The Seattle Times can always be ignored. This is when you double down, not sell out your principles.

These are great suggestions. Given the Republicans' deep love of local control and hatred of welfare, I would add a rule that requires all state revenues to be spent in the county where they were raised.

Goldy's right.

Let the Eastside and the Eastern half of the state starve to death.

Hell yeah. They don't want to pay taxes but they want to suckle off the state teat? Fuck that. Let 'em sleep in the bed they made.

I voted against the King County sales tax increase for exactly this reason. The public safety cuts fall mostly on rural King County, which tends to vote more Republican than the cities. The Democrats should do this nationally too. Let the Republicans do away with ear marks. Then the executive (i.e., the Obama administration) gets to decide spending priorities. Might this hurt Republican districts whose representatives could no longer slip in ear marks? Yep.

Nice idea but it'll never happen. Never.

Liberals will forever continue to feed the conservatives, and the conservatives will forever continue to bite the liberal hand that feeds them.

It's a dysfunctional relationship that neither side likes but that neither can ever put a stop to. They're too enmeshed with their sick routine and with each other.

This may be your best work to date, Goldy. And yet, the sons of bitches at The Stranger still refuse to give you a blogroll reach-around. Assholes.

Given the redistribution of wealth from King County to rural Eastern WA, King County's available revenue would increase at least 50 percent. And if we factor in residents in King-adjacent counties (also donor counties), it would draw even more money if Snohomish and Pierce kept their revenues local.

@2 This is exactly what I was going to propose. Pass a law (or amendment to the state constitution or whatever) saying that all tax money (+/- 5% or so) must be spent in the county it came from. Sounds fair right? And I suppose in some ways it is, though it would pretty clearly show how the rest of the state is depended on the dirty liberals so they can suck away resources from the government.

Hell, if you pitched it in an initiative as "fair tax teabag freedom law" it would probably pass by a wide margin. And then the lulz would begin.

@6 not any more. We've had it with those tax-subsidized whiners.

Buncha fuckin serfs out there beyond the moat, man.

I agree with this Goldy, whoever he is. I agree with his suggestions, though not either the usual liberal condescencion or the usual liberal misunderstandings about the proper role of governement.

Yes school decisions, whether on funding or curricula, ought to be made locally. If Yakima or Wenatchee chooses not to brainwash their students in liberal pc concepts barren of any educational value, they have that right. If Seattle chooses to conduct such brainswashing, they do as well. (Or they could, you know, just educate the kids and leave the value decisions to the parents, shocking as this concept is to a liberal.) Parents can influence a local school board much more effectively than they can a state Department of Education, never mind a federal one. Therefore, if they feel the standard of education is inadequate, they can change it directly via the school board.

Yes, Eastern Washington farmers should pay for their irrigation, electricity, roads etc. And Seattle farmers market or grocery store customers had better be prepared to pay the real price for growing a pear, or a bushel of wheat. Again, liberals are incapable of basic economics, so I'm sure you all forgot this bit of the equation.

As for higher education, I'm unsure why my financial responsibility to educate my own children doesn't fulfill the entirety of my obligation. Why am I as a taxpayer asked to subsidize the education of neighbors too profligate or foolish to ensure that of themselves or their children? Fewer students in the universities and colleges would be a net benefit anyway. Those students making the sacrifice to attain a college level education would be there by choice and with a desire to learn. Or we could continue the diminution of higher education into trade schools that we have now. What plumber needs to read Socrates? What electrician, or book-keeper needs to understand the role of Cimabue in Florentine art? What manager of a Target needs a thorough grounding in Euclid to do so well? Let enrollment drop, let the students using university to get a couple letters after their name out of the system, and return higher education to pursuing an actual higher education. Privately, and without asking for my tax dollar to do so.

See, liberals are pessimists; anti-humanists. They believe that no-one can feed their children, educate them, put clothes on their backs or a roof over their heads, or provide medical care for them without government help. Conservatives, and the founders of this nation, believed that private citizens could do all these things without Uncle Sams or Auntie Gregoires assistance.

Seattleblues @14,

Okay, let's have at it. Let's subject Eastern Washington to your smug libertarian dystopia, and see how things turn out. Let's see how well their economy thrives without their subsidized infrastructure and their subsidized schools. And if that drives up the cost of produce, well I suppose those of us here in liberal part of the state will just have to import cheaper food from Mexico and Chile and elsewhere. I mean, that's how the free market works, right?

("Incapable of basic economics" my ass.)

As for the rest of your post, what a self-satisfied piece of elitist claptrap. Plumbers don't need to read Socrates? Electricians don't need to understand art? Hell, why even bother teaching the working classes to read? It only makes them more difficult to control. Mass illiteracy was good enough for the founding fathers, so it should be good enough for us too. Oh, and punish the children while you're at it, for the perceived sins of the parents.

So yeah, let's try out this experiment of yours, and create a nation built solely upon personal responsibility and force of will. Oh wait... we already did. It's called Somalia.

@14: You raise a good point. The "liberals at the Seattle Farmers' markets" probably won't want to "pay the full price" (except, of course, in the higher personal taxes they regularly vote for to subsidize the costs of life in rural Washington; best we ignore that).

But think for a minute: who really loses in that case? The liberals, or the farmers who depend on the ability to sell their products for their livliehoods? Whine all you want about the liberals' failure to "appreciate the other side of the equation," but the end of the day, it won't pay the bills. I could say the same about the rest of your rant.

Or, alternatively, we could quit this stupid and divisive shitshow and realize that everything is connected, whether we like it or not, and we need to behave in a way that appreciates that shared responsibility. That's the real point of Goldy's piece. I'm sorry his sarcasm was lost on you.

@Seattleblues: You might enjoy reading a Dickens novel every now and then.

@Goldy: Why is it that Tim Eyman and the Seattle Times hate our constitution? Article II Section 22 clearly specifies that a majority--not 2/3--vote of each house is required to pass a bill. And why does Tim Eyman's latest initiative repeal Sound Transit taxes that voters have approved? He's always going on and on about voter approval. Well, we DID approve those taxes here in the central Puget Sound area. So why on God's green earth should voters in Ritzville and White Salmon get to repeal them if they're not paying?

Conservatives, and the founders of this nation, believed that private citizens could do all these things without Uncle Sams or Auntie Gregoires assistance.

Of course many of the founders of this nation didn't have to rely on Uncle Sam or Auntie Gregoire, since they owned an Uncle Tom and an Aunt Jemima, which the state recognized as their property. God bless our founding fathers!

kk @17,

@Goldy: Why is it that Tim Eyman and the Seattle Times hate our constitution?

Obviously, because they're on the side of the terrorists. Can't think of any other reason.

@14

"[liberals] believe that no-one can feed their children, educate them, put clothes on their backs or a roof over their heads, or provide medical care for them without government help."

No, its not that at all. What a tragic misunderstanding. Liberals believe that there are people who exist who can't educate themselves, put clothes on their backs or a roof over their heads, or provide medical care for them without government help. Not that everyone is incapable, but that there are inequities in the world caused by disability, inheritance, or class that need to be fixed and the market has no mechanism to accomplish it. Less poverty means less crime.

I think the +/- 5% funding idea would make a great initiative. However, it should be limited to transportation and schools, as the other sectors may be hard to allocate fairly.

It's what you do anyway, I'm unsure what would be different.

Liberals deplore the outsourcing of American jobs, calling companies which do so outrageous and scurrilous names. Of course they do this on their imported cellular phones from the drivers seat of their Hondas or Volvos while wearing cheap Chinese made clothes. As for Chilean fruit? You're back a page or two, no surprise from the typically arrogant presumptions of a Seattle lib. Why do you think wine grapes and other specialty crops are taking off so much in Yakimas' lower valley? It's because a Chilean strawberry or peach can be grown, picked, packaged, shipped and sold for less than the production costs of a Yakima or Wenatchee strawberry or peach. And the Seattle liberal who must have strawberries and peaches in February buy them, encouraging the trade.

Show me a liberal and I'll show you a person who failed at logic. I'll show you a person who believes reality ought to be a certain way so it is, despite millenia of evidence any common sense farmer could point out without thinking about it.

We liberals and Democrats do a lousy job of communicating with our dry-side cousins. The folks voting over there now came along or came of age after all the Democrat-funded infrastructure was already in place. They take it for granted. They don't realize that it took far-sightedness and hard-fought political decisions, mostly at the federal level, to put it in place, to get them where they are today.

When I started voting in the 70's, and working in the Legislature, there were a number of good Democrats from east of the mountains, people old enough to remember what it was like in the early days. What do Democrats and other liberals do to tell this history, to remind those voters of the values we hold and what that has meant to dry-siders over the years? Little or nothing.

@16

We agree to pay for things that no private citizen could pay for effectively via taxes. We need police, fire departments, schools and roads, among other things which private money simply couldn't produce. Collectively we assign a common burden for commonly enjoyed perquisites of living in here. No conservative argues against providing for such things.

What conservatives vehemently argue against is the notion that we must equalize the outcome, rather than levelling the playing field. I won't ever be as wealthy as Bill Gates, nor I'm guessing will you. But we both had the opportunity provided by society. And that opportunity is all we collectively owe each other. What a man does with it is his business. Should he fail, the consequences are his to bear. Should he succeed the rewards are his to enjoy.

Again, it has to do with believing in the basic competence of our fellow citizens, a concept foreign to liberal thought.

Seattleblues @21,

Drop the moralistic bullshit. You feel no shame at denying a child an education because her parents can't afford it, so why should I feel shame for eating a Chilean strawberry?

Besides, we're talking economics here. IF Eastern WA was cut off from its subsidies, and IF this meant its agricultural products were no longer price competitive in global market, what would be the result? Yes, some folks here on the rainy side would pay a premium for locally grown food, but many wouldn't, or simply couldn't afford it. This is how markets work in the libertarian wonderland you are proposing.

Or are you incapable of understanding basic economics?

@23 bull. You just want free government cheese, but don't want to pay taxes cause you're greedy and hate America.

@15

"Hell, why even bother teaching the working classes to read? It only makes them more difficult to control."

That's a deliberate mis-reading of what I wrote. An educated workforce is necessary if we're to keep any of our industry in this country. Literacy in language and mathematics, the basics of science and so on are required for the high tech world in which we live. Which is why we have high schools, and mandatory attendance of them for kids up to a certain age.

Universities weren't founded on this notion of providing a workforce though. For any 2 kids that enjoy Shakespeare, 18 have neither aptitude nor interest in even trying to do so. While some students find calculus fascinating or theoretical physics the vast majority of their peers are bored or badly confused by those subjects. Why should we waste time forcing an uncongenial subject down the throats of the uninterested, who will forget anything they learned as soon as conveniently possible?

And because of this, why should we tell all kids to go to college and waste tuition, professorial time, and the resources of the institution to become middle management or skilled tradesmen? It is simply a waste of time. More importantly it enervates universities, turning them from institutions seeking higher learning into the equivalent of high school shop class.

@24

Children who desire an education, whose parents instill in them a sense of the value of such a thing, will go to college. They will find scholarships, work, do whatever is necessary to attain it. Alternatively, bored suburban kids sent to college because it's the thing to do will sit in the same classes as these more motivated students. They will take class time trying to understand concepts they should have learned in high school. They will take staff time trying to get the Cs necessary to keep mom and dad paying tuition so they don't have to actually work or anything horrible like that. They will demean the experience, turning it into a 4 year beer buzz. All this, while the hypothetical daughter of the poor you mention tries to glean from it everything she can, because she values it, because she wants the education offered, not just the degree and connections to get a job.

There wasn't an inconsistency in my philosophical approach. There is nothing but such inconsitencies in yours.

@23

Nah. I've eaten that government cheese once. (I know, this makes me a hypocrite and socialist for having once eaten government cheese. Damn.) I prefer a good Roquefort or Stilton, if it's all the same to you.

And I pay taxes, unlike nearly 50% of my fellow citizens.

Seattleblues @28,

And I pay taxes, unlike nearly 50% of my fellow citizens.

In what world do you live? Find me one person in WA state who doesn't pay taxes.

Goldy,

I married late in life, because that was when I could afford the financial burden of being a husband and father. We built a business, living on less than many of our employees for many years while turning everything not needed for basic daily expenses back into our business. I own my home and my cars and owe no credit card debt. Or any other debt.

For this I am rewarded in tax policy, right? Well, no. I am asked to pay for the medical care, food and housing of neighbors who married without the means to support their families. I am asked to pay for the college education for these same children born to profligate families. These same children, given the example set them, will likely repeat the process, so that as I age, I and my children will pay for the next generation of wastrels on the federal dime.

All this punishment for the appalling crime of being careful financially, which led to being comfortable financially.

In Washington State we have a sales tax which all pay. The wealthier pay more, as they consume more, but they do so on a fair premise of a set percentage applied equally to all. This tax is offset for the lower middle class and poor by federal tax incentives for poor choices, making the 50% of taxpayers who pay no actual taxes when benefits are subtracted from paid taxes. In other words, if someone making $30,000 a year with 2 kids pays $1000 in state sales tax, this is offset by the food stamps, housing assistance, EITC and other tax breaks they recieve to incentivize profligacy. Effectively, they are paid for their citizenship, by money taken from my income.

Seattleblues: Has it occurred to you that, if you accuse all liberals of believing something, and a number of us tell you that we don't in fact believe it, we just might be right?

In general, I like to assume that everyone is the authority on their own beliefs. You don't have to assume that, but if you don't, then don't be surprised if people assume that you're arguing in bad faith.

@31

You make a valid point.

Somewhere in the tension between liberal thought and conservative is a recipe for progress for all of us. Unfettered change would be destabalizing and ultimately destructive. Iron rigidity and unwillingness to accept any change would create stagnation and a different kind of destruction. Without conservative stability the labor law changes of the 30's for instance would have been unworkable. Without liberal pushes for such change they never would have occured.

Frankly, though, I don't see either side willing to recognize the other as simply loyal opposition. What I see much more of is simple demonization of political differences, from both sides. To the extent that I did this, I do apologize.

@26 What a picture you are painting. Human prime directive is to go to work? Higher education may help us do our jobs, in which case we should scrap our way through it?

Isn't college like roads, too big of a cost for any one individual?

More of this twisted world view: When we do our jobs well, we get financial rewards. When we don't do our jobs well we don't get much money, but it is our own fault for not availing ourselves of that "level" playing field. I don't even know where to start. Since when is the playing field level? What if someone's job is to pick apples, or fix sewers, or collect garbage, or teach middle school, and they do it really well?

This is going to be news to you, but all that Shakespeare and Calculus sometimes doesn't have much to do with furthering careers. The idea is that a good undergraduate education will assist people in being able to think. I am not sure where thinking might fit into the worldview presented above...

@32: I think you mean well, but when you establish concepts like the "basic competence of our citizens" as wholesale "foreign to liberal thought," you go about the process of "demonizing political differences."

If the problem was that liberals simply did not have enough faith in people to take care of themselves, we wouldn't be having this debate at all. The problem is clearly more complicated than that. My biggest fear, though, is not that you weren't aware of this before making your comments. My biggest fear is actually that you were, and were simply oversimplifying our position just for argument's sake.

Similarly, I can't go as far as Goldy in accusing conservatives of wanting to throw out all government services, including police, fire, schools and roads. But I think you're being disingenuous when you argue that "no conservative argues against such things." Many conservatives, in fact, do argue against such things, and many more believe in the abolition of these programs even if they won't specifically say so. If you aren't one of these conservatives, that's fine, and I don't want to assign you beliefs you haven't expressed (although I realize this courtesy may not be reciprocated). But let's not pretend these conservatives aren't out there.

The problem is that there's a lot of this we agree upon; we both see the need for a fairer, less onerous, and less complicated taxation system, we both see the need for efficient and effective government services. We're both using generally valid logic to support our arguments, though we may be extrapolating from a different set of values and perceptions. Where this argument becomes "demonization" is when we pretend those things aren't true.

I'll go ahead and post my comment from a year ago when Goldy was sitting on the levy equalization fence.
http://horsesass.org/?p=23024#comment-96…
6. Mr. Baker spews:
I’ve mentioned this a few times, and thought about it quite a bit.

I think it is good policy to a point. The “property poor” also have a lower cost of living, Richland 19.4% less than Seattle (for example, Salary.com). Do they really need THAT much equalization?
The bigger point would be that the Reps of those districts might actually support raising taxes to increase the general funding for K-12 if they lived within THIER means.

I think it is bad policy because it hurts the base level funding. I do understand that it is good policy because children do not often get to pick their parents, Republican parents.

What’s worse is that these same school district welfare Kings are first in line for “educational reform”.
Fuck them, they’re getting free money.

Some people are running for office on policies that ensure that they are dirt poor and stupid, I say let them have what they claim the want so damn badly.
To a great degree I appreciate Dow Constantine's approach to the King County budget, and the County Council's rejection of Reagan Dunn and his amendment. This is somewhat similar, the Republican wanted cuts, and refused tax increases, then wanted the Democratic majority to give him what he wanted in the end.
Fuck them.

@23 - "Should he fail, the consequences are his to bear."

And so are those of his kids, who were stupid enough to rely on him. They should go out and beg for food, pick pockets, or sell their 10-year-old bodies. Worked for Dickens' London.

Liberals tend to be more educated than conservatives. Put another way, the better educated you are, the more likely you are to see through conservative bullshit.

Therefore, it is in the interest of liberals to fund quality education for the children in conservative districts, even if people in those districts are not willing to.

And it isn't because schools have a liberal bias, or because they are secular, or because they teach evolution. It's because good schools teach children how to think critically and people who think critically vote for Democrats.

Goldy - in your simplistic, hyperbolic rant, it seems straight forward that under "republicanism", the west side wins and the east side loses, which begs the question, "Why are you so emotionally invested in making sure this doesn't happen - are you more comfortable in the role of loser?"

Great plan, Republicans act like jerks that don't care about the success of our community, state and country as a whole, so Democrats should too! Believe me, I ponder the fact that I don't have kids, so why should I pay for your snot-nosed brats to go to school. I'm a Seattle homeowner that pays a lot of fucking property taxes for your damn kids when having kids was your choice, not mine. But then I remember older generations paid for my public education, and without a decent education your snot-nosed brats will grow up to rob my house, mug me, leach off the system even more. Turns out that it ends up being cheaper in the long run for tax payers to pay for things like a good education and many social and human services programs up front, go figure.