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Tax Freedom Day?
One of my favorite thinktanks (The Tax Foundation – www.taxfoundation.org) a conservative tax research organization releases an annual report listing “tax freedom day” for each state. This is the day when you’ve finished paying your combined state, federal, and local taxes for the year. As is usual with soundbite politics the data behind is somewhat…
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SR 520 Bridge Status Update
The Department of Transportation sends out a regular update on what’s going on. Here’s their update from today celebrating the signing of the 520 bill yesterday at Bellevue City Hall. Eastside improvements can move ahead: Gov. Gregoire and state Legislature allow bridge tolls to be spent in the SR 520 corridor We’re now a big…
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How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America
Last month’s Atlantic Magazine has a great article on the transformative effect the current recession will have on people in America over the next few decades. It’s a little depressing a read, but very thought-provoking. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/03/how-a-new-jobless-era-will-transform-america/7919 Here’s the blurb the magazine uses to intro the article: The Great Recession may be over, but this era…
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Important Education Bills Signed
I sent out the following press release today on the signing of several key education bills. We mostly stayed focused on the budget, but stayed the course on ed reform, both financial and structural. THese bills don’t do all that I want, but are a step in the right direction. ———————– AUBURN – Rep. Ross…
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Rob McKenna and Healthcare
Earlier this week Attorney General Rob McKenna joined a lawsuit filed by a number of other AGs nationally to attack the new healthcare bill adopted in the other Washington. Here’s his press release on the suit: http://www.atg.wa.gov/pressrelease.aspx?&id=25402 He’s using 10th amendment grounds to do so, and my personal read is that the suit is unlikely…
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Arts bill fails again
For the umpteenth year in a row we have failed to get a bill out of the Legislature that shifts the funding streams around to fund 4Culture, King County’s arts funding arm. Every year everyone with a funding idea gloms onto the bill and we can’t get all of them passed. This year we had…
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Interesting Pension Fund Data
The following was included in the most recent issue of Capitol Ideas, the magazine published by the Council of State Governments: “A new report from the Pew Center on the States finds a $1 trillion gap between the $2.35 trillion states have set aside to pay for employees’ retirement benefits and the $3.35 trillion price…
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What’s a Tax Loophole?
When you and I sell our homes, we pay real estate excise tax. So how come some businesses don’t pay it on multi-million-dollar transactions? If we hire contractors to remodel our homes, those contractors must charge sales tax on their labor. But some developers have figured out a way to avoid paying that tax on…
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520 Bridge Moves Forward!
The SR 520 bridge an important project, and one of the key things I work on as a legislator. We have struggled with this project for the entire time I have been in the legislature. The project we are moving forward with will look mostly like the A+ option determined in the SR 520 legislative…