Espresso Tax does not pass

Seattle PI ^ | 9.16.03

[GretchenEE]

I am amazed that a vote was even considered. Is this a new development? Usually the legislatures just pass the tax and let the people howl.

It was a City of Seattle deal, voted on only by Seattleites.

[GretchenEE]

At least in Washington now, they won't arrest you if you want to smoke dope and forget your bad government woes in purple haze.

I totally missed this. Did our legislature pass this, and if so, when?

[OldFriend]

Will the liberal legislature now put the tax on the coffee or something else, despite the vote?

[GretchenEE]

Will the liberal legislature now put the tax on the coffee or something else, despite the vote?

Maybe the brainos in Olympia got the message. ?? This thing has been floated before and didn't find much support. This time it made it onto the local ballot ... what's so stinking about it is that, as I understand it (living in King County but not Seattle proper, I didn't see the text of the proposition), these were not regular funds being stripped away from children's education if the tax failed. I think someone wrote about it earlier in the thread that it was for private day care people who didn't want to raise their fees so they tried to hit the coffee drinkers. Since the targeted benefitters are not a regular group of school kids, it would seem more difficult for the brainos in Olympia to pass a tax for the whole state for something already rejected in the bean bed of coffee lust. By the way, just want to say, once again, that I love your screen name. Every time I read it, it makes me smile.

[OldFriend]

Thanks.

My daughter was on a client's site for six month in Seattle. After being in just about EVERY major city in the US, she still loves Seattle the best.

She arrived shortly after the WTO crazies had their way with the city and was back home shortly before the earthquake hit.

Oh she loved that city and still talks about returning.

[GretchenEE]

I love this city, too. And don't tell anyone, but this summer we broke the record, since records began being kept in 1895, for the driest summer ... and had 61 consecutive days between 70 and the 90's. I used to wilt above 75 degrees, but after a month or so of that kind of weather, I grew acclimated and felt comfy even around 90 degrees while I was exercising. One could get addicted to being warm LOL

My friends tell me I could work for the state's tourism department, I do such a job of advocating the beauties and wonders of the Puget Sound area. And there is something about the salt air that draws me, and keeps me. I would love it if I never had to be more than a few miles from it. We have just about everything here -- two gigantic mountain ranges, "inland" salt water, ferries, seaplane rides, ocean, hiking, breathtaking vistas everywhere, mountaineering, parasailing, theater, symphony, rain forest, great pro sports, rivers, lakes, fishing, boating, horse trails, four fantastic seasons and yet moderate weather overall ... I better stop now hehe.

[OldFriend]

There was a long dry period when my daughter was working there too. Rarely a day of rain. There were jokes about giving CA back their earthquake in exchange for the rain that was falling in CA.

Her summer was warmer and sunnier than ours here in the east!

[cmsgop]

Well, at least now you can smoke/possess marijuana in Washinton without the threat of getting busted.

Couldn't be further from the truth.

In reality the Pot thingy does not mean squat. If you get caught holding/smoking you are busted.

[camas]

you are sooo right. liberals are cheap

[cmsgop]

I really don't think Olympia is going to get involved at all on this.

[cmsgop]

Thanks for ping. Even my Lib customers hated this idea.

[cmsgop]

For Your Enjoyment

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

They're talking on John Carlson's show about merging the two concepts that were voted on by taxing a bag of marijuana ten cents - calling it "The Dime Bag Initiative". : )

[Gunder]

Pardon my ignorance. Is there REALLY a statue of Lenin in Seattle??

[cricket]

"You mean even the Liberals in Seattle don't want to be taxed for thier luxeries?"

They resented being singled out for their supposed luxury of drinking espresso.

But in the end, whatever their reason; it was not about the 'children'. . .

[GretchenEE]

Neither do I.

You going to the picnic?

[ppaul]

Children's early educational needs should be paid for by all the voters, not just the coffee drinkers.

B.S.
Children's early educational needs should be paid for by their parents.

[ppaul]

Pardon my ignorance. Is there REALLY a statue of Lenin in Seattle??

Yes.

Another Lenin (in Seattle)

Another deposed Lenin strides
in front of the fish-taco stand,
caught between hip junque shops
and garden knick-knack stores.
His coat stopped mid-flap,
bronze eyes squint westward,
gleaming in the sunset.
His goatee holds no hint of bullets, blood
or beatings. That forceful jaw betrays not one
of tens of millions disappeared.
Frozen in the open, he misses his policemen -
no one wipes pigeon shit from his lapels today.
Taco-eaters bring to mind
the lines of futile peasants
denied bread, starving in the purges.
He wants snow, sub-zero nights of
clarified vodka, crystallized thinking
in a city that is nothing if not
cool shades of grey.
Long-rotted bones in the Ukraine groan,
the people over turn and melt his toppled kin.
Saved somehow from the slag heap,
he escapes humiliation. His brothers change
decorate the proletariat as
belt buckles, cogs and car parts.
Metallic atoms never chose to take this form
to mime destruction's devotee.
Denied the forge, a better cast postponed
though melting would not purge one
murdered soul from Lenin's own.
It may be fitting for the one who drew
blood lines to spend
damp afternoons confined
on a square not of his making
between S.U.V.s and bicycles
as kitchen help shred lettuce,
pierced-lipped women order lattes,
and men in pastel polo shirts
sporting green-tipped hair and nose rings
queue up for fish with salsa.

—Elise Bowditch

[GretchenEE]

B.S. Children's early educational needs should be paid for by their parents.

And which five inches of Interstate 5 do you own? How would you like it if no one let you drive on the next five inches? Do you want us to go back to volunteer bucket brigades to put out city fires?

Your idea is ridiculous if Americans want quality education for their children; the cost has to be spread out over a larger population than just those who this minute have school-age children.

[ppaul]

Your idea is ridiculous if Americans want quality education for their children.....

they need to work hard and pay for the education they want their children to have, and not expect others to provide them with a freebie. If you cannot afford children, don't have 'em. No one held a gun to your head. The premise behind your statement is pure socialism. Never in our history has pre-school been publicly financed, yet millions received "quality education." The idea that we now need taxpayer financed pre-school and daycare is straight out of Leninist/collectivist theory and is being pushed by the "red diaper doper baby" leftists.

As for having taxpayer-funded "education" at all, well, that's an entire other thread for some other time. Suffice to say that in general, the government schools in this country are pushing a leftist social agenda and inculcating our children with revisionist history with a radical radical femnist agenda and tolerance for abherrent lifetsyles. No taxpayer should be coerced to make contributions to pay for the propagation of what is essentially the wholesale brainwashing of generations of young people. Need I remind you of Thomas Jefferson's admonition?

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical. -- Thomas Jefferson