minds" just does not have the same punch does it?

Go away Mister G, you have already proved yourself to be one of the dumbest people here, and banned for good reason.
28
Would someone explain why a couple of people are following me from thread to thread and calling me "Mister G?"
29
28 - Because you're exactly the same type of troll, with the same argumentative style, and same hidden comment history. It's an accurate label.
30
@25 - you called it.

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