[cousair]

It has always been overpriced, and in today's Washington state, it is run by liberals. Remember libs?? They love taking from the (so called rich) and giving to all others. Seattle is high priced at every level. I live in the southern part of the state which enjoys the almost 8% sales tax rate.

[Soul Seeker]

I'm shocked! ;-)

Interesting, isn't it. That leftist rule has a higher cost of living?

Seattle isn't a shock. This is the home of McDermott & Murray. Seattle put them in office. The citizens of Seattle deserve the suffering they elected. Too bad my area of the state suffers from their idiocy.

[lelio]

Remember libs?? They love taking from the (so called rich) and giving to all others.

If that were the case Seattle wouldn't be the "most overpriced city in America." The main reason Seattle's #1 is two fold:

1) hit extremely hard by the downturn in the dot com economy, and the economy as a whole (mainly Boeing)
2) there's only so much desirable land around here.

People want to live close to the water and don't want to live in the cookie cutter subdivisions being built on the outskirts.

Once you get outside of Seattle the prices fall dramatically. Is that due somehow to the "liberal influence" of Seattle waning?

[sionnsar]

It has always been overpriced,

Not my experience. It was quite affordable in '83 when I finally managed to escape from California, which I started to dislike within an hour after I arrived there. Of course, that was by California unaffordability standards...

and in today's Washington state, it is run by liberals. Remember libs?? They love taking from the (so called rich) and giving to all others.

So true, but I would amend it thus: "They love taking." Period.

Just look at the so-called "Critical Areas Ordinance" that would seize control of 2/3 of the property of those of us who choose not to live in dirty rabbit-warrens.

[Bush2000]

It has always been overpriced, and in today's Washington state, it is run by liberals. Remember libs?? They love taking from the (so called rich) and giving to all others. Seattle is high priced at every level. I live in the southern part of the state which enjoys the almost 8% sales tax rate.

Unfortunately, we live in a state in which the outlying counties don't contribute much politically to Olympia. King County is where elections are won or lost -- and we all know how liberal it is here. There are pockets of conservatism (ie. Issaquah, Bellevue, Medina), but they are few and far between. Liberals have pushed for an even higher sales tax. They've pushed for higher fees (ie. ferries, licensing, inspections, etc). Thank God for people like Tim Eyman. Liberals hate him with a passion. I don't mean they dislike him. They literally hate the guy. I've seen some of them reduced to blithering, spitting morons at the mere mention of his name.

Consequently, liberals (along with their co-conspirators -- the unions) have pushed for higher property taxes. They constantly harp on the education issue -- and most people are so misinformed about the lack of correlation between education expenditures and teacher accountability that most levies pass without even the slightest whimper. Sure, people like Tim Eyman rub the property tax growth restrictions in their faces -- but liberals don't care about the law. The law is an inconvenience for them (witness: WEA union contributions to liberal politicians in violation of state law) -- and really only applies cynically when their political opponents happen to cross the line.

I recently rode in the Seattle-to-Portland bike ride. Passed through countless towns in the southern part of the state. And, as I was riding, I thought about how far away Seattle was from that beautiful countryside. People like to stigmatize conservatives with stereotypes of uneducated rednecks and narrow-minded Puritans, but the fact of the matter is that Seattle is not America. It doesn't represent the rolling hills. It doesn't understand attitudes in those small towns. It doesn't contribute or care about our soldiers fighting and dying for our freedom in Iraq. It is wholly disconnected from (and uninterested in) the average American way of life that I saw on that bike ride. And all that you have to do is look at an electoral map from the 2000 election to see the stark map of politics. Democrats appealed to urban voters in densely populated cities. Republicans appealed to the rest of the country. The differences in politics couldn't be more stark, despite cynics' attempts to paint the GOP and Democrats as a single party.

Everyone, please support Dino Rossi for governor. I know him. He's a good man. The alternative is truly chilling: Christine Gregoire (who completely screwed up in her last job) and Ron Sims (who never met a tax hike he didn't like).

[RobRoy]

My son lives on queen ann hill. Thanks to the monorail, his license tabs are over $500.

Well, actually they are well under $100 because he has wisely chosen to license his car at my address - outside Seattle city limits. 8^>

Stupid libs just don't get it...