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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film-Yak   » Washington State Legislators are Digging Themselves Into A Hole (Page 2)

 
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Author Topic: Washington State Legislators are Digging Themselves Into A Hole
Jack Ondracek
Film God

Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002

- posted 01-14-2003 09:59 PM      Profile for Jack Ondracek   Author's Homepage   Email Jack Ondracek   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
from Steve:
I have no problem with taxes on the sale of gasoline...IF IT GOES TO THE ROADS. If you are buying gas...it is pretty safe to presume, you are using the roads. I do have a problem with a gas tax that goes to deficet reduction.
They tried to convince the voters that this new gas tax would be dedicated exclusively to roads... but there's a lot of ingrained distrust right now.

A case in point that most old pfartes around here remember is how our state lottery got voted in. The State assured us all that the proceeds would be used (and therefore, the whole reason for the lottery) to meet the State's obligation to fully fund education. We voted it in. THEN, the weasels in Olympia told us that it would be illegal to earmark this money to a specific use and the money would have to be put into the general fund, where it's darn near impossible to track what goes where. Today, nobody knows what percentage of the lottery goes to schools... but it isn't much.

We also have a bridge on the Hood Canal up here that was originally constructed as a toll bridge. Again, to get it voted in, the State agreed (in writing) that the tolls would be used exclusively to pay off the bridge, and they would be discontinued by a certain date. The date came and went, and the State admitted using the money to support other projects, like the ferry system. It took an uprising and some well-place lawsuits to get the State to keep their word. The toll booths were finally removed, though there was a lot of yelling and screaming and doom-saying and wringing of hands over it.

Finally, there's the problem with the "other side" of the state. Washington is split down the middle by the Cascade mountain range. Life on the eastern side is much different than the west. As it happens, our state capital is on the west side, so naturally, it appears most attention is given to the needs of our side of the state... namely, SEATTLE. It makes it pretty hard to get much sympathy from the easterners... and probably rightly so, since they have a lot of concern about minor things... like WATER, and don't see any particular reason to be paying for the ferries and bridges and viaducts that occupy our attention on the western side of the state.

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Paul G. Thompson
The Weenie Man

Posts: 4718
From: Mount Vernon WA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

- posted 01-14-2003 10:53 PM      Profile for Paul G. Thompson   Email Paul G. Thompson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Well said, Jack. There was, at one time as you probably recall, some folks wanted to split Washington State into two states... Eastern Washington and Western Washington. Naturally, that went over like a mercury-filled tennis ball - from Western Washington politicians.

And, yes ... these damned morons in Olympia speak with forked tongue. They also wait until an undesirable referendum or initiative to be passed. Then they question the constitutional validity of it, and literally bust their butts to get it thrown out.

Seems to me an issue like that should be tested even before it reaches the voters, not after!

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Jacob Huber
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 172
From: Evansville, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

- posted 01-14-2003 11:40 PM      Profile for Jacob Huber   Email Jacob Huber   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Steve Guttag, I salute you. As a man of common sense, of ethics, and of reason, for all these and more, I salute you. [thumbsup]

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Ken Layton
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1452
From: Olympia, Wash. USA
Registered: Sep 1999

- posted 01-14-2003 11:58 PM      Profile for Ken Layton   Email Ken Layton   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I don't make alot of money so I naturally have to decide what I can or cannot do without. Why can't the clowns in government do the same. There is so much waste in our bloated government. With Boeing and now the famous Olympia Brewery going bye-bye, when is our governor going to wake up and see what a business un-friendly state we have?

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Steve Kraus
Film God

Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000

- posted 01-15-2003 12:32 AM      Profile for Steve Kraus     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
A gas tax can also be reasonably spent on mass transit. The road user benefits because in many large cities transit gives the taxpayer more bang for the buck in terms of movement of large numbers of people in traditional commuting patterns. It benefits those who actually use it, those who who don't but would otherwise have to share the roads with those who do, and even those who go a different way entirely because their taxes are being used more efficently over on the commuting routes which leaves more for highway building elsewhere.

Mr. G wrote
Having a safety net like SS encourages financial irresponsibility.

So what would you do with the people who become old or incapacitated (yeah, SS applies there too) in your laise faire utopia and have no savings, let them starve on the street corners? I think not. The government would have to do something about it and you'll end up paying in the end anyway with the only difference being that those people blew their money and didn't contribute so it will come from working people like you.

Doing away with SS would be a more realistic solution if people could be counted on to sock that amount into savings and investments. But mostly they won't. How do I know this? Because we in the U.S. have the lowest or second lowest personal savings rate out of the largest 7 industrialized nations. And not by a little. We save at a rate of less than half the others (except for Canada who used to be way ahead of us too but sometimes drops below us). No, I don't see a need for SS going away anytime soon.

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Ray Brown
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 111
From: Dayton, WA, USA
Registered: Sep 2002

- posted 01-15-2003 12:36 AM      Profile for Ray Brown   Author's Homepage   Email Ray Brown   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
There was, at one time as you probably recall, some folks wanted to split Washington State into two states... Eastern Washington and Western Washington.
Some one else had an idea of combining Eastern Washington & Eastern Oregon along with North Idaho to form a new state with Spokane as the capitol. That also didn't go over to well in Olympia, Salem, and Boise. This was several years ago.

I don't mind paying taxes to support our roadways if it is actually used for that purpose. The states commerce depends on a good road system and that includes the Seattle area. (I can just hear Paul commenting on Seattle traffic.)

Life is different here on the east side, but I wouldn't trade it.

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Jack Ondracek
Film God

Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002

- posted 01-15-2003 03:27 AM      Profile for Jack Ondracek   Author's Homepage   Email Jack Ondracek   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Paul & Ray:
I remember that movement. I was working for a radio & TV station in Yakima back then.

Ray... hope I didn't infer anything negative about Eastern Washington. Yes... it's a cool place... especially in the Winter! [Big Grin]

Having been raised on this side, I missed the trees & the wonderfully unpredictable rain we get here.

Besides... someone had to stick around to make sure the Space Needle didn't really get shipped over to you guys!

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

- posted 01-15-2003 07:02 AM      Profile for Leo Enticknap   Author's Homepage   Email Leo Enticknap   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
Ray, I don't think The Gov will have the balls to run again. If he thought we were idiots to go along with a 9-cent per gallon tax increase, he was nuts!
I'm sure he'd get a warm welcome in the UK! Here we pay fuel duty equivalent to about $3 per gallon. That's on top of personal income tax of 22% on earnings up to an annual income of £31k and 40% on earnings above that. Then there's 'national insurance' of around 8% - this used to be a predicated tax for health and social security provision, but is now effectively part of general income taxation. Next comes the local authority tax, the 'council tax', the amount of which varies according to the value of the property you live in (even if you only rent it: this is not just a tax on homeowners), and is typically around $1,000 per household per year. Oh, and that's not mentioning the 17.5% VAT on virtually all goods and services except food and clothes. Then there's the huge amount of money those criminals in the 'European Union' milk us for, mainly to subsidise French and German farmers' attempts to destroy British agriculture (if Bin Liner has any WMDs, please could he drop them on Brussels?).

It's been calculated that the average Briton has an overall tax burden of around 56% now, up 7% from when the Labour Party came to office in 1997. For that we should be getting just about the best public services in the developed world, right? Wrong. Crime has industrial disputes have skyrocketed whilst health, education and transport have fallen apart.

When governments try and run public services on a large scale the result is inefficiency and incompetence. There should certainly be a safety net for those who genuinely need it, but that should not be an excuse for creating a nanny state.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 01-15-2003 07:08 AM      Profile for Scott Norwood   Author's Homepage   Email Scott Norwood   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
$3/gallon gas tax???? Ouch! Here, gas is in the $1.55 (ish) per gallon range, tax included, and that is a significant increase from a few years ago.

I tend to agree that a "social safety net" is important for those who suffer extremely unfortunate circumstances, but does this really need to be run by the government? I would argue that private charities (run by social and/or religious organizations) can operate more efficiently than governments and would do a better job of helping those who are genuinely in need (as opposed to those who are simply lazy, and take advantage of government programs).

Here in MA, the state income tax is a more-or-less flat 5.9% on income above a certain amount (which I don't remember offhand). There was a referendum question on last November's ballot which proposed eliminating the income tax entirely and--quite surprisingly--it almost passed.

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Steve Kraus
Film God

Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000

- posted 01-15-2003 07:29 AM      Profile for Steve Kraus     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I thought Itchy cut off the top of the Space Needle and the point skewered Scratchy in the eye. Or was it the other way around?

My comments about mass transit do not necessarily apply to monorails unless they can show an advantage over conventional systems which, of course, they cannot, aside from the "oh cool" factor.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

- posted 01-15-2003 07:34 AM      Profile for Leo Enticknap   Author's Homepage   Email Leo Enticknap   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
Here, gas is in the $1.55 (ish) per gallon range, tax included.
Here it's around £0.75 ($1.10 approx.) per litre, or £3.40 ($4.94) per imperial gallon. At a very rough guess I'd say I pay between $30 and $40 per week on fuel taxes for travelling about 350 miles.

quote:
I tend to agree that a "social safety net" is important for those who suffer extremely unfortunate circumstances, but does this really need to be run by the government?
Maybe not directly run by, but certainly guaranteed and regulated by. The only functions I'd always want to be directly run and controlled by the government are defence and law enforcement (unless the alternative is having them run by Brussels, in which case I think I'd prefer our tax-and-spending incompetents over French and German ones - at least we can vote ours out!).

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Ray Brown
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 111
From: Dayton, WA, USA
Registered: Sep 2002

- posted 01-15-2003 08:01 AM      Profile for Ray Brown   Author's Homepage   Email Ray Brown   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
Ray... hope I didn't infer anything negative about Eastern Washington. Yes... it's a cool place... especially in the Winter!
Don't forget that it's cooking here during the summer.

What really irked me about that gas tax initiative is the money they spent on the advertising. For weeks I couldn't turn on a radio, watch a local TV channel, or open a newspaper, with out hearing or seeing one of those ads saying it wouldn't cost us very much per month. Can't remember the exact amount now.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

- posted 01-15-2003 08:12 AM      Profile for Steve Guttag   Email Steve Guttag   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Steve K. The monorail does indeed possess an advantage over other masstransit systems (ie conventional rail)...when elevated, they take up significantly less real estate than either roads or rail roads. Their chief disadvantage is that their number of passengers per car is very low due to the mechanics of its ability to make turns.

As to gas taxes going to mass-transit? No effin way. Mass transit should survive based on its superiority or fail on its inferiority. When a Bus fills up at their pumps, the fuel they use would be taxed and go into the roads they use.

Most mass transit systems just don't work for me...they are not 24 hour systems...they can get you there but not ncessarily get you home (me working in the movie industry).

As to SS...I'll take people starving in the streets over the present system...that, I guess, is a cold side of me. I'd much prefer a system where the money that would go to SS would instead be invested in a "trust fund" type of account that is one's personal account...no government...it could be a required investment (just like a SS) where governments involvement would be minimal. That is, only approved types of investments (but the citizen can choose) and there would be restrictions on taking it out, like a trust fund. Think IRA here. This would be money that the government can not get it's hands on to use for other stuff.

Steve

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

- posted 01-15-2003 09:01 AM      Profile for Leo Enticknap   Author's Homepage   Email Leo Enticknap   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
IRA?! What does a terrorist group have to do with social security provision?

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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)


Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001

- posted 01-15-2003 09:27 AM      Profile for Bob Maar   Author's Homepage   Email Bob Maar   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Leo, IRA here = Individual Retirement Account.

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