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(33 posts)

1098, what are you thinking!!!???

Started 1 year ago by acemotel
Latest reply from JoB

acemotel
Member Profile

What the H is wrong with people to vote against their own self-interest? Or does everyone in Washington state make over $200,000? I don't think so. Do you realize this would have reduced your property tax bill and equalized the tax obligations so that poor and middle class people don't pay disproportionally into public benefits? I just don't get it. The rich get richer, and the shrinking middle class lines up eagerly to make donations to them.

Posted 1 year ago #
CarolPB
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The 2 yr deal scared people. Reduce it to 100 K-works for me! On pins & needles for Murray.

Posted 1 year ago #
GenHillOne
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"Close" is one thing, but the percentage by which it's failing baffles me. Either a LOT of people fell for the fear mongering ads (cue mousey woman in her kitchen saying she doesn't trust Olympia) or a LOT of people are pretty sure they're going to be making significantly more money in the near future.

Posted 1 year ago #
JanS
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I'm baffled, too...guess that money talks..not sure what it said to some people, though!

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
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the politics of fear win again:(

what surprises me is the booze initiatives..
i thought people would buy those big time.

Posted 1 year ago #
Julie
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Yes--ugh. It would have been a big improvement. We'll just have to keep trying....

Posted 1 year ago #
todd_
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It's sad that the kids in Seattle Schools are one of the losers in these initiatives that didn't pass. A lot of money would have come to the aid of school districts whos budgets get cut every year as it is. Parents and the community fund so much of the budget, it's mind boggling.

Posted 1 year ago #
GenHillOne
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I saw a blip (no link online yet?) that Colorado is looking into a possible mis-tally of 30K votes. As in put them in the wrong candidate's column. Whoops. Maybe we pulled a Colorado on this one?!

Posted 1 year ago #
datamuse
Member Profile

I'm fairly stunned that 1053 is passing. Are people into legislative gridlock as entertainment, or something?

Posted 1 year ago #
HMC Rich
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It's simple. No income tax until state spending is curbed. The state constitution would need to be changed too, I think.

It may have worked too. I couldn't say, but the legislature would have eventually found a way to tinker with it.

That is why people said NO!

State Legislatures and the Federal government cannot leave income taxes alone.

Posted 1 year ago #
acemotel
Member Profile

Maybe you can convince your wealthy friends to take over building/improving highways and subsidizing higher education so the state can "curb spending." ha ha ha oh, yeah. I forgot. The churches are gonna take care of it. I hope they can take care of unemployed workers, too.

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
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yeah, ace, when i see wal-mart voluntarily running the bread lines or helping hurricane and flood victims, i'll know that this whole free market b.s. actually does work to take care of those at the bottom.

until then, i'm pretty sure that i'm right that the top 2% are paying a bunch of rubes to do their dirty work for them.

"well, maybe if i carry his pee bucket, he'll give me a job..."

stunning.

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
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rich, i want to know what programs you want to cut from the state budget to meet the shortfall.

it would help if you had some specifics, and can cite either the dollar amounts of the reductions you want to make, or the percentage of the budget that the programs you would cut currently comprise.

Posted 1 year ago #
TDe
Member Profile

It never ceases to amaze me how people vote against their own best self-interests like acemotel said, and because of something that might or might not happen in the future. I'll bet most of those same people have not earthquake proofed their homes and yet a future earthquake is more certain than the legislature tinkering with a newly passed income tax. Some of those voters will no doubt be the first to scream bloody murder when the state has to make further cuts to services, education, state jobs, etc., and the State might have to raise taxes on the middle class anyhow as it struggles to find way to deal with the budget. Why it's so important to so many voters that the wealthy among us and large corporations never have to feel the impact of taxes like the poor and small business owners, completely astounds me.

Posted 1 year ago #
maplesyrup
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I'm more disappointed that 1107 and 1053 passed.

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
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well-said, TDe. it's even more amazing when people conflate small business owners with the top 2%.

small business owners are your neighbors.

the top 2% live in clyde hill, where there probably aren't a whole lot of foreclosures going on. they're a tiny minority, so they have to manipulate numbers, obfuscate, terrify, and blow smoke to get a majority to represent their interests in any election.

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
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maplesyrup: at least 1082 (the measure to effectively privatize workers' comp) failed.

which is kind of telling. the groundswell du jour hates big government and taxes, but it's obvious they don't necessarily want corporate influence over their ability to survive a workplace accident.

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
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corporate greed is easier to see when you aren't being told it's your pocketbook the government is going for.

the clear winner in this election is big money... and the only saving grace was that they believed their own story.. that if you throw enough advertising dollars at anything.. people will buy it.

next time they will pay more attention to content:(

Posted 1 year ago #
KBear
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Message from voters: "We're overtaxed and we'd like to keep it that way!"

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
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KBear, how ya' figure?

i'm not overtaxed. i actually think they're low for the value i get from my government.

i am, however, over-billed, and the value i get for my bills pretty much sucks.

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
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redblack...

i am glad to see your humor is still intact...

Posted 1 year ago #
KBear
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Redblack, I was being facetious. Washingtonians have a perception that they're overtaxed, yet they voted against the one initiative that would have done the most to lower most people's taxes.

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
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gotcha! my bad...

Posted 1 year ago #
acemotel
Member Profile

KBear :-))) Redblack +++
They can start by auctioning off the state parks, didn't need them anyway. sheeesh. No wonder the USA is in decline. Greed and fear, and a big expensive dose of propaganda, win the day!!

Posted 1 year ago #
DP
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Philistines!!

Posted 1 year ago #
dawsonct
Member Profile

Really connedservatives, you want to depend on corporate ALTRUISM to run this country!?
Good luck with that, dupes. Despite the fact that you easily fooled types are part of the group to which I refer, I prefer to depend on my FELLOW CITIZENS over a faceless, soulless entity which only is motivated by profits.
---
I hope you all wake up eventually, but greed, fear, and pettiness is pretty well hard-wired into the brains of a significant portion of the human species, so I won't be holding my breath.

Posted 1 year ago #
dawsonct
Member Profile

DP, yup. That about sums it up. America has the lowest class mobility in the industrialized world, and the main reason for that is we in the middle- and under-classes have bought into the lie that we will all be super rich some day.
And so we keep letting the puppet-masters and the corporations they control set policy and their own tax rates, which never exceed any subsidies they receive.
And now, as our commons fall apart because of so many years of neglect (we can't spend money on communities! We have wars to fund!), they want us to pay them to rebuild or replace them, and then pay them to run the service.
Privatize everything! I don't want to pay taxes! Just shove an RFID chip into my forearm and let WorldMegaCorp charge me automatically every time I turn around.
---
But at least the gays still can't get married. PTL and the GOP.

Posted 1 year ago #
alki_2008
Member Profile

WTH! Do people really vote based on the commercials, rather than reading the actual initiative text?

1098 would cut 20% from property tax, reduce B&O taxes, and would never be applied to incomes under $200k/$400k without another vote. Someone with an income that makes them subject to the 'excise' tax would probably be benefiting from the property tax savings enough that they'd offset each other.

Posted 1 year ago #
blackwatch
Member Profile

It's nice to know that I'm not the only one that can't believe that there are that many people with a desire to vote against their best interest.

I'm beginning to think that there's a mass psychosis going on.

We wondered how much the court ruling regarding campaign financing was going to affect the election and now we know...

I saw 60 Minutes on Sunday:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7009217n&tag=contentMain;contentAux

and they had David Stockton, Regan's Economics adviser and one of the many statements he made was that 5% of the US population now has more wealth than all the money in the world prior to 1980.

If you haven't seen this watch it, it's refreshing to hear someone speak the truth....

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
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maybe this will give you a clue as to why so much private money was poured into elections:

"There will be different priorities, and there will be hearings," Mackenzie Eaglen, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Tuesday. "There will be a greater focus on Afghanistan, on detainee policy, the future of Guantanamo, and the intentions of growing the Navy and modernizing the Air Force."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/03/gop.house.shift/

sounds like the F-22, which the military doesn't even want, but is a huge pile of pork - is back on the production line. way to tighten that belt!

no, republicans don't give a flying boehner about jobs (unless it's bomb-making) or fiscal responsibility.

the teabaggers just got played.

i generally don't like CNN, but that article is food for thought.

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
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so 2 days after the election CNN speaks truth.
saying what they knew to be true beforehand.

of course the tea baggers got played...

but my guess is they are still listening to Beck..
and we know who Beck is listening to.

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
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do we know who beck is listening to? i just assumed that it was his own keester.

do you think the voices in his head are actually transmissions from the trilateral commission?

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
Member Profile

redblack..

Beck worships one god.. money.
Look to the source of his paychecks to know who he listens to.

better yet.. look to the funding for the Tea Party..

Posted 1 year ago #