$70 million in Pot Tax? Big Deal. From the "I told you so" on pot "legalization" file.

The pro-potters lied their collective asses off about revenue on pot.  They promised $582 million per year in state revenue.  You all remember that, don't you?

Well, they were clearly a little off.

Actually, they were clearly a lot off.

At this point, just under $1.5 billion off.  And this year is no exception with a $512 million shortfall passed on the pro-pot promises.

And, of course, the state legislature did absolutely nothing to hold those who lied accountable for their actions.

Beyond the cash, those who support yet another way of getting baked will not be dissuaded.

I have yet to read or hear from any pot head who allows for or believes that pot has ANY negative side effects.

I, of course, take a different view.  People are dead today from the results of using legal pot who would otherwise likely be alive.

And that's a fairly negative side effect.

But those who either want to make big bucks off this scam, or those who want to get wasted every day, all day; or those who see smoking this... or anything else... as a cure for every ill known to man, continue to propagate the wive's tales concerning what this substance will and will not do... science and outcomes notwithstanding.

Which brings me to the wonders of "legalization."

I put "legalization" within quotes because it's not legal.  The statewide campaign of outright lies that made it "legal" actually failed to accomplish that end.

Pot is illegal at the FEDERAL level and thus, it remains illegal at the state level, constitutionally, due to the preemption clause.

Proponents of this idiocy, including our local abysmal excuse of a daily newspaper, shilled it based on fantasy revenue predictions, as if the entire black market and other sources of this waste of money would simply disappear.

The moronically wrote at the time:

The Columbian endorses Initiative 502 for many reasons, not the least of which is financial. I-502 offers Washingtonians the chance to radically change how we react to marijuana, from wasting $211 million over the past decade enforcing marijuana laws, to creating a revenue stream of more than $500 million annually via a 25 percent excise tax (plus other taxes) on legal marijuana sales.

I called them on that lie at the time, but you know how it is.

The rag also bought into the pot head's positions on enforcement, as if no more money would be spent, slavishly publishing the fantasy numbers of a completely unbiased source on this matter as if they were, well, accurate.  But then, the democratian only publishes information, regardless of it's source, that supports their perspectives.  But THESE clowns?

Turning the financial squandering of the war against marijuana into a revenue source for our state would have significant impact on Clark County. According to a study by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington (which provided the $211 million figure above), various entities in Clark County spent about $10 million enforcing marijuana laws from 2000-2010. Included were $2.8 million in defense costs and $2.7 million in prosecution costs. 

By contrast, the projected half-billion dollars in annual state tax revenue would go mostly to health care ($244 million), the general fund ($182 million) and youth drug prevention programs ($68 million).

I remember when the democratian was shilling the ballpark scam and they wasted all that ink spewing the results of a bought and paid-for CRUDEC economic study that "proved" building that ripoff of a stadium would generate $200 MILLION in economic activity.

All of which goes to show that figures don't lie... but liars DO figure.


They also talked about the insane idea that "legalizing" pot would empty out our prisons.

As for me, I fall under the "if you have to lie to get your candidate elected, your project built on government money or your initiative/referendum passed... then you shouldn't BE elected, your project shouldn't BE built and your initiative/referendum shouldn't BE passed.

Lying makes a great campaign.  But liars should never be rewarded with success.

To the point, then:

The revenue projections would have required every man, woman and child in this state to consume enough pot to generate something on the order of $75 per year in pot revenue.... each.

The lie concerning pot revenue used by the

I-502 campaign and bought by the democratian, 

directly from the pro-pot campaign website.

The campaign promised $582 million "every year."

This year, the number will be 10% of that promised.  By the end of this year, the pot campaign, based on this fallacious promise, will owe the people of this state in excess of $1.7 billion in revenue.

Unfortunately, the GOP Senate, caving to pressure from the various millionaires behind this scam, have let them completely off the hook, serving to reinforce the idea that the best way to scam the people of this state is to make Goebbels-like propaganda lies the cornerstone of your campaign knowing that they can come along behind themselves, spend a few bucks in the legislature, and get completely off the hook for what amounts to an outright, state-sanctioned swindle.

How many times have the pro-potters told us that among the many other wonderful impacts of this idiocy, is the idea that it would empty our jails because they would like us all to believe that those prisons are jammed with 19 year-olds doing life for possessing a joint, and that with the end of enforcement, our police agencies could go forth and bust the REAL bad guys.

My position in all of this was simple: "legalization" (besides the obvious: it legalized nothing) would not end enforcement of the law.  It would merely shift it from the possession and sales side to the sales and revenue side.

That those selling pot would continue to do so, particularly since they could undercut the crap out of retail establishment who now had to pay taxes and overhead that street dealers did not have to pay... and the various people with their hands out would get nothing from those sales.

Enforcement NOW would focus on the revenue side.  And so it does:

Owner arrested in raid of Vancouver pot business
He's suspected of running illegal retail marijuana store, related felonies 

By Emily Gillespie, Columbian breaking news reporter
Published: July 2, 2015, 8:24 PM 

Under the blazing sun, uniformed and plain-clothed officers spent several hours Thursday carting off marijuana plants, money and equipment to grow the drug from a business on St. Johns Boulevard in Vancouver. 

The scene may look like a mistake — the business, Grow Systems Northwest, deals with marijuana, a legal commodity in Washington state. 

But while it may appear legitimate, law enforcement says it isn't licensed as a retailer and it doesn't operate within the confines of state medical marijuana laws. So, police say, the business is making illegal broad-daylight drug deals to the tune of at least $200,000 untaxed dollars a month. 

The owner of the business, who said he was "embracing" a loophole but not breaking the law, was taken into custody on suspicion of multiple felonies. 

An illegal business, police say.

Grow Systems Northwest, 6502 N.E. St. Johns Road, fell under the eye of the Clark-Vancouver Regional Drug Task Force in mid-April when a Vancouver police officer responded to the business for a report of a stolen recreational vehicle. 

The owner, Adam Alexander, gave the officer a tour, said Vancouver police Sgt. Pat Moore, the lead drug detective on the case. Alexander told the officer that he was selling marijuana from his house but that his business became too big so he moved it to the space on St. Johns Boulevard, Moore said. 

The officer alerted the Clark-Vancouver Drug Task Force, and Moore began looking into it. 

On its website, the company says it offers medical marijuana delivery and marijuana delivery. "We have been serving the Clark County area for many years now and would love to have you as one of our regulars!" the website reads.

There's more, but you get the drift.

Pot sales were illegal before this initiative passed. They remain illegal outside the licensed retail environment.

Now the retailers and the state have law enforcement working for them.

Exactly the way I said they would.

Wonder why I believe most democrats generally and the teacher's union/teacher union supporters are scum?

Here ya go.

Complete, unadulterated scum, the lot of them.

When it comes to screwing the people of this state, they're even worse than the GOP Senate, and that's a long putt to make.

The News Tribune

Senate scuffle leaves $2 billion hole in day-old $38 billion operating budget

By Melissa Santos

Staff writerJuly 1, 2015 Updated 12 hours ago

Sen. Andy Hill, R-Redmond, the Senate’s chief budget writer, works at his desk on the Senate floor Tuesdayin Olympia. Later in the day, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a two-year state operating budget that cuts tuition for college students and puts more money toward the state's K-12 education system.

TED S. WARREN — The Associated Press

• Related Stories:
• Deal not yet sealed, but gas-tax increase advances
• Legislature passes funding for construction projects, but meltdown puts it in doubt
• Legislative all-nighter: 'Nasty things slip through'
• Budget signed, but disagreement remains over $2 billion in class-size funding
• Wash. lawmakers approve drought relief
• Sentencing reform dies in Legislature

Gov. Jay Inslee signed a new $38.2 billion budget into law Tuesday evening, but by early Wednesday morning, it already had a $2 billion hole in it.

The two-year spending plan hinges on the Legislature delaying Initiative 1351, the measure to lower class sizes that voters approved in November. But in a surprise development, the state Senate shot down a crucial bill Wednesday morning that would delay the initiative for the next four years.

Now the state has an operating budget that doesn’t balance — something that may or may not be an urgent problem, depending on which person you ask.

Delaying the initiative — something already approved by the state House, and counted on in the Legislature’s approved budget — would save the state $2 billion over two years.

Yet while leaders of the Republican-controlled Senate decried the budget as illegal Wednesday, House leaders said the Legislature could potentially return in January 2016 to find a solution to their I-1351 dilemma.

“There are ways you could deal with it until then,” said House Majority Leader Pat Sullivan, D-Covington, early Wednesday morning.

Senate Majority Leader Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, called that “a very large risk.”

“Do you really want to gamble on $2 billion that we cannot possibly find? I think that’s a reckless way to run a state,” Schoesler said Wednesday.

Lawmakers, now in the middle of a third overtime session that began Sunday, have broken a record set in 2001 for most days in session during a single year. They had to go into overtime in April after adjourning their regular 105-day session without an agreement on an operating budget.

Now, it’s I-1351 that is keeping them in Olympia.

The stalemate over I-1351 also is holding up progress on remaining parts of a 16-year transportation package in the state House, as well as a bonding bill that pays for more than half of the construction budget Inslee signed into law Tuesday.

While the entire budget deal appeared sewn up over the weekend, it fell apart this week in the Senate Democratic Caucus room.

Sen. Andy Billig, D-Spokane, said Tuesday that some Senate Democrats didn’t want to scale back the I-1351 class-size reductions unless they made other changes they thought would help students.

Democrats said they could muster the required votes if Senate Republicans would approve a school testing reform bill that already cleared the House. Among other things, that legislation would remove a requirement that students pass a biology test or an approved alternative to graduate from high school, which supporters said would help 2,000 of this year’s seniors earn a diploma.

Amending the initiative would require a two-thirds majority vote in the closely divided chamber.
“There are some members who are saying, if I’m doing something that hurts kids, I want to be able to help kids somehow,” Billig said Tuesday.

The measure to delay I-1351 failed on the Senate floor at about 6 a.m. Wednesday on a 27-17 vote, following a long night of negotiations.

A few Senate Democrats, including Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, and Sen. Jeannie Darneille, D-Tacoma, favored delaying the initiative. Hargrove said leaving I-1351 and its $2 billion price tag on the books could force the Legislature to cut important social programs down the road.

Sen. Bruce Dammeier, R-Puyallup, said his caucus offered “to relieve the class of 2015 of the biology requirement, just to get us out the door, just to get us finished.”

“We put that out there. They rejected it,” Dammeier said.

Following the vote, Senate budget writer Andy Hill, R-Redmond, said that Senate Democrats reneged on the bipartisan budget deal reached over the weekend. Schoesler, the Senate majority leader, called Democrats’ demands “extortion.”

“The agreement is the two sides get the votes together and do it, and the agreement was broken,” Hill said.

Hill said as a result, the state’s budget now doesn’t comply with statutory requirements that it balance over four years.

However, there aren’t really any concrete consequences to violating that part of the law, said David Schumacher, Inslee’s budget director.

Schumacher compared it to another requirement in statute that the Legislature pass a budget by June 1 – something lawmakers haven’t accomplished in their past two budget-writing sessions.

He said the state’s two-year budget cycle gives lawmakers ample time to figure out what to do with I-1351. Lawmakers could solve the problem later in their current overtime session, which is scheduled to end July 27, or sometime over the next year, Schumacher said.

Still, Inslee would prefer that lawmakers find a solution for I-1351 “sooner rather than later,” said Jaime Smith, spokeswoman for the governor’s office. Smith said the governor is hoping lawmakers agree on a way fix the problem this month, before their current special session ends.

“They’ve had more than enough time at this point to figure it out,” Smith said. “If they don’t figure it out by then, it’s hard to see how any additional time would make it easier.”

Staff writer Jordan Schrader contributed to this report.

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2015/07/01/3897549_senate-scuffle-leaves-2-billion.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Local losers and winners in the gas tax debacle.

1.  Loser - The people of Clark County (1)

While there are those who are, in fact, paid to lie, such as Mark Brown, who falsely claimed 

"This is a damn good package for Clark County," said Mark Brown, a lobbyist who represents the region in Olympia.

That's the kind of thing he's paid to say.

What... does anyone expect him to tell the truth?

"This packaged sucked and the Senate ought to be ashamed of themselves?"

Fat chance.

The idea that 1.3% of this GOP Con Job equates to a "damn good package" for ANY county is insane, let alone the 4th or 5th largest county by population in the state?

PARTICULARLY when half the money will be wasted on constructing a CRC project at the Mill Plain/I-5 freeway intersection that we do not need or want.

2.  Loser - The People of Clark County (2)

The GOP Senate made it clear that they don't give a damn what the people of this state want, and the GOP Senators voting for this crap pile have made it just as clear that when it comes to their agenda, they're no different than democrats.

Those voting for this idiocy locally, including democrat pols Cleveland, Moeller and Wylie as well as Republicans King and Rivers, did so deliberately, KNOWING that they had shut the people out of the equation.

The democrats voted for this shit because they never give a damn what the people want except to lie to them in the run up to the general election.  But as soon as they're (re)elected, that stops being a concern.

In the end, the thing that matters the most in this package will get the least:  Roads.

And the special interests calling the shots?

Well, I'm sure they'll provide suitable rewards.  After all, what they wanted certainly was more important... MUCH more important... than what the people of these districts wanted.... right?

3.  Loser - Sen. Ann Rivers (R-18)

When you run for the Senate on a platform that states this:

  I believe in the concept that every dime of taxpayer money (meaning every dollar of revenue from whatever the source) should be squeezed until it screams. I will not support an increase in the gas tax. I will not support increases in tab fees. The people have spoken and I have listened. We will spend billions to move the tiniest number of people when we should be finding an implementing new and innovative ways to move the MOST number of people for the LEAST amount of money. Wasteful spending like that on the CRC is not what we want or need. Massive projects like that MUST have the permission of those who, allegedly, will “benefit” from such a project at the ballot box. At minimum, ALL of the financial impacts, including the obvious negative impacts on families and small business depending on the hundreds of dollars per year must be considered: not just the cherry-picked variety favored by proponents of light rail and replacing a bridge in the same location. The Rivers Wheels Plan: Transportation that Works

And then you turn around and vote for legislation that, in fact, is the biggest increase in the gas tax in this state's history to make it the highest, or among the highest in the country.... if you vote for legislation that allows municipalities to IMPOSE tab fee increases without a vote... and you vote for this MASSIVE tax increase after supporting an emergency clause and making sure that no referendum clause is attached... what, exactly, do you call that in the face of Sen. Rivers' promises to the contrary?

Rivers will be vulnerable to a challenge from her right based on the claim that, well, she lied.

And in mouthing the falsity that Inslee was going to implement this huge tax that he couldn't implement as the excuse for this nonsense?  Well, that doesn't explain the House bill to allow him to implement that tax, the GOP applied emergency clause and the lack of a referendum clause... does it?

The fact is that few of us in this county and even fewer in this district will realize anything positive from this betrayal of populism.  But we will feel the pain EVERY time we gas up.  And that could be a serious problem for her, since it completely overshadows the allegedly... but questionably... no new tax general fund budget.

4.  Loser - The GOP Senate.

Does anyone believe they have a hope in hell of retaining control after showing that it really makes no difference, one way or the other if they do?

5.  Winners - Sen. Don Benton (R-17) and Sen. John Braun (R-20)

The local democratian and the C3G2 hate group would love to have everyone believe that Benton is radioactive. 

I don't think so, any more than I believe Madore is.  That the left hates him doesn't mean that the rest of the more normal world does.

In this instance, he was one of two Clark County senators to actually vote for the people instead of the downtown mafia.

Braun represents the very northern area of the county, which after redistricting is also the very southern end of his district.

They will both do well because of their vote here.

6.  Winners - Rep. Pike, Wilson, Vick, Harris, Orcutt and DeBolt.

While taking flak from many of the tin-pot dictators in the district, such as Sean "Fake Cop" Guard, Commissar of Washougal, Pike voted the overwhelming will of the people and was very vocal in her opposition.

When it comes to populism, this will strengthen the popularity of all concerned.

Their districts were very safe, much Like Moeller, who will continue to abuse his district... will get re-elected until he dies... or ends his political career by running for Lt. Governor.

Nevertheless, glimpsing the Facebook traffic of Guard with Pike where he made it clear that like most leftists, he could give a rat's ass about what the people want, tremendous pressure was brought to bear.

More as I get it.

The whole story of how the gas tax happened and the corruption that caused it.

Let me say at the outset that this was a carefully scripted, carefully orchestrated  scam from the get go... a con job from the start.

The script called for Inslee to panic the people by announcing last year that he, unilaterally, was going to do something that he could not do, counting on the ignorance of the people on government process and the state constitution... as well as the Gruber-like "stupidity of the voters"... by threatening to jack up the gas tax by as much as $2.00 per gallon.

That Inslee and the left have zero interest in committing political suicide for the next decade by doing such a thing never seemed to enter into the equation, particularly when those who wanted the gas tax the most... the Senate GOP... began to carry Inslee's water for him.

The GOP Senate immediately came out with a gas tax scam that makes the CRC rip off look like a fender-bender.

Included within the Senate plan is language referred to as a "poison pill."

But as part of the deal, Senate Republicans have insisted that if Inslee began drafting a new fuel standard then hundreds of millions of dollars would be diverted from public transit into road projects. They contend the standard will drive up the price of gas and thus drivers should receive a greater share of the benefits in the package.

The problem with that is four-fold:

First, once the money for any project, regardless of where it's going, is bonded out, that revenue stream CANNOT be interrupted.

Courts at every level all over the country have ruled thus, and as a result, if anyone even TRIES to implement this clause, it'll lose in the first court it's argued... and any court after that... as the Senate well knows.

Second, Inslee had no intention of doing this, since he knows he can't, legally, unilaterally collect any tax without legislative authority.  That's why the bill to collect a carbon tax died in the House; the fact is that if he COULD collect such a tax without Legislative approval...

...then why did he have a bill in the House to allow the tax to be collected?

Third, presuming that Inslee COULD collect such a tax on his own, who in their right mind believes he would be stopped or dissuaded from doing so by an 11.9 cents per gallon tax when he could get a lot more, a lot faster, merely by waving his pen?

Fourth, the political fallout of such a move would be practically incalculable.

Such a tax at that level, and those behind it, would be reinforced to everyone who owns a car every time they filled up.

With the new gas tax, every time you put 20 gallons of gas into anything, you'd be sending WADOT $13.60 or so of the cost, no matter how much the price of gasoline goes up... as it inevitably will.

Put Inslee's $2.00 per gallon gas tax on it, and you'd be sending them $51.00 or so.

Residents of border counties would buy their gas in Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia.  Such a decision would crush the dems around here to below super-majority levels.  It would have made the Trade Authority fistfight (Where, come to think of it, it was the GOP who caved on that as well) look like a fender-bender and it would have crushed any possible reelection bid for Inslee and most other dems in this state, immediately turning this state from the deep purple color it is now to a pale pink.

This was the start of the conjob.  And senators who took that message out... that they HAD to jack the gas tax to stop Inslee, are just as guilty of lying to us as he is.

Another part of the gas tax scam was the GOP Senate's "Transportation Reform Package," a package that has, for the most part disappeared, if sources are correct.

The two biggest reforms in sheer dollars were ending the Sales Tax scam where transportation dollars were shifted to the general fund through forcing sales tax to be paid on these state-financed projects... and getting rid of prevailing wage for these jobs, which has lined union pockets, subsequently getting democrats elected... while further raping the taxpayers.

We were told, repeatedly, by proponents of this scam that these two would save us well over a billion out of the $15 BILLION to be wasted for this fraud.

Well, none of that appears to be happening.  But it sounded GREAT at town hall meetings, didn't it?

More following the PDF below.

Summary of Senate Transportation Reforms

March 05, 2015

The GOP Senate's Swindle Sheet

Then, of course, there was the Brad Owen Scam.

Owen, as Lieutenant Governor, is also President of the Senate.

He runs the senate (To the extent the GOP Leader lets him) and makes decisions on parliamentary procedure, points of order and the like.

The GOP Senate, concerned they didn't have the votes, had Owen declare the rule that THEY, the GOP SENATE IMPLEMENTED, unconstitutional.

The GOP Senate COULD have challenged the decision and overturned it by a simple majority (25) (and the GOP Senate has 26 GOP Caucus members) but they did nothing.

And they did nothing because they wanted Owen to make that particular ruling to get the gas tax passed.

Oddly, however, a month or so later when the general fund/operating budget came up for consideration, Owen suddenly reversed himself and voila'!  The formerly UNconstitutional rule was now, inexplicably... Constitutional!

Now... why do you suppose Owen would do THAT?

We all certainly heard in the media of the Owen decision to throw the rule out for being "unconstitutional." (Which he has no right to do; he cannot determine the constitutionality of a rule or a bill... that's for the courts to decide.) But we did not hear a PEEP out of anyone that Owen had reversed himself on the general fund budget.

So, what was the cause of the media blackout on THIS minor detail?

No matter, I suppose.

Meanwhile, MY Senator, Ann Rivers, who ran on the following transportation platform back in 2012:

I believe in the concept that every dime of taxpayer money (meaning every dollar of revenue from whatever the source) should be squeezed until it screams. I will not support an increase in the gas tax. I will not support increases in tab fees. The people have spoken and I have listened. We will spend billions to move the tiniest number of people when we should be finding an implementing new and innovative ways to move the MOST number of people for the LEAST amount of money. Wasteful spending like that on the CRC is not what we want or need. Massive projects like that MUST have the permission of those who, allegedly, will “benefit” from such a project at the ballot box. At minimum, ALL of the financial impacts, including the obvious negative impacts on families and small business depending on the hundreds of dollars per year must be considered: not just the cherry-picked variety favored by proponents of light rail and replacing a bridge in the same location. The Rivers Wheels Plan: Transportation that Works

In fact did that very thing.

She DID vote for an increase in the gas tax.  She HAS voted for legislation that allows local municipalities to jack your tab fee... without a vote from you.

I am at a loss, personally.  And this kind of thing is part and parcel as to why I left campaigning altogether a few months ago.

MEANWHILE, there was a staged set-piece drama, again, carefully scripted, where Inslee CAVED on his carbon tax scheme that he couldn't/wouldn't implement anyway and that he never had any intention of implementing, all to provide additional cover to the GOP Senate for their part of the scam.

All of this could have been avoided, of course, had the GOP Senate insisted on a referendum clause and avoided stupidly putting an emergency clause on this obviously non-emergency legislation.

Even I would have supported this legislation had the final word been left to us.

All the GOP Senate had to do was put this to a vote of the people.  But as it turns out, the GOP Senate is just as terrified of the will of the people as the fringe-left they had defeated to take control

The end result?

Clark County gets 1.3% or so of the entire package ($200 million out of $15 BILLION) and half of that is spent on an unneeded, unwanted rebuild of the Mill Plain/I-5 Freeway intersection.

The likely result for the GOP, however, will have long-lasting ramifications.

I would never consider supporting anyone who voted "yes" on this rip off or was involved in setting up/implementing this con job.

For the GOP to treat the people precisely and exactly like the democrats they had replaced to take charge of the Senate is inexplicable and inexcusable.  And my guess is they will now lose the Senate and cripple House chances in 2016 because of it.

This is precisely the same way the democrats were treating us on the CRC/Loot Rail scam because, well, hell... now we know for sure that NONE of those voting for this crap give a damn what we think.

How... democrat of them: And the left wants this witch to be president?

Seriously?


'I heard on radio there is Cabinet mtg this am. Can I go?'
Dozens Now 'Classified'...
IRS FIX-IT LAWYER NOW IN CHARGE...
REVEALED: SIDNEY WAS EVERYWHERE...
White House Officials DID KNOW About Private Server...
Begala asked State Dept how to grade her on CNN...
How Clinton Plays the Media...
Axelrod caught in new lie...

MORE EMAIL MESS