Posted on 01/26/2020 9:49:21 AM PST by CheshireTheCat
This is Legal Insurrection posting an article from The Seattle Times about Washington State's new tax on businesses that is designed to pay for a large part of the tuition costs for college students. The state is already experiencing a shortfall.
The headline is one part wishful thinking one part clickbait.
The article says that a business surtax that was supposed to pay for expanded college tuition assistance will come up $28 million short, and so they will have to take $28 million from the State’s general fund. That’s p*ss poor planning and quite typical of leftists State legislative hacks.
But no where does the article claim that Washington State “cannot afford” the $28 million needed by the program.
Already happening! The People’s Republic of Washington and the Seattle City government is doing its socialist best to KILL the entire state. Boeing already moved it’s headquarters to Chicago. Amazon is actively searching for Headquarters II and III (remember the NY debacle) which will quickly divide the company into thirds with deals which will make it easy to escape the majority of these types of taxes. Many of the larger companies came together and spent MILLIONS to overturn several city council seats and they will continue to muck about in the political realm as long as politicians unfairly try and take advantage of their success.
The State needs to start by cutting Professorial and Administrator pay in half and double the hours the Profs spend in the classroom.
Anything else is just continued theft from the students and taxpayers.
Like AOC says: “they’re not making it, they are taking it”.
Continued support for Brick and Mortar Higher Edumacation without improving its teaching efficiency is unsustainable and likely a major cause of the Climate Emergency.
NOT a straight-thinking, cost cutting move...
AFFORDING it is not the issue. Any state or government can always afford anything because they just have to steal from Peter to pay Paul! Want free healthcare? Take from the rich, give to the poor. Want free college for everyone? Take from the successful companies and give to the laggards.
So that 28 Million the state just has laying around between the couch cushions wasn't already allocated for say ... housing for the homeless, or Narcan for the drug addicts, or the states' Medicare and Medicaid portion, or bridge repair, Police, Fire, EMT, etc. After all, who doesn't have $28 Million just laying around to be used for yet another failed idea? Oh better hurry or some other idiot will claim that $28 Million for their pet project ... can you say "Safe Injection Sites?"
I'm with the dad that yelled at Liz Warren, I saved, scrimped, spend hours and hours with my kid making sure he got good enough grades to qualify for whatever college he wanted. I worked 16 hours a day 6 days a week so we could afford to send him without incurring debt and NOW you want to reward the lazy buggers that don't even try by "Forgiving" their ill advised debt? NOT WITH MY VOTE YOU DON'T!
That move is decades old
“Boeing already moved it’s headquarters to Chicago.”
I could never figure that one out. Boeing did this long ago when Seattle was still a pretty decent place to do business and Chicago is Chicago and always in Illinois.
The decision was probably made by the same crew who decided that the 737 Max was Boeing’s plane of the future...
Remind me here, is AOC talking about the Universities OR GOVERNMENT?
She was talking explicitly about billionaires but the meme can be easily applied to other entities.
That’s all true, and I’m with that dad too. But the headline claims that Washington State cannot afford the program. The image of s State running out of money because of a dumb socialist program makes for great schadenfreude but it’s simply not true. The Washington State budget is $52 billion. If the shortfall on this program was multiplied by ten it still wouldn’t be one half of one percent of the budget.
They moved because Seattle and the State tried something very similar to what is happening now. They bumped the taxes on corporations of "a certain size" IE BOEING! Threatened to continue the trend and knew that with the infrastructure already in place, Boeing was "trapped" in Seattle. Well, NOT SO. Why did Amazon start looking for "Headquarters II and III?" Hmmm guesses anyone? YUP! The city and county started eyeing corporate taxes which would apply to, well, first companies with over "X" number of employees (Microsoft and Amazon) and then companies with over "X" amount of gross income (Microsoft and Amazon again). The employee count was so unpopular that they overturned it unanimously only 2 weeks after it passed ... UNANIMOUSLY! We shall see about the additional gross income tax on companies over a certain size as it is only now just now being publicly discussed.
As long as the linchpin industries such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Starbucks, Costco/Kirkland, Providence Health, and Boeing stay put they have a very solid economic engine. We also have a very successful and lucrative agricultural industry within the state, which enjoys cheap electricity thanks to the Bonneville hydro-power projects that attracts more tech and manufacturing.
One of these days the state legislature will finally pass an income tax and that is when things will change. The legislature continues to propose all kinds of new taxes and an income tax, but they keep getting shot down by the voters.
The very strong businesses and industry have allowed for a lot of leftist silliness, but these companies survive and thrive based on their own merits and not because of state/local government policies. Washington is a smaller California with many similarities and a similar track.
The day they go too far and one of those companies pull out will happen, but ironically under the Trump economy it will not happen.
Thanks for the background info. It doesn’t surprise me one bit. Do you think this was the beginning of Seattle’s downfall?
Unless they are running a surplus, then that money is spoken for. So, no, they can't afford it.
A decent explanation of how Boeing lost it’s way from engineering driven to boardroom finance driven is in this Atlantic article. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing-lost-its-bearings/602188/
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