Read it and Weep
Tuesday Open Thread
The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested. It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio. (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Comments
-SDD
"I spent billions building this wall and people still climb over and around and under it." It's not the money spent, it's what the money was spent on.
-McClureWatcher
Gates is the definition of hubris. He has largely wasted that money because he has had negligible effect on academic outcomes. He did get Common Core done only to see it getting huge pushback and revamping.
Effort in this case doesn't count. Learning from mistakes and getting outside of his personal echo chamber would.
Every time you drive by the Gates Foundation HQ, in the shadow of the Space Needle, think about all the schools in Seattle and elsewhere in our state that are old, dilapidated, cold, with lead in the water, without enough new textbooks, with overcrowded classrooms. And then look again at those gleaming buildings. There's a direct correlation. Rather than money being used to maintain and repair classrooms and build new ones, we took that money and gave it to Bill Gates in the form of tax cuts.
Rather than fully and amply fund schools so that every child attends an amazing school, we gave that money to Bill Gates to use as he wishes. Now he spends it to try and dictate education policy.
The single best thing the Gates Foundation could do for our schools is to write a $10 billion check to the State of Washington, with the only stipulation being that it has to be spent on public schools. If they did that, then perhaps I might take their educational policy pronouncements more seriously.
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Love life
The author must think there some amount of chic having Seattle falsely listed as their home city.
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Shewhoknows
I'm not saying how.
It's about fairness, logic and equity. There are seven states in the US without a capital gains tax. WA is one of them. Our schools, human services and infrastructure are woefully underfunded.
Meanwhile, the two richest people on planet earth live in this state. They, and many many others, including myself, could afford & should pay more in taxes. I believe this state would work better for all of us if that were the case.
This is not based on emotion. It's based on logic. They (Gates & Bezos) among many others can & should pay more. They benefit from the public goods, they need to pay more in taxes.
Skol
Instead people like Alex want everyone to be financially imposed on for what he believes is right.
Microsoft and Amazon have not destroyed this region, far from it.
The socialistic ideas by commenters on this blog are lacking any basis in reality.
If you want to see what a "destroyed" city looks like then head east to the mid-west and see what happens when you lose thousands of good paying jobs.
There's no evidence that bringing 10s of thousands of high paying jobs to a city "destroys" it, it's just the opposite.
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What I am saying is that we all need to pay our fair share, and it's widely known that the upper class in WA is not paying its fair share. Neither are big corporations. When 43 states have a capital gains tax, but WA does not, and we can't fund our schools, that is wrong. When 40 states have an income tax, but WA does not, that is wrong. It means that our tax structure is regressive, and overly dependent on consumption, and property taxes, which is unfair. When the two wealthiest people on the planet live in WA, but don't pay taxes on their capital gains when they make a windfall on the stock market, yeah, I think that's wrong, because they are not paying their fair share, and could & would pay much more if they lived in another state.
Furthermore, corporations such as Microsoft & Amazon have benefited mightily from tax breaks & loop holes and are also not paying their fair share. They benefit from public goods, such as clean water, trained & skilled workers, good roads & bridges, police & fire departments, and government research. The internet was in large part created because of research & investment from DARPA, part of the department of defense. So, in all likelihood, no investment from DARPA (as in the U.S. government) --> no internet --> Bill Gates & Jeff Bezos would not be the two richest people on earth.
I am not anti-corporation. I know the value of good jobs, but I also know that companies and rich people don't get that way all on their own. They benefit hugely from public goods, which are funded by taxes. I am not anti-capitalism, but I am in favor of an honest discussion of how people get rich, which is based on a variety of factors, but it's not just because they're so smart and they do it all on their own. It takes a stable, functioning society for capitalism to thrive, and for it to benefit more than just those at the very top.
If that's FAKE to you, ok. But that is how I see it. The rich & corporations in WA a) did not become so all by themselves and b) are not paying their fair share.
They did not want to sell but were forced in order to pay taxes on their home. Their property is slowly being liquidated for the re-distribution of wealth by force. I know they get sick when they see the waste by local, state and federal governments. I believe they have paid more in taxes than 80% of most people earn in a life time.
They are not a business nor a corporation. They are just of family that took care of land, land that others were not interested in 80 years ago. I really think enough is enough. I believe their total in local property taxes has exceeded 2 million dollars in the time they have owned their property. Isn't 2 million dollars enough for one family?
So what is a persons fair share? What is a citizen? I think citizenship means contributing and should not be limited to requiring taxes. Earmarked taxation without representation should be illegal...but even then do elected representatives keep their promises and are they good stewards of public funds. I think we know the answers to both...NO!
Our taxes continue to rise collectively to one of the highest of any major cities. We all contribute but the wealthy are often levied excessively only to see local bureaucracies waste those funds on excessive spending or doomed to fair bike sharing programs.
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