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1

Idea: Include Sunday's race results in your Rossi posts. Better yet, a highlight clip! Just to punch it up a little, and get people interested.

Posted by elenchos | October 29, 2007 3:49 PM
2

There are two problems with this post:

1.) Why does it follow that a larger economy demands more gov't services? Does Olympia need more employees to hand-count the greater amount of tax revenue? This makes no sense. Greater demand for gov't services is a function of a larger population, not a larger economy.

2.) Expanding children's health insurance may be a worthwhile cause, but it's not giving money back because those children didn't pay the taxes in the first place.

Posted by joykiller | October 29, 2007 4:00 PM
3

@2: Children's health insurance benefits the children of taxpayers, saving them from having to pay out-of-pocket for emergency health care. Ergo, the program benefits taxpayers.

Posted by Greg | October 29, 2007 4:23 PM
4

Some of the increase is simple inflation. Using official CPI numbers, you'd expect a 12-13% increase in revenues and expenditures between 2003 and 2007. Some is increasing population--add another 5% to that for the same period.

I'm also not convinced that no expenses scale with the size of the economy rather than population. In any case, the remaining difference amounts to less than a 3% increase each year. The bottom line is this: taxes went down compared to the growth in the economy, resulting in a government 10% smaller relative to the size of the economy. Despite this, we managed to sock away a billion dollars into a rainy day fund and increase spending by a moderate amount during a flush period to fund programs that make lives better for taxpayers.

In short, everybody wins. This is a record of fiscal prudence that nevertheless delivers results. Our state government should be commended, and if Rossi is running to change this, that's yet another reason to vote for Gregoire.

Posted by Cascadian | October 29, 2007 4:29 PM
5

And @2, a growing economy does in fact require added government services.

Increased economic activity means more people moving into the region, which means more housing construction, which means more permitting, utility & infrastructure installation & upgrades, and more demand for government services in general.

More new employees means more people either driving on roads to get to work, or using public transportaton to do the same, which means more money spent keeping the roads in repair and the busses/trains/SLUTS on the road/rails.

Increased economic activity means increased demands on public utilities, both for power consumption and for maintenance, repair and upkeep.

Increased economic activity means more new businesses opening, requiring more inspections, permitting & oversight.

That's just a brief list, off the top of my head. Try it yourself, it's a pretty fun game to play, once you get started!

Posted by COMTE | October 29, 2007 4:31 PM
6

elenchos -last race of the year is Sunday - predictions?

Posted by rubyred | October 29, 2007 4:32 PM
7

Well, it seems to me that adding 38,500 kids to the state's health care program (as Gov. Gregoire did) is giving the money back.

It most certainly is not. By this rationale, every last penny spent by the government is "giving money back."

Posted by JMR | October 29, 2007 4:34 PM
8

The question should be "giving back to whom?" The whole point of government is to do the things that wouldn't get done in its absence. We pay taxes, and *society* is paid back. Some individuals do better than others, and some are responsible for more of the cost, but we all end up living in a better place because of our public investments. We need to get rid of this mentality that everything has to have an individual payback, and that nothing is worth doing if it helps the guy down the street or across town instead of me, me, me.

Posted by Cascadian | October 29, 2007 4:41 PM
9

Children's health insurance benefits the children of taxpayers, saving them from having to pay out-of-pocket for emergency health care. Ergo, the program benefits taxpayers.

"benefits taxpayers" is not the same thing as "giving money back" to taxpayers.

In this case, the government is taking money from taxpayers and buying them something, whether they want it or not. And, since I doubt there is a strong correlation between the taxes paid by the parents of the children receiving this benefit and the cost, it is a redistribution from group A to group B.

Which you're welcome to be in favor of, it just should not be called "giving money back".

Posted by JMR | October 29, 2007 4:41 PM
10

So Josh are you saying that out relatively low tax rates are responsible for the rapidly growing state economy?

When the economy is doing well we need less spending per capita but should be socking more away for the down times.

Are permitting fees paid to the state? Aren't they considered fees not taxes?

Posted by whatever | October 29, 2007 4:44 PM
11

rubyred, I can predict with total certainty that The Stranger's coverage of the last MotoGP race of the year will suck. There's been no improvement whatsoever in Josh Feit's race reporting since the season started.

I won't say who will win -- but I heard it will be a number with a 4 and a 6 in it.

On another note, I want to just mention very briefly that libertarian tax policy is fucking retarded and people who don't like spending money on health care for kids should be ashamed of themselves. Parasites.

Posted by elenchos | October 29, 2007 4:48 PM
12

When the economy is doing well we need less spending per capita but should be socking more away for the down times.

Of course, politicians will never do that, instead they set up a new recurring entitlement ("Think of the children! Don't you care about the children?") that becomes a burden when the economy is not as strong and tax revenues wither a bit.

Posted by JMR | October 29, 2007 4:50 PM
13

#12, the state government is doing exactly that right now, and voters have a chance to encourage that even more by passing the measure to constitutionally mandate a rainy day fund.

The flip side of that, of course, is that the state has to be prepared to spend in economic downtimes and to build and maintain necessary infrastructure to keep our economy doing well. That's the part that conservatives often forget as they rail against the very idea of government.

Posted by Cascadian | October 29, 2007 4:54 PM
14

I want to just mention very briefly that libertarian tax policy is fucking retarded and people who don't like spending money on health care for kids should be ashamed of themselves.

I don't like the way you're spending your money. Please spend your entire paycheck on health care for kids for the rest of your life.

Posted by JMR | October 29, 2007 4:59 PM
15

JMR, you cut out the "parasite" part. Couldn't you find someplace with lower taxes and smaller government to move to?

Posted by elenchos | October 29, 2007 5:04 PM
16

@5, nearly all the items you mention are functions of a growing population. If a growing economy drives the need for more government services, it does so indirectly. Greater prosperity does not in and of itself dictate greater need for public services (if anything, it should dictate the opposite).

@3, no. The program benefits PARENTS, most of whom also happen to be taxpayers. This is not the same as something benefiting taxpayers generally.

Posted by joykiller | October 29, 2007 5:04 PM
17

The government gave huge salary increases to many state employees, mainly because those employees had been denied raises for years and were woefully underpaid. I bet that accounts for a good portion of the increase in spending.

Posted by keshmeshi | October 29, 2007 5:10 PM
18

Facts have a liberal bias.

Too bad Red Bushies are math-challenged.

Mind you, that's why they need no-bid contracts from the WH in Iraq, so they can steal more.

Posted by Will in Seattle | October 29, 2007 5:19 PM
19

JMR, you cut out the "parasite" part. Couldn't you find someplace with lower taxes and smaller government to move to?

That may be in the works. But, you know, one of the reasons I came here was that I didn't like living the public-transit lifestyle while living in Manhattan, and now an unwanted rail system is getting shoved down our throats.

Perhaps all the people promoting the rail system should just find someplace with more trains to move to.

Posted by JMR | October 29, 2007 5:40 PM
20

BTW I'm not defending Rossi on this thread, though I share a name with him. It's weasel-y to comment on the spending increase without noting the increase in revenue from growth. But he's a politician, his livelihood depends on being a weasel and distorting things.

Posted by JMR | October 29, 2007 6:06 PM
21

Josh...just a lesson in politics as we go forward into this Campaign in which the Rossi team will undoubtedly continue to push misinformation such as this...

You don't need to answer more questions than their assertion raises, and in fact, it's bad politics to do so. If they say that Govt. spending has increased by 30%, then all you need to do is to show that the cause of that increase is not increased taxation, but increases in growth. Your speculation on the Children's Healthcare spending just confuses the discussion and gives them a way to avoid admitting the dishonest nature of their initial claim.

It is only when they raise the valid question of where we should be spending the increase in revenue that we can then get into a policy question on how to spend.

What's important in your story here is that rather than a hit on Gregoire, this bit of misinformation from the Rossi campaign is a net-positive on the job that this Governor is doing. But instead of talking about that, you've given them license to criticize her programs, and thus confuse your real point.

Posted by Timothy | October 29, 2007 6:19 PM
22

The Rossi math also reflects payments into the states retirement system, something Rossi failed to do in his budget. I don't have the actual # but it is hundreds of millions.

Posted by Particle Man | October 29, 2007 6:45 PM
23

"On another note, I want to just mention very briefly that libertarian tax policy is fucking retarded and people who don't like spending money on health care for kids should be ashamed of themselves. Parasites."

Nice straw man. And I don't like hippies who believe in giving heroin and dildos to first graders.

Now about this, E: let's give *public* money for health care (because that's what Josh was talking about) to kids whose families can't AFFORD health care. That's the enlightened libertarian view.

I don't get it, because I can (and do) have a company health care plan, and because I'm confident that the plan I have would be better than a government plan. The lawyer who makes $300,000 a year doesn't get it, because he can afford his own plan.

We do this so that the money that's LEFT OVER can be used to provide health care for *grownups* who can't afford it.

Posted by Big Sven | October 29, 2007 8:11 PM
24

Not to be flaky, but I preemptively take it back. elenchos is right- the hardcore libertarian position is to deny public health care to kids, even those that can't afford it. Fair enough.

I think one can be libertarian without being a douche, though. Hence my earlier vitriol.

Posted by Big Sven | October 29, 2007 9:34 PM

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