State Sen. Ed Murray: “Sales Tax Very Much in Play.”

Great, more regressive tax structures that penalize poor people.

Why am I not shocked by this?
The desire to have a story to write was greater then the story there was to tell. But, the Seattle Times needs to fill the news hole around the ads with something.
A couple days ago they were reporting that “nothing” was going on.

Word to ST, just because you are not being used to leverage public opinion, uh, I mean, conducting interviews, doesn't mean “nothing” is happening, or that the one thing you are being told is happening.

Ed Murray, you shoulda been mayor.

The sales tax doesn't really have that much impact on poor people. They can't afford to buy anything but food, generally, and there's no sales tax on actual food items. Until we get a better tax system in place, we have to try to use whatever we have.

The great thing about a sales tax as opposed to an income tax is that everyone pays, including illegal immigrants and bums who don't report any income, but tend to waste lots of money on booze and cigarettes.

The other thing to consider, Joe, is that our sales tax properly exempts necessities like groceries from tax; it is largely unnecessary goods that are taxed. This it doesn't penalize poor people so much as it rewards the frugal and virtuous.

It really hurts to agree even partially with T. Chen.

I think we both can agree that Alabama's system of charging a sales tax on food is bad policy and unfairly regressive.

Murray is hopelessly delusional and leading the Senate down a blind alley. Lisa Brown, please, reign him in and take control of this process. You will never get the votes you need in the House to increase the sales tax. Give it up, do us and yourself a favor and sideline Murray. His agenda is his, and not the Senate's, or the state's.

Barack Obama, now dubbed The Most Reasonable Man in the World, has the right idea. In his health care plan he imposes a 3.5% tax Asset Tax on interest and dividends accrued above $200K. Why doesn't WA State do the same? The precedent for an Asset Tax has been set and it could easily fill the coffers of the Archduchy of Olympia.

Or, is he holding a negotiation position (bad cop) until the Senate and House leadership have an agreement.
If they throw their hands in the air and say “Frank Chopp is right!” then they backslide into just accepting whatever the House chooses.

Brown: Frank, what is it going to take for me to get you into that Senate version of the 2010 budget?

Chopp: I guess I could give on some B & 0 taxes, but not that sales tax.

Brown: Let me go talk to the revenue manager and run the numbers. . .

I love how the whole conversation is about which taxes to raise. Why not have conversations regarding what spendign to cut?! Quit digging in my pocket.

Silliest thing I've read today. Gold star!

Thankfully we're not taxing those who benefit most from a civil society! If it weren't for their brilliance, we'd just be a collection of thieving bands ripping off and abusing the populace!
/snark

Once again, our messageless Dems, our incompetent at running anything Dems, they've ceded the field to the right wing lies – so we can't take back from the pigs at the top who take the most of everything!

Of course, the reason the pigs at the top clawed their way to the top was so they could take the most and be in charge, AND, to hide their piggy greed they have the eyeman's of the world sychophanting about convincing the underlings that the pigs care about the underlings, convincing the underlings that things will be WORSE for the underlings if the pigs ain't happy being pigs.

Yeah Dim-O-Diaper-Poopers! Soil them britches! Don't take the initiative from PROVEN liars!

Wow! IF the community takes back from the pigs, then the pigs will make health “care” worse? Our casino 'retirements” more unstable? Our roads and our school worse?

What a great deal for pigs – opponents who are Dim-0-Diaper-P00pers.

rmm.

It's silly because why…?

It's silly because why…?

Two things:

1) Let's stop dehumanizing a group of people solely because of their income. Do you have nasty animal names for Jews, Asians and others too?

2) Understand that not all rich people got rich the same way. Some people got rich by pure luck. Some through fraud and deception; take a look at Lehman Brothers or WaMu's Killinger for some examples. But others got rich because they really created value for the world and created many new jobs and made the world a more productive place. Stop lumping every rich person together. Costco's Jim Sinegal is not remotely comparable to WaMu's Killinger. One actually created real value for shareholders and grew a stable long-term oriented company that could stably employ workers and the other didn't.

I can agree with the everyone pays concept, especially visitors. I can't believe that making sure that the homeless pay taxes would drive your tax policy, but then again you “bum tax” would make sure that kindergartners pay taxes on their allowances.

While I can't find any study to back this up, I do know that illegal immigrants that aren't paid under the table do pay federal income taxes deducted by their employers from their paychecks and often do not file income tax returns that, if working legally, they would be entitled to recover, so I can only assume that a state income tax on them would work the same as the federal income tax.

Some homeless folks cost our society a lot of money when they are picked up by the ambulances in Pioneer Square and sent to the ER at Harborview for drug-related problems. The least we can do is collect some taxes on the alcohol they buy. Now if we could just legalize other drugs and tax them too then we'd been in even better shape, and maybe there'd be fewer thugs in Belltown/Pioneer Square preying on people.

Also, you hit the nail on the head with illegal immigrants. They pay income taxes if the work is above board, but that's a big IF. A sales tax makes sure that everyone pays something on non-grocery purchases.

Finally, it also discourages consumption to a certain extent. Does anyone really believe our society is not materialistic enough? That we don't have enough consumption? We have big trade imbalances with other countries. What we need is to consume less of their stuff and produce more to sell.

the senate is right to go for more revenue this year. using up all the reserves, as in the house budget, alongside the prospect of yet another tim eyman initiative to reinstate I-960, means that WA could face a 2011 budget with a huge deficit (depending on the economy) and massive contraints, being 1) no cash; and 2) no means to get more cash

Washington's sales tax has a wildly disproportionate impact on the rich and poor. From a PI story last fall (http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/archi…

“People earning less than $20,000 annually pay 17.3 percent of family income toward sales and excise taxes and property taxes, the report said. People making between $99,000 and $198,000 each year pay 7.6 percent toward their tax bill. Meanwhile, people in the top 1 percent of earners – those making more than $537,000 a year – pay just 2.9 percent, the report said.”

I think it's safe to say loosing 17% of your income to taxes when you earn <$20k is going to hurt someone a whole lot more (and net the state a whole lot less) than someone earning half a million and loosing that percentage.

Absolutely we agree on that.

You're citing something that takes ALL taxes into account. When you only consider sales tax, low-income people (who buy very little) aren't hard-hit by it. People who have the excess money to buy quite a bit pay a much bigger percentage of their income. A sales tax that DOESN'T hit necessities (like food) is fairly progressive.

WA will indeed face 2011 with a huge deficit and no means to get more cash. The question is what do we do this year. We don't have time (because nobody took it seriously yet) to reform the tax system this year FOR next year. That's a long-term project. So we're stuck just figuring out how to keep the state and most of its residents alive for another year. The revenue project to begin with was about $800M; the deficit is now probably more than $2.8B. Cuts won't do it unless you really want many more people to be hungry, homeless, and die without health care. Do you, Ooga?

It is not how they got rich that matters. It is that they are benefiting more from our society (its organization, laws, etc.) more than others so they contribute back more than others to society. That said, a mix of low sales tax and low income tax is a good balance. A stepped income tax is most progressive and a flat-rate membership fee (e.g. everyone pays $10k/year to live here) is the most regressive.

No.

Why not a value-added tax? The progressive consumption tax…

Oh Steely Eyed Pioneer! Growing Your Own Clothes, Harvesting Your Own Water, Concreting Your Own Roads! IF More of us lowly parasites would take care of ourselves, life would be wonder-full! None of us need nobody for nothing!
/ end snark.
“some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them”.
What is the ratio of Sinegal's to those who did NOT pull a Sinegal? 1 to 1? 1 to 5? I'm sure in your world it is 1 to .05, and the FACTS are it is probably closer to 1 to 50. the government gave the company a zillion acres of stolen from native americans forest, the government provided a mail contract which allowed the industry to build airplanes, daddy was a highly connected lawyer who got a SWEET contract for jr. – that is the NORM of American wealth & Sinegal is the exception.

I HOPE that you're on the short list for the inner circle for being a good sycophant. Remember when McCain & a few other Senators went shopping in Baghdad and had 100 Combat troops providing security? Troops with .50 cal machine guns and Apache and Blackhawk gunships ?? The end game of your little libertarian phantasy is a few have the resources for 100 combat troops when they want to go buy some bok choy, and the rest of us are dodging bombs, thieves and bullets.

rmm.

My point, which you haven't addressed, is that you are using dehumanizing language and lumping everyone who got rich into a group, the members of which apparently are sleazebags for having money, regardless of how they obtained it.

I don't oppose smart moves to raise taxes on the wealthy. I say smart because you have to be careful about raising taxes too much on a local level because rich people are highly mobile.

So now you're trying a karl rove tactic! Brilliant.

Not all the wealthy are parasites – just most of them. In my first comment, I'll admit that it looks like I implied ALL, when I meant to imply most. In my 2nd comment – apparently reading would interfere with your fantasy.

I'm “dehumanizing” the huge swath of the pigs at the top who think we peeee-ons exist to be doormats, boot lickers, back scratchers, serfs and cannon fodder – pigs who fought the 40 hour work week and child labor laws, and who are now stuffing their pockets and killing the jobs which hold our communities together. I'm dehumanizing Pigs? This is Limbaugh Twilight Zone, episode #459847548975?

These are the times that I really regret that this internet thing isn't face to face, so I could laugh at your 'victims' in front of you!

Robert Murphy