Tax Sanity has been busy drafting legislation to create a tax expenditure budget bill to increase transparency and accountability over Washington State’s ever growing tax exemptions. The most recent special legislative session saw the Governor and the State Legislature push for additional tax breaks for Boeing, creating the largest state corporate tax break in the nation. As Reuters reported, “The Washington state legislature … passed a measure to extend nearly $9 billion in tax breaks for Boeing through 2040 in an embattled effort to entice the company to locate production of its newest jet, the 777X, in the Seattle area.” And even it may not be enough to keep Boeing here as now a race to the bottom is occurring as other states compete to try to lure Boeing to their state.
Tax Sanity believes the continued push to create more and more tax exemptions is out of control. There needs to be more accountability for results and more transparency in who is benefiting and who is losing. They propose doing this by requiring the legislature to create a tax expenditure budget detailing all the exemptions, their cost and who they benefit that the legislature has to adopt every two years as part of the general appropriations budget or exemption will expire.
Their latest draft which they are urging legislators to adopt has also been filed as an initiative to the legislature. Initiative 626 has just received the following ballot title and summary:
Ballot Title
Initiative Measure No. 626 concerns taxes.This measure would require new and existing discretionary tax preferences to be authorized every two years in a tax expenditure budget and repeal requirements for advisory votes of the people on tax increases.
Should this measure be enacted into law? Yes [ ] No [ ]
Ballot Measure Summary
This measure would require the legislature to approve new and existing discretionary tax preferences every two years, in a tax expenditure budget detailing the fiscal impact and purpose of each tax preference. The tax expenditure budget would be included in the biennial omnibus operating appropriations act. Tax preferences not included in the tax exemption budget would expire at the end of the fiscal year. The measure would repeal requirements for advisory votes on tax increases.
Washington State currently has over 650 tax exemptions. While some are required by our State Constitution or the US Constitution or by Federal law, the discretionary ones still number over 400. They are usually described as either an exemption, exclusion or deduction from the base of a tax; a credit against a tax; a deferral of a tax or a preferential tax rate. They are all off budget spending that once granted almost never is rescinded. Only 10% of them have sunset dates. They represent expenditures of tax dollars which if not exempted from collection would be available as state revenue to fund critical state needs like education or health care.
The magnitude of the situation is not clear to the general public. Yet last year the Washington State Department of Revenue in its once every four year report on tax exemptions listing the discretionary tax exemptions points out why they are more appropriately called tax expenditures. This is what most other states call them. They are revenue that is not collected from some taxpayers but is collected from others. They noted that while we collected some $6.5 billion in B&O tax revenue in the last biennium, we did not collect but “exempted” some $7.5 billion. We collected less than half the B&O tax revenue available if every business paid the same.
When the sales and use tax collection was added to the B&O tax collection, essentially the same net result occurred. The state collected some $21 billion in revenue but excluded $20 billion from collection. Tax exemptions continue to grow with the Legislature adding another 15 in the 2012 session.
The process is out of control. This is why Tax Sanity is urging the state legislature to let the public know the extent to which they are supporting tax expenditures, who is benefiting and how much they are receiving. No future legislature is bound by the actions of past legislatures. Legislators have a responsibility to use tax dollars wisely, including being judicious and wise in giving out tax breaks. The Legislature needs to be held accountable for the current out of control use of tax exemptions to benefit special interests and business while cutting public services like education and health care. Requiring them to adopt a tax expenditure budget every 2 years as part of the regular operating appropriations budget and end the shifting of state revenue to off budget spending that lacks accountability and transparency.
Washington state’s tax system is broken. We have pressing state needs but do not fairly collect revenue to adequately fund needed state public services like education and health care. We rank in the bottom third of states in raising revenue. The Department of Revenue in January 2013 stated:
Washington ranked 36th from the top in state and local taxes paid per $1,000 of personal income in 2010, according to Census Bureau data published by the Washington State Department of Revenue.
At the same time we are ranked by the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy as having the most regressive tax system in the country.
Washington State, which does not have an income tax, is the highest-tax state in the country for poor people. In fact, when all state and local sales, excise and property taxes are tallied up, Washington’s poor families pay 16.9 percent of their total income in state and local taxes.
Meanwhile the top 1% pay only 2.8% of their income in state and local taxes. This is a terribly unfair tax system that has shifted taxes onto those least able to pay.
Don Smith and I co-authored a MoveOn.org petition calling for the Washington State Legislature and Governor Inslee to pass legislation and funding to create a new Tax Reform Commission to study and recommend ways to fix our broken tax system.
We ask that you show your support for a new Tax Study Commission and the need for reforming our tax system by signing our petition. Add your name to the 3800 people have already signed. Thanks.
Click on the headline directly below to sign the petition.
Let’s fix our unfair tax system in Washington State
Washington State has one of the most regressive tax systems in the country. In order to fix our broken, upside-down tax system, we first need to educate the public about the facts. But neither Governor Inslee nor the state legislators are making significant effort towards educating the public about why we need progressive taxation. We ask Governor Inslee to appoint a high level commission to evaluate our regressive tax system and propose changes that would allow the state to adequately fund education, social services and other essential needs. The commission should hold hearings throughout the state, solicit input from the public, and publicize its findings widely. We also call on Governor Inslee and the Democratic leadership to make speeches, publish essays, and hold public forums for discussion of this central issue.
Petition Background
In Washington State, the middle class and poor pay a higher percentage of their income in state taxes than do the rich, due to a reliance on the regressive sales tax to fund state government.
Even the Business and Occupation tax is regressive: it taxes revenue, not profit, and so it favors profitable corporations over struggling small businesses.
Another cause of unfairness is the existence of tax loopholes for certain wealthy corporations.
In fact, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Washington State has the most regressive tax system in the nation. The poorest 20% of non-elderly Washingtonians pay 17% of their income in state taxes; the richest 1% pay under 3% of their income in state taxes. (Source: http://www.itep.org/pdf/wa.pdf .)
The state desperately needs a reliable source of funds to pay for education pursuant to the State Supreme Court decision in the McCleary case, which declares that the legislature is underfunding K-12 education.
Additionally, in recent years the state has had to slash funding for social services and for higher education, causing real suffering among vulnerable people, threatening our prosperity and safety, and drastically raising the cost of a college education.
Voters in 2010 rejected I-1098, the initiative to establish a high earners’ income tax in Washington State. Most voters were voting against their own self-interest, because only the richest 2% of citizens would have seen their taxes rise.
But up until now, only a few advocacy groups have spoken up about this issue. Our political leaders should make the effort to educate the public about all the ways we need government and about progressive taxation. In other words, our political leaders should actually lead and not just follow.
The proposed high level commission, hearings, speeches and essays will help move the state towards a sustainable and equitable funding model.
For discussion of this effort, please visit:
http://fairtaxesnow.us/
https://groups.google.com/d/forum/wafairtaxes
To see the list of signers and their comments, please visit: http://waliberals.org/WATaxFixers.html
The Republican War on the Poor is evident in their continued opposition to raising the national minimum wage. Like on many other issues they are out of tune with the American people. Fully three quarters of the American people support raising the national minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9.00 according to a Gallup poll released this week. Almost as many support indexing it to inflation so the issue does not have to be raised every few years in Congress and held hostage to Republican obstructionism.
As Gallup notes:
Despite President Barack Obama’s State of the Union call to raise the wage to $9 — and widespread rallies populated mainly by hourly fast-food workers — legislation that would accomplish this goal has thus far languished. More recently, the Obama administration has voiced support for the Harkin-Miller bill, which would raise the minimum wage even higher — to $10.10.
Republicans in Congress have continued to support tax breaks for the wealthy and oppose raising taxes in general which has benefited the wealthy the most. At the same they are resolutely opposed to helping people on the bottom of the economic ladder. Republicans in the US House in March voted unanimously against raising the minimum wage to $10.10.
As the Huffington Post reported in March:
A proposal by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour over the next two years and increase the wage for tipped employees to 70 percent of the minimum wage was defeated, with every House Republican voting against the motion. On the Democratic side, six lawmakers voted against the measure, and 184 Democrats voted for it.
Washington State’s minimum wage is currently the highest in the country at $9.19. It is indexed to inflation and will increase to $9.32 next year. It covers both retail workers and agricultural workers. It has an exception for 14 and 15 year olds who can be paid at 85% of the minimum or $7.81 per hour.
Washington voters twice passed initiatives to raise the minimum wage in recent years. The last time in 1998 they added a provision to index the minimum wage to inflation. That Initiative, Initiative 688, passed with a 66% yes vote.
Voters in SeaTac, Washington on the Nov 2013 ballot are passing a proposal to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15/hour. As of Nov 14 the measure is ahead by 52 votes. And it looks like if it wins, next up will be a court battle.
You can help in our effort to close tax loopholes in Washington State by signing our petition to Governor Inslee and your Legislators. We have created a petition on MoveOn.org to show support for closing tax loopholes. We support the Legislature being required every two years to adopt a Tax Expenditure Budget to end off budget spending via tax exemptions that lack the transparency and accountability that other state spending undergoes.
“In order to increase accountability and close tax loopholes, the Washington State Legislature should adopt a Tax Expenditure Budget as part of its biennial budget process.”
Click here to Sign Petition
Petition Background
As off budget spending, tax exemptions lack the accountability that other state spending undergoes when the state approves its biennial budget. Tax exemptions are expenditures of state money that would otherwise be available to fund state services.
Tax exemptions reduce available funds for education, health care and other important state services. Many tax exemptions are actually tax loopholes that benefit special interests but don’t meet state priorities for funding.
Washington State currently has over 650 tax exemptions. According to the State Department of Revenue in the last biennium, while Washington State for B&O taxes it collected $6.5 billion but gave out $7.5 billion in exemption .Adding to the B&O tax collected the sales and use taxe,s the state collected some $21 billion total but it excluded from collection over $20 billion in tax exemptions. The system is broken. If every business paid the same in taxes, the state would have twice as much revenue or it. Or it could cut everyone’s taxes in half. Or it could split the difference both reducing taxes and collecting more revenue..
Requiring that the Washington State Legislature adopt a Tax Expenditure Budget every two years as part of the biennial budget process would make tax exemptions more open, transparent and accountable to Washington taxpayers. The Legislature needs to prioritize tax exemptions and close tax loopholes not meeting state needs.
Creating a Tax Expenditure Budget detailing the tax expenditures (exemptions) and the amount of revenue the Legislature is not collecting, will help Legislators to prioritize closing tax loopholes not meeting state priorities and needs.
The Washington State Ballot this November has five tax advisory votes which are very confusing to most people.
These tax advisory votes were put there by Tim Eyman’s Initiative 960 as his attempt to increase public resentment to any “tax” measures even when they benefit the larger public. The ballot title for each is basically written as an anti-tax push poll based on Eyman’s ballot title language in Initiative 960 that stipulated the ballot title wording.
They carry no Legislative weight as they only record voters opinions. In essence they are like a public opinion poll paid for by taxpayers. But Eyman tries to use them to show public opposition to funding public services by wording them such that voters will be inclined to respond negatively to any tax increase. Under Eyman’s definition of tax increases he also includes any efforts by the Legislature to repeal any tax exemptions or tax expenditures even if they are tax loopholes that only benefit special interests and not the general public.
Deciphering the ballot title language is very tricky and confusing. It waspurposely written to try to get voters to vote to repeal any tax increase passed by the Legislature. And unlike initiatives, the writeup on the so called tax advisory votes in the voter’s pamphlet contain no explanatory statement, no pro and con statements, and no fiscal impact statement.
In fact the State Attorney General had no real ability to even try to fairly explain the issue in the ballot title since Eyman’s initiative 960 required that the ballot tile be written as:
The legislature imposed, without a vote of the people, (identification of tax and description of increase), costing (most up-to-date ten-year cost projection, expressed in dollars and rounded to the nearest million) in its first ten years, for government spending. This tax increase should be:
Repealed . . .[ ]
Maintained . . .[ ]
I have made bold the mandatory wording required which by itself is intended to encourage people to vote to repeal any “tax increase”.
Both Democrats and Republicans voted by wide margins in the Legislature to approve all 5 of these measures, including to repeal some tax exemptions and fix the inheritance tax exclusion set up by a court decision, to secure revenue to help fund the budget.
Voters should vote to “maintain” these legislative decisions.
Advisory Vote No. 3 (Substitute Senate Bill 5444)
Ballot Title
The legislature eliminated, without a vote of the people, a leasehold excise tax credit for taxpayers who lease publicly-owned property, costing approximately $2,000,000 in the first ten years, for government spending.
This tax increase should be:
[ ] Repealed
[X ] Maintained
Advisory Vote No. 4 (Senate Bill 5627)
Ballot Title
The legislature imposed, without a vote of the people, an aircraft excise tax on commuter air carriers in lieu of property tax, costing approximately $500,000 in its first ten years, for government spending.
This tax increase should be:
Repealed [ ]
Maintained [ X ]
Advisory Vote No. 5 (Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1846)
Ballot Title
The legislature extended, without a vote of the people, the insurance premium tax to some insurance for pediatric oral services, costing an amount that cannot currently be estimated, for government spending.
This tax increase should be:
Repealed [ ]
Maintained [X ]
Advisory Vote No. 6 (Second Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 1971)
Ballot Title
The legislature eliminated, without a vote of the people, a retail sales tax exemption for certain telephone and telecommunications services, costing approximately $397,000,000 in the first ten years, for government spending.
This tax increase should be:
Repealed [ ]
Maintained [X ]
Advisory Vote No. 7 (Engrossed House Bill 2075)
Ballot Title
The legislature extended, without a vote of the people, estate tax on certain property transfers and increased rates for estates over $4,000,000, costing approximately $478,000,000 in the first ten years, for government spending.
This tax increase should be:
Repealed [ ]
Maintained [X ]
For additional information on these measures see the Washington State Voters Pamphlet which gives links to the actual bills passed by the Legislature. Click on the tab “full text” to read the original bill as passed by the Washington State Legislature.
You can also refer to the statement in the Progressive Voters Guide.
The Tax Advisory Vote requirement in I-960 is a waste of taxpayer dollars, both in the added costs to print up and tally ballot votes and the extra cost to print up Eyman’s required material in the Voters pamphlet. They represent an abuse of the public electoral process in that they are no more than a biased anti-tax slanted push poll conducted at public expense. The Advisory Tax Vote requirement in I-960 needs to be either repealed by legislators or the voters.
Tax Advisory Votes Might Not Mean Much But Cost a Lot, Seattle Times, July 16, 2013
Voters to Send Pricey Telegram with Five Tax Advisory Votes -Legislators will get scarlet letter, Erik Smith, Washington State Wire, July 23, 2013
Polls can be manipulated to get the results you want. It all depends on the questions you ask. And often its a matter of asking incomplete questions or not clarifying what it is that people are actually saying. Such is the case with support for the Affordable Care Act. Republicans love to call it Obamacare so that Republicans who don’t like Obama will be against it, even through it was the US Congress not President Obama who passed the legislation. But their strategy is not working as a close analysis of polling shows.
Charles M Blow in the New York Times in an article entitled Kamikaze Congress points out how right wing Tea Party Republicans in the US House continue their relentless drive to try to undo the Affordable Care Act as if a majority of Americans oppose it.This is their strategy:
Delay and defund. And default.
That is the House Republicans’ brilliant plan in their last-ditch effort to block implementation of the Affordable Care Act. It is a plan that threatens to grind the government to a halt and wreak havoc on the economy.
If they can’t take over Washington, they’ll shut it down. It’s their way or no way. All or nothing.
This is what has become of a party hijacked by zealots.
The problem is that the majority of Americans do not support what they are trying to do. Republicans seriously misread the polling data and the American public. And it all has to do with understanding the actual polling data.
Tea Party Republicans in the House are blinded by their hatred of President Obama and thus continue their unrelenting drive to try to deny him any victory – having voted some 42 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
The problem is as Blow points out:
Some of them twist poll results to buttress their bitterness. They point to polls showing that most Americans opposed the law as fuel for their fight. What they neglect to reveal is that a sizable portion of those who opposed the law do so because they don’t think it goes far enough, not because it goes too far. A May CNN/ORC poll found that 43 percent of Americans favored the law while 54 percent opposed it. But it also found that of those polled, 16 percent opposed the law because they thought that it wasn’t liberal enough. Put another way, 59 percent of Americans support the law or want it to be more liberal.
Furthermore, a poll released this week by the Pew Research Center found that of the 53 percent of Americans who said they disapproved of the law, the percentage who want elected officials who oppose the law to try to make it work as well as possible was larger than the percentage who wanted them to try to make it fail.
The American people are not on the far right’s side in battle. House Republicans are on a quixotic mission.
These results are significant and point out how polling can be used to manipulate and misinterpret what it is the public actually believes. There are many of us, including me, who believe the law does not go far enough. That should not be falsely interpreted as our wanting to see the Affordable Care Act repealed. Instead we are pushing for a better system, like a single payer system or expanding Medicare to cover everyone, so that we can remove the money that goes to pay corporate healthcare executives and billing companies and others, and put it toward actually providing healthcare at a much cheaper cost, like many other European Countries currently do.
As PBS points out in “Health Costs: How the US Compares to Other Countries”
$8,233 per year? That’s how much the U.S. spends per person.
Worth it?
That figure is more than two-and-a-half times more than most developed nations in the world, including relatively rich European countries like France, Sweden and the United Kingdom. On a more global scale, it means U.S. health care costs now eat up 17.6 percent of GDP.
We can do better. Going backward like Tea Party zealots in the US House of Representatives propose is a losing proposition.
Opponents to Initiative 522 – No on 522 -to require GMO labeling on foods have dumped in over $11 million so far against the measure. Here is the complete list of the five total contributors to date:
Monsanto, St Louis, MO $4,592,255
Dupont Pioneer, Johnston, IA $3,420,159
Grocery Manufactor’s Assoc, Washington, DC $2,322,500
Bayer Cropscience, Research Triangle PK, NC $591,664
Dow Agrosciences, Indianapolis, IN $29,531
The No on 522 campaign launched their TV campaign on Sept 17, 2013 press release
Proponents of I-532, the Yes on 522 committee , has raised some $3,609.933 from some 3160 contributors. The largest contributors to date for $25,000 or more are:
Dr Bonner’s Magic Soaps, Escondidia, CA $950,000
Organic Consumer Fund, Seattle $480,000
Mercola.com Health Resources LLC, Hoffman Estates, IL $200,000
Presence Marketing Inc, Barrington, IL $200,000
Nature Path Foods USA, Inc, Blaine WA $150,000
Center for Food Safety Action Fund, Washington, DC $100,000
PCC Natural Foods, Seattle, WA $100,000
Annies, Inc, Berkeley, CA $50,000
Food Democracy Now, Clear Lake, IA $50,000
Mark D Squire, Fairfax, CA $50,000
GFA Brands, Inc, Paramus, NJ $50,000
William T Weiland, Schaumburg, IL $50,000
The yes on 522 ads began on September 16, 2013 - press release
Yes on 522 ad – Washingtonians
Data for No and yes campaigns from reports to www.pdc.wa.gov
The sole partisan contested Legislative Senate race on Washington State’s November General Election ballot is to fill the 26th L.D. Senate seat in Kitsap County vacated by Derek Kilmer. Kilmer was elected to Congress last November. Democrat Nathan Schlicher is a doctor who was appointed to fill the vacancy and is being challenged by Republican Jan Angel who was a Representative in the district and also the ALEC chair for Washington State.
Campaign dollars are flowing into this race and the total amount is fast rising. The combined total of money raised now exceeds $1,160,887 according to latest PDC filings as of the 10th of September.
( Two other Senate seats in the 7th LD and 8th LD are also on the ballot but comprise Republicans only as the top two Primary winners face off against each other)
The 26th LD race is receiving lots of attention and money because of the closeness of the makeup of the Washington State Senate, which essentially turned Republican, with the deflection last January of 2 Democrats - Rodney Tom of the 48th LD and Tim Sheldon of the 35th LD.
Last November Democrats won a 26 to 23 majority in the Senate but with the deflection of Tom and Sheldon this switched to a 24 Democrats to 23 Republicans to 2 turncoat Democrats. The 23 Republicans and two deflecting Democrats formed a Majority Coalition with Rodney Tom as the new Majority Leader. Democrats still controlled the House and the Governor’s office.
Here are the total campaign dollars reported so far and detailed donations to the candidates campaign committees.
See also the article by Jordan Schrader for The News Tribune entitled “Senate race between Angel, Schlicher funded by funds from afar” for more discussion on the independent contributions.
Nathan Schlicher – raised $314,701, spent $146,842
independent support for Schlicher- $39,040
independent opposition to Angel $189,899
Jan Angel – raised $453,046, spent $317,882
independent support Angel – $10,314
independent opposition to Schlicher $109,086
These numbers reflect a total of $536,640 supporting Nathan Schlicher and $632,446 supporting Jan Angel.
Nathan Schlicher – Major Contributions to Candidate’s Campaign Committee (not including individuals):
Washington Senate Democratic Committee $30,000
26th LD Democrats $5000
Kitsap County Democrats $3000
46 Electrical Workers PAC $1800
Campaign for Tribal Self Reliance $1800
Defense Economic Renewal Education & Knowlede PAC $1800
FUSE Votes $1800
IBEW Local 77 PAC $1800
Inland Boatman $1800
JUPAT PAC $1800
Justice for All PAC $1800
Kennedy Fund $1800
Our Patients Come First PAC $1800
Pac NW Regional Council of Carpenters $1800
Physicians Eye PAC $1800
Physicians Insurance $1800
Pierce County Firefighters Local 726 $1800
Proliance Surgeons, Inc $1800
SEIU Healthcare 1199 NWPAC $1800
SEIU Local 925 PAC $1800
Sheet Metal Workers Local 66 PAC $1800
Squaxem Island Tribe $1800
WA Family MED PAC $1800
WA HealthCare Association $1800
WA Medical PAC $1800
WA Machinists Council $1800
West Pierce Firefighters $1800
Jan Angel – Major Contributers to Candidate’s Campaign Committee (not including individuals)
Senate Republican Campaign Com $25,000
26th LD Republicans $4100
ACLI Political Activity Fund $1800
Affordable Housing Council of Kitsap County $1800
Atria Client Services, Inc $1800
American Chemistry Council $1800
Assoc of WA Spirits & Wine Dist PAC $1800
Avamere Living $1800
Avista Corp $1800
BNSF Railway Company $1800
Build $1800
CalPortland Co $1800
Cambria Health Solutions $1800
Cascade Natural Gas Company $1800
CNA Casualty Co $1800
Express Scripts Inc $1800
Farmers Employees Agents PAC $1800
Farmers Underwriters Assoc $1800
Georpia Pacific LLC $1800
Health Insurnance Agents PAC $1800
Insurers and Financial Advisers PAC $1800
Johnson & Johnson Corporate Political Fund $1800
Carmol Care Rehab $1800
Liberty Mutual Insurance Co PAC $1800
MAC PAC $1800
Nat Electrical Contractors Assoc PS Chap $1800
NFIB-WA Safe Trust $1800
Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp $1800
NRA Vistory Fund $1800
NW Grocers ASSoc WA PAC $1800
Phrma $1800
Pierce County Affordable Housing Council $1800
Premera Blue Cross $1800
Proliance Surgeons Inc $1800
Property Casualty Insurance Assoc America PAC $1800
Retail Action Council $1800
Sabey Corp $1800
SavPA – WA Financial League State $1800
T-Mobile $1800
Takeda Pharmaceuticals USA Inc $1800
Trucking Action Committee $1800
United Subcontractors Asoc MCAWW & NECA $1800
USAA – $1800
WA Beer & Wine Distributor’s Assoc PAC $1800
WA Beverage Assoc PAC $1800
WA Chiropractors Trust $1800
WA Farm Bureau PAC- State $1800
WA Food Industry Assoc PAC $1800
WA Multifamily Housing Assoc $1800
WA Physician Therapy PAC $1800
WA Restaurant Assoc PAC $1800
WAt Autodealer PAC $1800
WA St Troopers PAC $1800
WalMart Stores $1800
Weyerhauser $1800
WHCAPAC $1800
Willow Springs Care Inc $1800
WSVMA – PAC $1800
Yakima Valley Grocers Shipper Assoc $1800
As the Huffington Post points out it’s been 4 years since the last increase in the Federal minimum wage. It’s time to raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation so that Congress does not repeatedly ignore inflation impacts on the wages of low income workers. Corporate millionaires seem to have no problem getting their income raised. Why do Republicans in Congress hate low income workers?
If you raise the minimum wage, low income workers will spend the money and help the economy. Henry Ford long ago understood that if he didn’t pay his workers reasonable wages they weren’t going to be able to buy his cars. It seems conservative and Tea party Republicans in Congress both don’t understand or care.
As an article a year ago in Deseret News noted:
The federal minimum wage, which is $7.25, hasn’t changed since 2009. In real terms, America’s lowest-paid workers make less than they did in 1968, according to Remapping Debate. With an annual income of $15,080, a full-time minimum wage worker’s salary is just under the 2012 federal poverty threshold of $15,130 for a family of two. It falls well below the poverty threshold for a family of three, which is $19,090.
A year later nothing has changed. Republicans continue to sneer at low income workers rather than working for fairness and a more equitable distribution of the fruits of business that don’t just increase wages and benefits for those at the top and increase dividends for stock holders, while ignoring the real life day to day plight of many of their workers.
While Congress is under siege by Republican lawmakers opposes raising the minimum wage, states have fared better in increasing it. As Stateline pointed out earlier this year:
“…minimum wage hikes at the state level have been popular among voters: Since 1998, proposed increases have been on statewide ballots 10 times in nine states, and all of them were successful. In those elections the ballot measures won an average of 65 percent of the vote, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a progressive Washington, D.C., group that advocated for the hikes.”
Washington State has the highest state minimum wage in the country at $9.19 an hour. It has remained as a leader in keeping pace with inflation because when it was passed by the voters it included language for an automatic increase each year based on inflation. When Initiative 688 was passed by the voters in 1998, Washington State was the first state in the country to put in place an automatic inflation increase each year. Unfortunately the federal minimum wage law does not and is subject to continual delays and battles in Congress to try to increase it to keep pace with inflation.
New Jersey has a minimum wage increase initiative on the ballot this year. Stateline notes that
“If New Jersey voters approve the measure on the ballot there, the state would become the 11th with annual automatic increases to the minimum wage indexed to inflation: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington already index. In all of them except Vermont, voters approved the measure with the automatic hike at the polls.“
Congress needs to act to be fair and just to low income workers in our country. Conservative politics driven by Tea Party Republicans and libertarian philosophy needs to be shown for what it is – a hypocritical joke where tax breaks for corporations and special interests rule their decisions to benefit the well off and few while millions struggle to meet basic living expenses.
The country is continuing under conservative policies to further divide the rich and poor. Wealth continues to be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer Americans. More states need to push for increases in their state minimum wage, putting more pressure on Congress to act. Republican anti-worker positions needs to be challenged and voters supporting state minimum wage laws that include automatic increases for inflation are one way to do that. In addition continued pressure needs to be put on Congress to act.
Fundraising through June 2013 for the Seattle Mayor’s race finds incumbent Mayor Michael McGinn in the lead followed closely by 43rd LD Senator Ed Murray. In third place was Councilmember Bruce Harrell followed by businessman Charles Staedecker. Former Councilmember Peter Steinbrueck came in fifth. Two women in the race Joey Gray and Kate Martin trailed far behind. Two candidates, Mary Martin and Doug McQuaid reported raising no money.
While money is not always a deciding factor, as Michael McGinn showed in beating Joe Mallahan 4 years ago, it makes it a lot easier to compete and reach voters.
Here are the latest figures from the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission’s website for the candidates in alphabetical order:
Joey Gray raised $7819, spent $3009, debt $2293 -22 contributors
Bruce Harrell raised $232,809, spent $126,121 debt $ 26,780 – 971 contributors
Kate Martin raised $4556, spent $4064 – 34 contributors
Michael McGinn raised $258,032, spent $92,238, debt $9178 – 1382 contributors
Ed Murray raised $253,235, spent $126,121, debt $13,195 – 1109 contributors
Peter Steinbrueck raised $135,402, spent $49,988 – 901 contributions
Charles Staedecker raised $192,616, spent $113,012 – 901 contributions
Tim Burgess, before he dropped out, raised $246,077 from 932 contributions and money wise would still have been in the thick of the race based on money raised.
The August 6th 2013 Primary Election is less than a month away. Ballots are soon being mailed out and the field will be narrowed to the top two candidates for the November 5th 2013 General Election.
Recently posted on the NPI Advocate- Steve Sarkisian abandons his players and Husky football for USC’s top coaching job
- Theft of Victoria Clipper IV demonstrates the need for stronger port security
- Happy Thanksgiving 2013!
- Pope Francis denounces income inequality and greed in new apostolic exhortation
- President Barack Obama rolls into town for another fundraising-only visit
