Go ahead.

Put up a Seattle-only Initiative to create an Income Tax on the Rich (those households making more than $250,000).

What's stopping you?

Look, here's the manuals:

http://clerk.seattle.gov/~public/citizen…

Get to it.

I would double the death tax, initiate a birth tax, and triple the property tax on homes worth more than one million dollars.

If the rich tried to flee, I would have them executed, with their assets given to the poor. Imagine Medina and The Highlands as a collective farm, Innis Arden as worker's housing, and Bel Square as a collective mercantile. You get the picture.

I don't have a problem with a state income tax... as long as we do away with the sales tax. You can have one, but not both.

Sales tax is about the most regressive form of taxation there is and it's time for the rich to pay their fair share.

The key is to not let the camel's nose into the tent until the sales tax is gone.

@1 I'm pretty sure Goldy is aware of the likelihood of an initiative like that gaining popularity (we just HAD a state income tax for the rich on the ballot, and it went down in flames).
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Wa…

This is more of a cry for "if I could FORCE MEDICINE DOWN THE THROAT of this state's citizens because even though they would never choose it, it's gonna MAKE THEM WELL AGAIN, goddammit!"

Hence the "dictator" bit. You can give the electorate a choice between good long-term investments and a property tax break, and they're gonna take the free money every time, rationalizing that they're only saving an overbloated government from itself. See "Tim Eyman".

If you're a benevolent dictator, why not make it a VAT tax instead? If you want, make it progressive (you mail people refund checks every so often up to a certain amount, so that rich people get soaked for consuming products and services, but not investing) as befitting something ordered by the powerful leader of the PЗФPLЭ'S ЯЗPЦЬLIC ФF ШДSHIИGTФЙ.

@6 WTF? How is enacting a VAT then mailing checks back to everyone in the state (based on their incomes?) remotely efficient OR progressive?

If your logic is that it will "soak the rich" who spend all their money", not only is this not true (the rich are the only ones who can afford NOT to spend all their money), but it DISCOURAGES the rich from spending or investing, which is what we WANT them to do.

Wait - you're just trollng, right? I see what you did there.

@3: A birth tax? A society needs a birth rate at 2.5 per family to sustain, overpopulation not withstanding, geriatric-nation is not a good thing.

Phoebe dear, do try to focus. The birth tax would only be on the rich. And if they didn't want pay the 250k per child tax, they'd be welcome to have a complimentary abortion at one of my public school reproductive health care centers.

Are you sure you're not just Bill Gates Sr?

Goldy,

I think maybe I am slightly more mad than you. I do agree entirely that a statewide income tax must be implemented. However, I think this tax should be expanded to not only include individuals but also corporations. I favor a tax on the volume of trade.

I also think carbon emissions could be lowered by the use of taxation.

While I do not favor a birth tax (women lacking access to birth control should not be penalized for the bigotry of those who would deny them the pill), I do not believe as 9 does that WA state's population depends on breeding large numbers of people. After all, the border is not the edge of human habitation. Build this state up to make it desirable for others to live in, and people will move here. A lower birth rate within the state would be beneficial in many respects, as it would allow women to pursue careers and leadership roles without being chained to the kitchen and the nursery. It would also alleviate the pressure to enter into marriages with men who would treat them badly, as is often applied by parents and religious organizations. When a woman's role shifts from baby-making machine to fully-actualized human, her bondage ceases. Given the contributions women have made to our culture, the sciences, politics and virtually everything else, I welcome the idea of more of them pursuing intellectual interests and careers. Where would we be as a world without Madame Curie, Amelia Earhart, or Rosalind Franklin? When I consider the women who have done so much to advance us as a species, I think to myself, "more like those, please." And when I look at the wretches condemned to clitorectomies, spousal abuse, internalized misogyny implanted by religion, low pay and housework, I am reminded of precisely why it is that I consider myself to be a feminist.

That said, I do notice than on your list of development projects you left off one that is near and dear to my heart, that being the cause of public health and medicine. I would love more than anything to extend universal single payer healthcare to every Washingtonian. I would like to increase funding to the state and all local health departments, and to build new dentistry, veterinary, medical and public health schools at state colleges from Evergreen to WSU to WWU. I would like to see the return of the public hospital (Tacoma hasn't had one since 2009) in every county seat. I would also like to see community health centers in every neighborhood. If I had one wish, it would be to see a dramatic reduction in the number of preventable deaths across all income strata and all ethnicities across the state. I would like to see a day when the days when people died of syphilis (an easily treatable disease that still claims millions) become subject matter for history books and not the news. I would like to restore TB programs once prevalent in WA in the 1970's, and bring our rates for that infection down to historic levels. I never again want to hear of a homeless person dying from an abscessed tooth or gangrene.

In fact, I'd also like to fund housing for every Washingtonian.

The fundamental difference between people like us, and the people like #1, is that we value human life so much that we will fight to save the lives of others. For you and I, it is worth it to pay extra tax just to know that our neighbors will be well educated, fed, employed, housed, and safe. For us, it is worth more to have clean air and water and a more modest apartment than it is to live in a gated community at the edge of a chemical waste swamp. The difference si that when we look at our fellow Washingtonian, we see human beings, not mere objects to exploit for personal gain.

The difference is that we are human. Let us never forget our humanity.

Goldy, I would very much like to buy you a drink. Sometime, lets go plan a revolution over a few beers.

No doubt Goldy would want to institute a "modest" tax on the wealthy. He's clearly not wealthy and thinks he is getting something on the things he wants to spend other peoples' money to fund.

I doubt Goldy would (truthfully) be happy with a not so modest tax increase that affected him personally (as well as others in his circumstance and more wealthy) and was used to finance things he felt were of no benefit to him personally or that he believed were not beneficial to society as a whole.

@8

> @6 WTF? How is enacting a VAT then mailing checks back to everyone in the
> state (based on their incomes?) remotely efficient OR progressive?

First I'm neither a progressive nor a leftist, so keep this in mind. This being said, progressives really should take this seriously as income taxes are not an ideal way to collect revenue or redistribute wealth.

Taxing the difference between what people "earn" (I'm including unearned income) and what they consume at different marginal rates is more progressive than a sales tax, because you're taxing people that consume more at higher rates.

Letting businesses that already have to pay accountants to keep track of the net value they generate allows the government to make it profitable for businesses to do much of the work of tax enforcement for them while not creating additional costs made to work with and around increasingly complex tax codes. The cost of calculating and transferring money back to the people that didn't consume as much as other people is peanuts.

Beyond that, you want to encourage (or at least not make it harder) for people to save and invest. The person that takes 10% of their paycheck and puts it into a mutual fund is helping to build the future, both for them and everyone else. Don't tax that. Tax the person that buys a yacht, a fancy car, etc.

1. Replace sales taxes in their entirety with a statewide income tax.
2. Stop letting already-profitable companies like Boeing whittle their tax bills down nothing (or less than nothing) due to tax breaks and loopholes. Lessen the regulatory and tax burden on small, locally-owned businesses. In other words, level the business playing field.
3. Enact a requirement for local government workers to reside in the city or town they work for. No more SPD officers living in Marysville, no more city accountants commuting from Mountlake Terrace.

15

I agree with point 1, but point 2 is a terrible idea. Public servants must be allowed to reside out of the area where they work. Otherwise, the families of police officers might be harassed by the people they arrest.

#5 and #7

You're kidding right?

You realize I'm saying this tax would apply only to Seattle right.

(Of course not, I only said it all day like 10 times, why would I expect that.)

And given that it has a high likelihood of passing.

And secondly this person, Goldy, has a Megaphone that he uses to address the people of Seattle day in and day out.

If he were to fill out the form for a Seattle Tax on Rich Incomes use this SLOGophone and write about it and get his editors to put up pro bono advertising, would it not instantly get the required signatures and be up for the vote. A person with such reach does not need any money at all for this.

So there it is.

Put up or shut up time.

@ 16, Denver has required its city employees, including fire and police department officers, to live within city limits for decades. No such thing has ever happened.

City employees were required to live in the city until the 70's, I believe. At one time, they even had to swear a loyalty oath.

But beware - under a requirement like that, wages would have to be much higher to be able to afford housing here.

I agree with your self-assessment Goldy. The first step is to admit you have a problem...

Keep up the good work, I'll support your reform every step of the way.

In the meantime, quit trying to spend other people's money, ya damn pinko.

People should not have to surrender any of their rights when they accept a job with the local government. That includes their right to organize and bargain collectively and their right to live where they damn well please.

All the previous income tax proposals after the one successful one in '32 have gone down in flames (34, 70, 73, 75, 2010).

Most previous proposals were not tied to abolishment of another tax in its place. While I seriously doubt it would pass, tying the abolishment of sales tax to an income tax proposal is about the only chance in hell it might have.

@ 1&2...

The asshole doing what he does best...being an asshole!

(We need an award category...I think so. Yes.)

I would buy into the plan if you would just add free ringtones for everyone!

If I were dictator I'd send Goldy back to L.A. where he came from.

@ 5 That was a heavy GOP year lets do it again in a better year for Dems.

@ 25 Wasn't Washington a blue state before the transplants for Cali got here. (And Goldy is from the east coast).

I agree wholeheartedly with Goldy's original comment with no reservations. Did anyone else read it? I agree with #3 also- but only after we hash out some of the details (I don't eat food grown on the eastside.)

If I was benevolent dictator of Washington State I would make puns in the names of Asian restaurants illegal.

@5 . hmm, I had no idea I lived in rzfrlye's yazrtslits ff shdsniygtfu. #russian101 #tryingtobefunny