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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Our legislature seems determined to punish children, the elderly, the sick and disadvantaged minorities for the current Depression, so the cuts that're coming will harm people like me the most, not the gawddam dumbfucks that keep voting R from their rural and ex-urban tract houses, who don't give a damn about education or social well-being in the first place.
Off the top of my head I believe roads, rivers and state subsidized water projects, and prisons would be a significant part.
The only Constitutional issue that leaps out at me has to do with basic education funding. That is our state's "paramount duty," after all. But things like levy equalization are outside the basic funding formula, and so are legally open to cuts.
That said, I don't believe the state is currently meeting its constitutionally mandated paramount duty when it comes to basic education, and would prefer to see a broad increase in K-12 spending, rather than distorting bandaids like equalization.
If it comes down to children suffering in my community, where we respect the state's need to raise revenue for vital programs (as reflected by our votes), or children suffering in those communities, where folks have called for and voted for dismantlement of those programs, then let them sleep in the bed they've made. Like I said, there are no choices but bad choices. But a choice has to be made.
What am I missing?
Which means lots of Seattle repairs and nothing East of the Cascades.
I haven't spoken to Rep. Anderson yet, but he may just be looking out for the interests of his constituents... which is, after all, what we elect our representatives to do.
It's not quite as obvious a correlation, but it tells the same story.
Proposed by Initiative Petition Initiative Measure No. 1053
YES 391975 53.65%
NO 338603 46.35%
Again, who is punishing themselves?
For instance, doesn't the wealthier west coast derive some benefits from statewide highway projects that allow goods to be moved across the whole state? And maybe we'd rather not have those prisons in our backyard? And the benefits of water projects probably don't stop at the border.
I'm not saying it isn't a boondoggle, just a boondoggle with more a little more nuance than you're acknowledging.
I don't think that there is any ethical solution other than to fix our state's incredibly unjust and regressive taxation system, but pfffft like that's gonna happen.
I am stating that the people who're gonna suffer the most will be poor rural and minority children, including children in foster care, who don't have any say in the matter and whose only chance for having a better life is to take advantage of every benefit the state offers. And things like roads (access) effect them, too. If there were a way to target these cuts specifically at the aggressively ignorant, anti-society, hate-crazed morons that keep voting Repukelican, then I'd be all for it.
However, our "leaders," both Demoncrat and Repukelican have made the totally amoral, sickening and unethical choice to balance the budget on the backs of our most disadvantaged citizens, no matter how much misery it causes, nor how much it actually harms the state in the long-run.
Tim doesn't live in one of those red areas, does he?
This sort of initiative - which I initially thought was a really good way to make a point - blesses the suburbs and the suburban mentality. Issaquah won't mind having more money stay in king county. And issaquah likes Dino, not Clint.
Still, if this idea gets the red areas off tim I-man's bandwagon, then great.
To be clear, I'm not making a moral argument here. I'm not saying we should cut funding for the poor and disadvantaged in red Washington. I'm just pointing out that inevitably, we will, because that's where the expenditures are.
I'm not saying that exercising the nuclear option wouldn't be fun -- especially since many at ground-zero would push the red button on themselves. But it's time to put on our big-girl and big-boy pants and do some difficult work.
Oh yeah -- I am a buzz-kill.
Very few people vote with reason in mind, and since that party is made up of hustlers and rubes they wont be swayed by reason either. The people they have trusted for years have always been lying to them, they can't trust anything.
What I'm looking for is an opportunity to disabuse voters on the other side of the state of the notion that Seattle is a welfare queen sucking them dry, and in fact that they benefit more state government than we do. This is a voter education project.
While I don't support many of the ideas being expressed here, because the are bad policy, the Seattle legislative delagation needs to push some of them in order to get the needed funding for all parts of the state. A key goal of the effort should be getting eastern washington republicans to align with reality and make them understand the consequences of there anti-tax proposals. (I can dream)
And problem is, the people on the other side apparently don't pay attention. I think it's fair to say that the majority of the electorate lets their immediate, visceral reactions trump their long-term interests. Most will probably say, "I'd be happy to trash all forms of government. They don't do sh*t for me anyways." And yeah, eventually when it all goes to hell they'll realize what they did; but I don't think you're going to change their minds with paltry facts.
Oh, and @31 Will, I guess you are now free to have fun and press the button...
I'm such an a**hole... ;-)
BINGO! Those idiots need to understand how things actually work in this state, and that if they keep biting the hand that feeds them, that maybe they'll go without supper.
Well, as I've previous explained, there are two ways of determining expenditures—where the benefits are received, and where the benefits are expended—and in some spending categories, it's hard to figure out what balance to use. But since Rep. Anderson used benefits received as the basis for his charts and spreadsheet, that's what I used in this post. And it's also probably the better metric for DSHS.
For the most part there isn't a huge disparity in the two methods when looking at expenditures per county relative to each other, but 4-year colleges stands out. Under method one (benefits received in the county where the student resides), Whitman receives only $11 million in benefits, but under method two, $119 million. In truth, it's somewhere in between, as most of the WSU students reside elsewhere, but Whitman surely benefits from all the jobs and related business created.
This is one of the reasons why my first post focused on K-12 education, as those expenditures are almost entirely in the form of grants to local school districts, and thus both methods are one and the same.
*Other than Yakima (235k) and Stevens (45k), all of the tier 2 tax importers have fewer than 25,000 residents.
Um... the tax importing counties add up.
But the point is, if you're gonna cut state spending, there really is no long term choice but to disproportionately impact the red parts of the state, as they currently enjoy a disproportionate share of state expenditures.