That's a pretty eloquent dismissal of supply side.

...and the plan to get around the Washington State constitutional prohibition on income taxes is what exactly? Regardless of the merits of this proposal, do you really think that Washington voters will open the door to an income tax?

I'm all in favor of a more progressive tax structure for this state. We have the worst of the country.

I want my freedom back!

I love the unintended consequences of the tea bag movement.

It started against the fat cats at the banks.

And look what it ends up with - exactly what the America-hating GOP didn't want - more taxes for Big Corporations and Millionaires.

Woo Hoo!

Flaneur @2,

The income tax was ruled unconstitutional in a state Supreme Court ruling in 1933 that relied upon a misreading of an earlier US Supreme Court case, and then several lower court rulings have affired . That underlying US case was challenged in other states and has been essentially overturned, with income taxes affirmed everywhere. Only Pennslyvania and Washington still rely upon it at the state level. Because of this, it's likely that any challenge to an income tax would lead to an overturning of the mistaken 1933 ruling.

The whole reason we have such a broken tax system, including both our excessive sales tax and brain-dead B&O tax, is because in the wake of this reversal the state instituted temporary taxes. There was never any intention that we'd still be operating under those taxes almost 80 years later.

See http://dor.wa.gov/content/aboutus/statis… for a detailed explanation, and http://horsesass.org/?p=23170 for a more straightforward explanation. Or look up the history of the income tax on historylink.org.

You're confusing assets with dividends, capital gains, and other taxable events, @7.

but don't you see? it takes WAY longer than 20 years for the rich to stop being selfish, and that's before they'll start trickling down. and if you're not already rich by now you're lazy and you don't deserved to get trickled anyway so keep waiting. eventually SOME of them will be more altruistic and synergystic, but the more you tax them 37 in stead of 31.5 or something the longer it takes.

"they speculate in high tech" Uh... yeah. And people from SEATTLE WASHINGTON are complaining about investments in the tech sector? *blink*

Not judging one way or the other on these proposals, but that was pretty idiotic statement.

@10 -- I'm with you. A lot of my good friends made some pretty good money on high tech speculation.

How exactly does she think supply-side is supposed to work, if not through market investments?

@13, Amen brother.

The worst thing you can do in a recession is tax corporations (becuase this will inevitably include small business) who need to be hiring and expanding... Yet another way to repremant success.

Let just do away with the formality altogether. Let's go find a rich person, hold them to the ground, and take some of their greed-money by force. People are dying and our government is going further into debt every day we fail to act.

I am in favor of a highly graduated state income tax coupled with a substantial reduction in the sales tax and other non-progressive taxes - spread the income around a bit after you reach a certain high level of income. The incentive to succeed remains, and this recognizes that a much larger percentage of the money available to poor and moderate income citizens is paid in sales tax. The vast majority of states have a state income tax - we shouldn't be afraid to look in that direction. If the situation is not rectified fairly soon, there really could be a "revolt", with the disadvantaged turning to "justified crime" - @17 is not that far off.

Cascadian @6 Thanks for the links. So, you believe that ELECTED politicians will decide it is in their best interests to say be re-elected, by collectively saying IMHO the existing WA Supreme Court opinion is wrong and that therefore we, the wanna-be re-elected, are going to pass an income tax? I am not quibbling with the analysis of the opinion, just the political reality of opposing the case.

@17 - I'll get the shovel.