Comments

1
Hey, if it cuts the Blethen family's taxes, it's ALL good.
2
Look over there, Goldy -- the homeless!
3
If only the 25 shut-ins, 63 senior citizens and 37 unemployables who still read The Seattle Times knew the truth!!!!
4
The last time I picked up a paper copy of the Times, one of the sections had ZERO advertisements in it. None, none at all. Oh, there was a thing about subscribing to the paper, but that doesn't count. I think the entire paper had two ads bigger than an eighth of a page.
5
Seattle Times, proudly lying to it's readers for over 100 years!
6
@3 Unfortunately, your 25+63+37 numbers are about right. That's roughly how many state legislators there are. And though many of them are senior citizens -- and might otherwise be unemployable and even shut-ins -- they do still read the Times editorials. Then they print and distribute them for their roundtable hand-wringing caucus sessions, which explains why the business lobbyists bother ghostwriting for the Times in the first place.
7
On April 28, the Seattle Times ran an editorial headlined “Lawmakers must focus on one thing – the budget.” -- http://seattletimes.com/html/editorials/…

The Times wrote that legislators "should not allow themselves to be distracted by issues that stir passions but can wait until next year.”

Funny. No mention of a workers' compensation crisis from that's suddenly so urgent it can't wait.
8
People still read the teabagger times?
9
I think most middle class families I know in Seattle and the brubs have a subscription so its probably doing fine there.

Also teabagger times? man the left thing that and the right thinks its a left wing rag when the answer again is its center right.

Economical conservative but socially liberal.
10
The only person I know who still subscribes or buys the times is a teabagger I work with. Everyone else is sick of the right wing lies.
11
I should mention, Goldy, rather warmly and gently, that you are getting a few things mighty confused here. First of all, you are finding fault with a story I wrote a year ago that was entirely accurate at the time The Department of Labor and Industries, at a June 2012 meeting of its workers' compensation advisory committee, released some numbers that sent shock waves through the business community, and rightly so. To hit various targets for its pension discount rate and its contingency reserve that were under discussion at that point, the department's actuarial staff said L&I would have to raise some $3.1 billion. And that would have required what certainly would have been the mother of all rate increases, 19 percent on every employer in the state, for 10 straight years.

This was one of those things you often see government agencies do. They present the worst-case scenario, and then come back a little later and say, well, we found a way to back off and make things a little less bad. It makes the harsh medicine go down a little easier when the final decision comes. I suspect the Department of Labor and Industries was a little surprised to see a reporter in the room – this is the kind of tactic that can backfire if it is reported publicly. It also makes a great story, and I suspect you would have written it, too, if you had been in the room and working as a reporter. You will note that the response Judy Schurke wrote at the time did not find any factual fault with the story. Instead, she appeared to imply that the story somehow mischaracterized things – this was a preliminary discussion, she says. And here I am, a year later, still scratching my head, because that is exactly what I said in the story. The story was correct, and I should observe that a few weeks after I wrote my story, the Times did its own story and independently confirmed its factual truth.

In other words, Schurke refuted nothing.

But your greater point is this: You say there’s no problem at L&I. I guess it depends on whether you see big tax increases as a problem. Last fall the agency adopted somewhat lower targets for its pension discount rate and for the contingency reserve, and then it skipped a rate increase for 2013, meaning that the big tax increases will have to start in 2014. They won’t be as bad as they sounded in June 2012, but you have to figure that was part of the plan. And in the time since those lower targets were adopted last fall, there has been a little bit of good news from Wall Street. But still a big rate increase is going to be needed (and the picture is actually a little worse than I described it in a story the other day, for reasons waaaaay too boring to get into here). We'll find out more about it in the next few months. It won’t be the mother of all rate increases, but that maiden aunt is still pretty hairy and ugly.

Anyway, Goldy – on this one you’re being sloppy. You say a recent Times editorial must have been referring to the story I wrote a year ago, even though the editorial uses entirely different (and fresher) numbers, and then you proceed to challenge the accuracy of the story I wrote last year as if I was reporting those numbers today and they hadn’t changed in the meantime. You also assert the WSW website is run by the Washington Business Alliance – not true, though some of the participants in the project wear multiple hats and have day jobs. Jeez, Goldy, I like your stuff, it cracks me up, and there have been more than a few times when your pieces have me rolling on the floor laughing. And Lord knows I’ve attacked people a few times myself. But you’ve gotta be careful when you do it!
12
My biggest gripe is continuing to refer to the possibility of insurance rate increase as TAXES! Misleading and mischaracterized. "these are insurance premiums, not "taxes." Workers' compensation insurance is a cost of doing business, in the same way that compulsory auto insurance is a cost of driving in Washington State." All states require businesses to carry workers comp insurance. In most states it is a private insurance, whereas ours is a state-run plan (I'm a big "public option" fan, and I've been mighty impressed with how L&I operates). It is NOT a tax. It's an insurance premium. The difference is important. Your rate is related to the number/cost of your claims.
13
Libruhls get their news from places besides Comedy Central?

Who woulda known?
14
Good thing we didn't privatize Social Security huh?

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