With the state facing a $1.1 billion revenue shortfall between now and June, and yet another $5.7 billion gap looming in next biennial budget, the ax continues to fall heavily on the poor, the sick and the young, with Basic Health, children’s health insurance, Disability Lifeline, college financial aid, K-4 enhancement and all-day kindergarten funds all likely to be slashed or eliminated.
They won’t necessarily come right out and say it, but a lot of Republicans look at this budget disaster as a good thing… an opportunity to “right-size” state and local government via fiscal crisis in a way they could never achieve at the ballot box… whatever the cost in human suffering. I mean, isn’t this exactly what the Seattle Times is talking about when it lumps its focus on “resetting government to the world’s new economic realities” under the brand “Reset 2010″…?
Well, you know what? It’s past time for Democrats in Olympia to get the message, and realize that in this current economic and political climate, we can no longer afford to fully support our welfare state. And since a disproportionate amount of welfare in our state goes to rock ribbed Republican counties, that’s where a disproportionate amount of the cuts should come.
And the first place to start? Eliminate school levy equalization.
Granted, the bleeding-heart, tax-and-spend liberal in me fully understands that levy equalization is a worthwhile program, granting poorer, mostly rural school districts a somewhat more equal funding footing with wealthier urban and suburban districts. But, at a cost of $165 million a year, that’s the sort of bleeding heart, I’m constantly told, that our state simply can no longer afford.
Of course, without this redistribution of wealth from our children to theirs, many of these property-poor districts, particularly the smaller ones, simply will not be able to survive, forcing dozens our state’s 295 districts to close and consolidate for the sake of efficiency, resulting in a loss of local control, and in some cases, considerably longer school bus commutes.
But again, isn’t that exactly what the Seattle Times is talking about when it argues for “resetting government to the world’s new economic realities”…?
The reality is, the economic divide in Washington state largely tracks the political one: rural vs. urban. And since it’s rural Republicans who largely oppose all but the most minimal government services (at least rhetorically) and the taxes that support them, given the current budget crisis, it’s time for urban Democrats to give the opposition what they claim they want.
Yes, that will cause a lot of pain and disruption in the rural communities that will inevitably lose their local school districts, and in some cases even their local schools. But Democrats in Olympia can simply no longer afford—either fiscally or politically—to continue fighting to subsidize the inefficient and unsustainable local governments of the rural communities who most vehemently rail against subsidizing inefficient and unsustainable government.
And if that’s an economic reality these communities cannot accept, then perhaps they might want to start rethinking their politics?
No, come on, Compassion. Don’t sink to their level, be cleaver and find a way to make it work!
Also, seriously think about your “plan”, dooming the kids of idiots to even worse conditions will not make Future Washington any better.
tacomamama,
As you know, Tacoma and the surrounding districts have little problem passing local levies that approach the maximum allowed under the levy lid. So while yes, percentage wise, homeowners in less affluent urban communities like Tacoma end up paying a higher tax rate to support their local schools, they still generally manage to raise the maximum local levy allowed.
haha cleaver
No, Goldy, I did not know that we have little problem passing those levies. It was blood, sweat and tears to pass the one we did last year. The bond measure proposed the year before failed badly. I want to volunteer at my kids’ school, not on another levy campaign because you are mad at how some people in Eastern Washington chose to spend their votes.
You assume that it is the Republicans alone that want to reform state government. You would be wrong.
I know for a fact that Gregoire sees this current situation to carve out a positive legacy for herself – SHE plans to seize the mantle of being the right-sizer of government. Over the past 2-3 years, as the Gov. has been trying to shore up the budget, the employees unions haven’t played nice the way she wanted, they haven’t made the concessions that she thought they should, so she’s less inclined to worry about how a state government reduction will affect her standing with SEIU.
First up is WSDOT. Mark it down.
@8: Such an initiative is genius, even as just a bit of political theater. You have my support. Do it!. I’ll freeze my ass off, holding a clipboard.
Gee, Goldy is venting his hatred of Eastern Washington again. What a shock.
I get that you’re a ‘good Eurupean socialist.’ I get that you hate this country and every principle that made it great. I know that you’re wrong about nearly everything, Goldy. What confuses me is how eager you are to showcase these facts.
@ 51
The ‘kids of idiots’ are the progeny of liberals. Goldys’ target is the kids of the intelligent. You know, conservatives.
@56 Exactly! I don’t actually think it would pass, but putting it out there and forcing tax-hating, “small government” Washingtonians to publicly defend their views and publicly acknowledge how many small (mostly conservative) communities are basically dependent on government support would be a good thing.
Look at it this way: 1100 and 1105 both failed at the ballot, but still managed to reignite and ramp up the debate about liquor privatization, and basically send a mandate to Olympia to start making changes to the current system.
Seattleblues @57,
I love Eastern Washington and the food they grow, and like a good liberal, I have no problem subsidizing their children and their lifestyle. But what really pisses me off is the fact that so many of them hate Seattle liberals like me because they are under the mistaken impression that they are subsidizing us.
I’m also sick and tired of our public schools being held to a lowest common denominator because of their refusal to fund K-12 at an adequate level. We can’t raise state tax revenues enough to fund all schools equally, because the anti-tax portions of the state simply won’t stand for it, and yet levy lids prohibit us from raising enough funds at the local level to make up the difference.
We can’t raise taxes because they don’t support raising taxes. So we cut state spending on K-12, but to make up for the impact on these poorer, anti-tax districts, we increase levy equalization, assuring that kids in Seattle absorb an even greater share of the cuts. Where’s the sense in that?
Goldy,
To be fair, my post was needlessly argumentative.
I just think you don’t know many people from Eastern Washington. I grew up there and most of the folks I know don’t hate taxes or government necessarily. They do hate voting without any chance of that vote counting, either in policy or representation. They do hate paying taxes to support a notion of government which they don’t share. They do hate the supercilious attitude to them common to this side of the state.
Honestly, the best solution for the Puget Sound basin and the rest of the state is for the basin to secede, or the rest of the state. Puget Sound can continue to be a West Coast liberal bastion. The rest of the state can have a meaningful vote and voice in government again. Seattle might not be viable without the rest of the state, or vice versa. But it’s hardly viable to have much of the state perpetually without political representation either.
There’s a lot of good ways we could implement this.
I’m a big fan of splitting the state right down the Cascades (which conveniently runs entirely along county borders and almost entirely along congressional district borders). And it seems like most of EWA likes the idea too.
But there’s an even simpler way — Just eliminate the state sales tax, and leave it up to the counties. We in KC can opt to continue to pay our 10.5, and get to keep our transit infrastructure and social services and education. Meanwhile a la Chelan or Garfield counties can roll it back to an “austere” 3%, or even zero!, and live their log cabin shootin’-at-some-food dreams without interference, protection, or provision from government.
(See also La Paz County, AZ.)
And we get to keep more of our own tax money to boot!
@ Goldy #60
You seem to be misunderstanding levy equalization. Both rural AND poor urban school districts rely heavily on levy equalization to make up a significant portion of our budgets that we don’t get from the state. We can’t, nor should we, raise the lids on local levies because poor neighborhoods will never be able to give as much as our wealthier counterparts. What we need is equitable funding from the state. What we don’t need is asking the poor to contribute a far greater portion of their income towards their children’s education then the rich.
I agree that we should let EasternWA take their small government and withhold our road and water and agriculture subsidies, but lay the fuck off education. The only hope those kids have is to get a good education and change their communities or get the fuck out of there. Raising a whole new generation of poorly educated children will only make matters so much worse.
They will grow up and move away to civilization.
Here, you have to think of your audience, I guess in this case it is Republicans.
Raise the state-wide level of education funding by $65 million, and then cut levy equalization.
It kind if sounds like I am giving in but really I am taking some of that for the Seattle School District. Ha!
@61 – It sounds like you and Goldy are in violent agreement.
Sounds to me like there’s a common thread here; how do we make those who are most responsible for putting the rest of us in a very difficult situation, feel the pain we will? I believe the rural, conservative, Republicans are proud of their actions and believe that we should be thankful that they came along and “saved us”. I also believe that if you did a careful check, you’d find the majority of them being elderly, comfortably well off, and set in their ways, unhappy and crabby about life in general. In short, eliminating school levy equalization isn’t something they really much care about.
As pointed out, the small districts in the rural areas are for the most part well run and many of those we’re referring to are sending their children or grandchildren to private schools. In the long run, eliminating levy equalization would harm the children left behind in their wake and not teach them a damn thing!
If you want to get their attention you need to hit them where it hurts. How about eliminating subsidies for farmers who make large profits for “doing nothing”? How about eliminating any tax advantages, such as not paying gas taxes on fuel used on farms or other such “governmental benefits” that they have enjoyed for years?
I’m not personally familiar with all the possibilities but I’ll bet there’s more that could be done to make those who have been so certain that they know what’s best for the rest of us suddenly ask the question; “Now, what have we done”? The first rule in defeating the enemy is to learn where its weakness is and attack there first. I’m betting it’s someplace near their wallets! One last thought; I’ll bet the love the saying, “An eye for an eye”. They’ve poked us good now let’s poke them back!
Mr Baker,
I live in Seattle only because it is the best market for my particular skills. And I live deep in suburban Seattle. I once tried living near Seattle U about 3 months. We were going to catch ball games and plays. We were going to see live music and eat at the wide diversity of restaurants near our house. Within 6 months we decided on renting the house out and moving to the suburbs. Junkies around my car as I left for work, sirens and traffic noise all night and day long, no room for my children or dog to play and relentless grime and litter everywhere but in my yard (and then only because I spent 10 minutes before and after work picking up other peoples trash thrown over the fence) didn’t take long to show me where civilization really exists. Even in the suburbs, as soon as I can reasonably afford it (around 6 years or so at 45) we are retiring and moving back to civilization in Eastern Washington.
At a cabin we own on a 60 acre lot the 3 or 4 nearest neighbors are friendlier and more connected to us than they were in our house in Seattle, even though we have to walk a half mile to see them or they us. In the little hamlet near it, everyone knows who you are. I’ve been called by 3 different people when I loaned the cabin to someone they didn’t know, to let me know someone had gone up the road to it. On the other hand, I’ve lived in condos here where neighbors seemed offended by a cheerful good morning or routine neighborly introduction of myself. Seattle is filled with rude, self obsessed overgrown adolescents who think themselves sophisticated because they hate nearly everything wholesome or decent. They own cars and homes and clothes they can’t afford to impress people they don’t know or care to get acquainted with. They think themselves clever for laughing at obscenities and vulgarities. And they are the ones who look down on the centered folks in Eastern Washington? Yeah, right.
I fail to understand why rich urban Washingtonians should subsidize poor rural Washingtonians who view us with contempt. I also fail to understand why rich urban Americans should subsidize poor rural Americans who view us with contempt. School equalization is the equivalent of farm subsidies. If rural Americans/Washingtonians believe that government is the problem, not the solution, well, I know what the solution is, and I agree with Goldy that it begins with taking them at their word and slashing their government funding.
@67
That’s all well and good. I’m happy you’ve found a way of life that works well for you and your family.
Please explain why the rest of us should subsidize it.
Thanks!
@68 I hate poor analogies. School equalization is NOT equivalent to farm subsidies. Education is not fully funded by the state; we’re expected to make up the difference through local levies. This is more about rich and poor than it is urban and rural. I work in an urban district where levies always pass, but our neighborhoods are so poor that it still comes nowhere near fully funding our schools.
Corydon,
Subsidize my lifestyle?
You DON’T.
I pay my bills, thanks very much. I’ve never collected any government subsidy, welfare check, unemployment or other handouts. Nor will I. My kids go to school in an affluent district, not one allegedly benefiting from levy equalization. In fact, paying property taxes in 3 counties, only one of which my children attend school in, I’m subsidizing the education of other peoples kids. Paying utility rates and consumer necessities at the cabin and our house here in suburbia we support 2 local economies (not to mention the cottage in Italy, supporting a different local economy.) Our cabin is not protected by any fire department and has minimal police coverage, which is as it should be considering we chose the remote location. We drive to work or to the cabin on mostly state or county roads, but we pay for them in gas taxes, property taxes, state sales taxes and on and on and on.
So how exactly are you subsidizing my lifestyle? That’s right, not at all.
@67, you purchased a house in a crappy neighborhood, you are going to move to a place where you can not make as much money, where the “tax poor” live. You are choosing to move there, I am choosing to not subsidize your “hamlet”.
Beyond the short term, it is very likely that the economic tax credits for anything beyond helping short sighted hamlets rebuild aging sewer and water pipes will end. This will have a broader impact than levy equalization.
@71:
Then you don’t have a problem with any of Goldy’s suggestions.
@ 72
Again, how are you subsidizing the small community in which my cabin is located? As I noted, I pay taxes in 3 counties, so really, I’m the one doing the subsidizing. At a guess you don’t own even the place you live, so whining about taxes seems a bit disengenuous.
BTW, we still own the home we purchased on Capitol Hill near Seattle U. It’s valued at nearly $750,000, even now. Not exactly a ghetto, but anywhere in the downtown core is subject to vagrants and addicts. Anywhere in the downtown core is dirty, noisy and short on quiet spaces for families to enjoy. The schools are neither safe nor conducive to raising decent kids with a sensible approach to moral and ethical lifestyles despite ‘levy equalization.’ That’s why we moved, not because the neighborhood was ‘crappy.’ Basically Seattle is a horrible place to live for any right minded human being.
The experience with rude self absorbed neighbors has been nearly universal in my 20 years in the Seattle metro area. Something about liberals seems to make them care deeply about the plight of anonymous hypothetical people, while despising the folks two doors down or accross the street. One neighbor sent us an email when my wife brought her a cake welcoming her to the community. “Please don’t come onto my property without permission. It is trespassing.” She was the worst, but by no means unexceptional in attitude, what I might call the Seattle way.
@Seattle Blues
You’re a high earner, that’s awesome. Way to go, sport. Sadly, you are probably in the minority in the county your cabin is located. Betcha the taxes collected in that county are not enough to cover the food stamps, Basic Health, TANF, and other social services the good folks in your county are using. That lady you bought your latte from on the way to the cabin last weekend can’t afford to feed her kid on a barista’s salary, ya know? There’s a one in ten chance that her husband is drawing an unemployment check. Just because you have been fortunate enough to keep a $750,000 house AND a cabin AND a cottage in Italy during the recession doesn’t mean the rest of your community has been so lucky. King County is not subsidizing you, but it is subsizing the guy who bags your groceries, the chick who works at your drycleaners, and the kid who delivers your pizzas.
I’m a renter. My landlord charges me an amount greater than his morgage plus property taxes. Property taxes affect renters too.
I am truly grossed out at the idea of cutting funds to public schools because A) Kids don’t get to vote and shouldn’t be made to suffer by the decisions of their parents, B) I believe that quality basic education is a right every Amerian deserves access to regardless of zip code, and C) the better the education of the rural kids, the better their income will be later in life, the more taxes they will pay to support social services in their own communities and less likely to need those social services themselves.
P.S. Sorry your Seattle neighbors are pricks, but pricks don’t have a certain side of the mountains they are restricted to. I know plenty of pricks that live out in the Tri-Cities area. I’ve lived in Seattle my entire life and have had neighbors that have been jerks, and neighbors that I’ve formed good friendships with. Hate to say it, but maybe it’s you…
@75
“Maybe”. Heh.
I agree with this nationwide. It is especially time to cut all farmer’s welfare- all the red-state welfare kings who suck off huge ag subsidies and the 2$ per-head per-year grazing allotments that are ruining our public lands. Socialism, you know. Let the great leveller of the free market loose!
I have frown weary of making public education the battle ground of movements to change the greater world to fit a particular social or economic model, no matter how worthy. There is a better working model for testing teabaggerism in the larger world. We call it Texas. The change from a democracy to a post-modern feudalistic theocratic aristocraticy continues apace.
We have degenerated from the point where the noble cause of desegregation of public schools is a series of fights over evolution, taxes, teacher’s unions, science, history and a thousand lesser causes. I must insist that using the schools to make a point is counterproductive in the worst way. Several of the poorest Eastern Washington counties have very little private property that is taxable, so cutting off levy equalization would harm the children who seem to be destined to move over here to make a living and further build our economy. Cripple their education and we all pay the price.
I just re-read my post. Man, am I no fun or what?
I agree wholeheartedly with this post but can we further micro-size this so those of us living north of the ship canal don’t keep sending our tax money southbound to the crackheads and baby mamas I see staggering around Westlake when they come north to feed?
@ 75
High earner? Nope. I’m middle class by income. I just happen to have worked hard to earn that income and a reputation in my field that makes it fairly secure even now. I happened to marry late when I could afford the finances of a wife and children. I happen to have avoided consumer credit, driven paid for cars for 10 years or more and generally been very careful with the money I do earn. The cottage in Italy? My oldest friend lives there and the place cost us $40,000, hardly ‘Under the Tuscan Sun.’
Sorry, I don’t ‘happen’ to have done any of these things. I chose to do them. As could you or anyone else, the barrista near my cabin included. As a matter of fact, that barrista is a smart charming young woman who owns the shop in which she works. She bought it at 19 and goes to college partly on the proceeds of her endeavor. Her ability to make a fine cappucino and her ownership matter much more to me than seeing some child half my age in her underwear making my morning cup of coffee.
The rent on my house on Capital Hill is not driven by the costs of ownership. It is driven by the rates charged in the area. As it happens many landlords don’t make money on the rent per se. Some, like me, are keeping a good long term investment at a slight monthly loss on the rent, insurance, maintanance and taxes. Some simply don’t wish to sell at the bottom of a market and are biding their time while taking a loss each month. I’ve had tenants who assume what you do before. It just isn’t true most of the time.
My neighbors in suburbia are great. My kids love their kids, or enjoy the older folks who see them as surrogate grandkids. My wife likes most of the neighor ladies. I like most of the neighbor guys. Sure, some are jerks, or just not our cup of tea (or we theirs.) Once a year or as needed we get together to help an older couple on fixed income with home repairs and so on. We’ve done this for folks who lost jobs and needed emergency repairs. New neighbors are welcomed. Yards are kept up, and homes kept painted. It isn’t the Cleavers, but it’s sharply opposed to my experience in urban King County. I suppose this makes sense. It’s easier to care about abstractions than the kindly (or occasionally grumpy) elderly woman who needs tangible help next door or the salesman a few doors down too proud to ask for the help he needs. ‘Caring’ about the plight of rural schoolchildren in Washington costs you nothing. Helping Mrs. Jones or Mr. Smith put a new roof on their home, or cut back her roses for the year costs money or time. Talking the talk is easy, walking the walk not so much.
Heck, democrats have it easy. You want charity done at the federal and state level, and you want it done using other peoples money. Neat trick, if it worked. Too bad it makes bad economic policy and is ethically dodgy.
Seattleblues is a pathetic troll who used to pollute the threads at horsesass under the name lostinaseaofblue. He is an intellectual shitstain with nothing to add to any conversation other than endless personal anecdotes that he thinks display his vast superiority over every other living being on the planet. Ignore him long enough and he will slink off to his rock.
A guy who thinks it’s funny to use a mass murderers name as his tag calls someone a shit stain? Only in Seattle.
Horsesass? Is this a coffee house, a bar or what? But it sounds an appropriate place for someone using Pol Pot as a tag and ‘intellectual shitstain’ as an attempt at personal attack to hang out. Clearly you are a person who takes the high road on things. Or not.
Good luck with the unbridled anger there, ‘Pol Pot.’
King County Tax Money for King County Only!! Here Here!!
It’s time those welfare counties in our state pull themselves up by their boot straps!!!
I’m a fan of Goldy’s but this is pure idiocy, a recipe for making republicans’ grip on those areas permanent.
seattleblues – what point are you trying to make in this tread? i don’t get it.
congratulations on the success in life, though.
This kind of reminds me of the great “fuck the south” rant that was published in the Stranger the day after the 2004 presidential election. In the great, pissed-off “Urban Archipelago” edition. I agree. http://www.fuckthesouth.com/
it is time to give the people the government they have asked for. and that government includes schools w/ 45+ kids in a class. goldy, i am 100% in agreement w/ this and other things like it. if/when people decide that they actually do want a government that provides necessary services, then they can start voting for that. in the meantime, i could care less about what happens to their children. you don’t want to fuck your children’s future? step 1 is to stop voting to fuck your children’s future. until people stop doing that, screw their kids. oh, and i’d be more than happy if the pain was felt all over the state & in seattle too. whatever it takes to get people to realize what the endpoint of what they’ve been asking for really is.
giving “them” the government they want would be cutting waste, welfare, arts and public transportation, which would magically free up funds for more roads and school vouchers, with a nice tax break on top.
the problem with goldy’s and seattleblues’ arguements are basically the same: they don’t deal with the actual issues.
seattleblue’s uptopia is one that only a few privileged can afford, and is only possible because the full expense is not paid by someone enjoying that environment, but seattleblue’s doesn’t agree with this, or recognize how. the actual issue is this misunderstanding. what seattleblues doesn’t agree with (or comprehend) is echoed throughout much or rural washington, and especially in the affluent suburbs. why can’t seattle be more like ephrata? why can’t seattle be more like bellevue? because with people come needs, such as public transportation, welfare, etc. just because YOU live where those services aren’t offered doesn’t mean they are no loner necessary services.
goldy thinks rural people are tired of subsidizing the city folks. but the rural people are tired of subsidizing (their share of) welfare, public transportation, inefficiency, etc.. they WANT less welfare, waste, social services, and the like. this extra money can be put to what the government essentials (in their minds) are, such as infrastructure, defense, and your other red state and suburban concerns.
that is why @8’s idea is so good. it deals with the issue: the lack of understanding. or, at least, does a better job of illustrating the flow of money in the state. there will still be disagreements over what the government should spend on, and why ephrata is safe than seattle, and why schools in issaquah are better than those in seattle, and all the other perceptions that lead people to believe that seattle doesn’t know how to spend money properly, and that seattle is not a good place to live.
I don’t agree with splitting the state. I think we should simply end the transfer of wealth to Eastern Washington, while keeping them as a colony. Life ain’t fair.
The question of who subsidizes who is interesting. Rural taxpayers, on average, pay a far higher percent of their personal incomes in state and local taxes in Washington State. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says Washington has the most regressive tax system in the country whereby the poorest pay over 17% of their personal incomes in state and local taxes and the richest pay less than 4%.
Ferry County has the lowest average incomes in state and as such pays, on avearge, the highest percent of their incomes in taxes. Yet the school levies are under 15% of their school budgets, even with levy equalization. King County has the highest average personal incomes, yet every district in King County finds at least as much as 25% more and up to 37% more for their schools from the local levy.
A $150,000 home in Toppenish has to pay over twice the taxes of a $1 million home in Bellevue to get the same taxes as Bellevue for their schools. Toppenish taxpayers would have to pay ten times the tax rate of Bellevue to receive the same levy. And do so in a district where over 90% of the students qualify as living in poverty.
The poorest taxpayers are paying the most as a percent of their incomes and receiving the least in services for their schools in this state.
On a per capita basis, yes, King County puts more into the state coffers, but on a percent of personal income basis, the poorest counties’ taxpayers, on average, pay by far the most in taxes and, essentially, can be seen as subsidizing the richest areas through such incredibly regressive taxes as the property tax and sales tax.
Levy equalization simply returns to those districts willing to pass their school levies and these far higher tax rates and the taxes the already pay.
Levy equalization provides greater equity in taxation and in education and includes six very large urban district in King County, almost all district in Snohomish and Pierce counties, Spokane, Vancouver, and most districts outside of King County.
Neal