- Click for taxes!
Overall, not a whole lot of difference from the senate budget proposal.
But, for those keeping track of exactly who’s asking for exactly what:
In order to deal with the state’s $2.8 billion budget shortfall, Gov. Gregoire wants $600 million in new taxes, the state senate wants $900 million in new taxes, and the state house now wants $857 million in new taxes.
All three of those plans mix serious cuts to state services, grants from the federal government, and “rainy day fund” money in with their proposed tax increases in order to get to the magic $2.8 billion number. (The house plan, however, fails to specify which taxes it would raise in order to generate that $857 million in new revenue.)
In a statement accompanying the house plan, Rep. Pat Sullivan (D-47) explained that after slashing $3.2 billion last year with an all-cuts budget, the choice is now between raising taxes or jettisoning essential services:
We went line-by-line in our budget and asked the tough questions about what is necessary and what we can do without. This isn’t about trimming fat anymore. Providing our children a quality education that readies them for a good job means finding the money for financial aid and smaller classrooms. Keeping people out of costly emergency rooms means funding Basic Health and Apple Health for Kids.
Go line-by-line through the house budget rollout here.
Who has “0” in the “how many minutes before we hear our first tea-bagger pants-wetting about tax-and-spend Democrats” pool?
well at least we were able to give microsoft tax amnesty and a 100million dollar tax dodge
http://microsofttaxdodge.com/2010/02/was…
@2 – don’t forget the Microsoft 520 bridge, with its doubled global warming emissions and zero transit-only lanes. Or the Gates/Allen Billionaires Tunnel on SR-99 that has double the global warming emissions both in construction and in operation of either of the two cheaper alternatives of Surface Plus Transit or the Viaduct Rebuild.
Heck, if the state didn’t subsidize those and cram them both down Seattle voters throats when we don’t want them, Microsoft might have to actually PAY for the damage they cause to our environment, or the salmon they kill, or the orcas they kill.
Pat Sullivan is D-47, not D-37. He’s my representative.
Pat Sullivan is D-47, not D-37. He’s my representative.
goddam full tubes, making me double-post. *grumble*
@5: Thanks, fixed.
@7:
And how many came out for the Tea Party? The top number I ever heard was around 4,500. Did more come out another day?
Either way, it seems it was easily outnumbered by the 6,000 on the other side. There’s been stories about thousands of Millenials turning out regularly to protest cuts all over the country that often dwarf even some of the highest-profile “tea parties.”
It’s weird: there’s a much, much larger “tea party” that’s been going on the left since the Obama campaign – which, by the way, regularly turned out crowds in the tens of thousands – and I think both Democrats and Republicans won’t even see it coming until November. The tea party movement – in terms of numbers, not money – is tiny compared to the regular turnouts on the left.
This lesson has an obvious take-away: just because it’s on the inside-the-beltway cable channels doesn’t mean it hasn’t been happening.
Haha, just as soon as I posted that, I found another recent story where tens of thousands of people turned out in New York City to protest slashing public jobs.
And then another later that month, where thousands turned out AGAIN.
And yet another in Illinois, where thousands more took to the Capitol.
And again in Florida. Twice.
And more in Nevada. And Arizona. And Utah. And in Rhode Island. And in Sacramento.
This is a substantial movement, even if it doesn’t have Glenn Beck as a mouthpiece. It clearly turns out similar, if not dramatically larger, numbers than the tea party has on a regular basis. I don’t know if this will ever penetrate into the cable echo chamber… but this country is changing.