More on I-1098, the income tax scam: massive tax increase.

.
The scum behind this rip off, including Bill Gates, Sr and the state employee unions, know it will pump an additional 2.3 BILLION dollars a year into state coffers. As The Times put it: "It's not a tax cut" it's a massive, horrific tax increase in the midst of this terrible recession.

Don't be fooled.

Winner of a 2010 Pulitzer Prize

Editorials / Opinion

56°F

Originally published September 14, 2010 at 4:23 PM Page modified September 14, 2010 at 5:14 PM

Comments (57) E-mail article Print view Share

Initiative 1098 is not a tax cut

Don't believe the hype of Initiative 1098 proponents, who are selling the proposal as a "tax cut." Yes, some other taxes are trimmed, but the income tax proposed would total $3 billion by 2014.

PREV of NEXT

THE proponents of Initiative 1098 are pulling a fast one on voters by not calling I-1098 what it is: a tax increase.

Proponents for the tax hike have puffed up their argument like piñatas full of cheap candy talking about two taxes the initiative would cut, hoping to blind voters to the big tax increases I-1098 supporters really want.

By 2014, the state income tax created by I-1098 would be collecting more than $3 billion a year. Property taxes would be cut by $403 million and business taxes by $261 million. These are not the opponents' figures. They are the state's. And what they mean is that for every dollar of state income tax collected, the state expects to hand back 13 cents to property owners and 9 cents to business owners.

The state's ballot title has it right. It says: "Initiative measure 1098 concerns establishing a state income tax and reducing other taxes."

That is what I-1098 is. But it is not how its supporters describe it.

Consider their first TV ad. In it, Bill Gates Sr. disingenuously says, "1098 will cut state property taxes 20 percent." But state property taxes are only one-fifth of all property taxes. The actual cut in people's bills would be only about 4 percent. The people selling I-1098 know this and will admit it if you corner them. But they won't put it in their ads.

Nowhere in Gates' folksy ad does he utter the electric words "state income tax." Gates is a lawyer. He knows what kind of tax it is.

In the Voters Pamphlet, now available on line, the pro-1098 salesmen do use the words "income tax," but only after they have softened up the prospective voter with the sweet phrases "lower taxes," "cut taxes," "reduce taxes" and "tax cuts."

Initiative 1098 is not a tax cut. The $3 million that has been raised to sell it on television is mostly from state employee unions. They are not for tax cuts. They are for tax increases — which is what I-1098 is.

Let's call it by its right name.

More reeking hypocrisy by the Columbian: THEY question someone ELSE'S methodology on polling?

.
In their latest article on a poll, the rag questions the methodology used by the pollster to get the results they show... results that include the following:

The firm reported that 33 percent of respondents favored Pollard, 27 percent supported Leavitt and 19 percent backed Stemper, with the remaining 21 percent undecided.

And

Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they would not support bridge tolls, even if that is the only way the Interstate 5 Bridge could be replaced.

KMac & Associates also reported that 71 percent of respondents opposed "a Las Vegas-style casino in northern Clark County."

Now, the numbers here are pretty close to the reality of the situation.

Leavitt, a thoroughly political shill who has usually totted Royce's water (and the fishwrapper's) like a Gunga Din clone, offers no vision or history substantially different than the mayor's.

His scam of the minuscule hispanic endorsement was a complete exercise in political cynicism, top to bottom, that was as sickening to watch as it was predictable. His lies about his position on tolling for the unneeded and unwanted I-5 Bridge replacement/Loot rail swindle (He DOES want tolls, anything else notwithstanding) and his general, over all failure to separate himself from Pollard over the several years he's been on the council doom his candidacy.

Since he is something of a portrait of a younger, more arrogant, more manipulative version of Royce who offers no real difference, he has no chance to win... nor should he.

Unfortunately, neither Leavitt NOR Royce are fit for elective office. Leavitt, not doubt, intends to use this election as a springboard for bigger and better things down the road... Congress or something.

Like Jon Russell, however, political cynicism is not a qualification for running for office, and I'll be doing all I can to make sure he fails.

All of that said, however, we're stuck with the response of the despicable rag that poses as our local paper.

They produce absolutely ZERO evidence to suggest the poll is wrong, save relying, rather stupidly, on a 4 year old poll THEY did "scientifically" as if opinions and attitudes simply couldn't change.

That finding contradicts scientific polling The Columbian did on the Cowlitz casino almost four years ago, which found a slight majority in favor of the project.

Now, why did they attack the methodology?

Simple. Because they hated the findings.

Twelve or so years ago, we had a very scientific poll that slaughtered the idea of loot rail coming into Clark County. So why does this despicable rag support it now in the face of that scientific and overwhelming opposition?

Of course, the simple solution would be for the rag to do their OWN poll, a useful tool in the absence of a vote (which this rag would NEVER support) as long as it was a straight, legitimate poll... unlike the kind they've favored in the past with numbers as pre-ordained as the CRC study "outcome."

If the numbers conformed with this steaming pile's world-view, this article would have been completely different.

Mize supports his position by stating:

McDonald for years has been an outspoken casino opponent. Her firm's Web site lists an anti-Cowlitz casino group, Citizens Against Reservation Shopping, as a former client.

Using THAT kind of reasoning, then, we have no choice to but to doubt anything the Columbian tells us that supports the massive waste of billions of our dollars and their support of any candidate... because, after all, they've been "outspoken supporters" of leftists and that massive waste of money that would bring in the unwanted and unneeded bridge replacement... and fair is fair.

Because it's not like this lying scumpile would ever lie, is it? They'd NEVER manipulate or let their biases rule the day. So, we would be wise to apply the exact same standard to the rag as they apply to everyone else that opposes their agenda.

But then, what else can we expect from a waste of space that long since gave up any pretense of journalistic tenets? They offer nothing to show the pollster wrong... they just attack her methods.

There's a reason this rag is circling the drain. And this article is just one of them.

Is the Kohl-Welles income tax bill for Washington State a scam? Sure seems like it.

.
On the aptly named April Fool's Day, I posted about what, on the surface at least, just appeared to be the typical democrat class warfare scam: Our democrat legislators in action: the start of class warfare and the camel's nose under the tent flap income tax.

Well, Pudge, over at Sound Politics, discovered a nuance that clearly escaped me: This was nothing more nor less than a state income tax bill... not just for those making $500,000 a year as the bill's proponents claimed... but for EVERYONE.

Legislation, like contracts, typically contain this arcane item known as a "severability clause."

(From Wiki) The severability clause (sometimes referred to as a salvatorius clause, from the Latin word salvatorius) is the name for a special clause that regulates the legal consequences or the applicability of the remaining clauses of a contract when some clauses of a contract are or become ineffective or infeasible. The goal of the severability clause is usually to maintain the spirit of the contract as much as possible.

Severability clauses are sometimes used in statutes, to preserve the effectiveness of certain portions of the statute if some part is struck down as unconstitutional by a court acting in judicial review.

Pudge concludes this:

The bill offers a standard deduction of one million dollars for people filing jointly, and half a million for singles, so few people would end up paying it, as written. As Kohl-Welles says on her web site, the measure would "impose a state income tax upon Washington's highest wage earners."

However, Washington State's Constitution requires that all taxes on property must be uniform (Article VII, Section 1), and the state's courts have consistently recognized income as property. So this form of tax would likely be stricken as unconstitutional, as it is clearly intended to be non-uniform.

If this bill were passed, and the Court did rule that provision to be unconstitutional, the bill's severability clause means the rest of the bill would remain valid, and it we would then immediately have a tax on every federal income tax payer, instead of just the wealthy.

There is no question that we all knew this thing stunk. Pudge's deft analysis gets to the underlying cause in a way that just blew right past me.

Recently, government here locally and now, clearly, at the state level, have been trying to screw us on a variety of levels. They hide behind "Madisonian" concepts that he never intended, claiming that their election allows them to but us in billions of debt without asking us... and then they try and pull a deliberate scam like this crap.

Stains on democracy abound. Will these ever wash out?
.