At EOI’s blog, the single best comparison I’ve seen demonstrating the wretchedness of Washington’s tax and revenue situation:
A $23 million cut in King County health programs approved by the Legislature last month means layoffs in Maternity Support Services, [a] program that improves infant survival and health by providing a range of services to 30,000 women and babies.
Meanwhile a sales tax exemption for out-of-state coal worth…you guessed it, $23.7 million…is still on the books.
It’s hard to imagine history treating us kindly. Will we be remembered for neglecting our most vulnerable infants and mothers, so that we can protect a tax loophole for a foreign energy company that is also the state’s biggest polluter? I hope that’s not our legacy.
I fully understand the implications of Eyman’s 1053—that closing even the most egregious corporate tax loopholes is nigh impossible — but it’s hard to believe that a moral legislative body wouldn’t try.
Talk about tax loopholes. I contacted the state agency thatshould know about all the corporate tax loopholes and taxbreaks and they told me that it was privileged information concerning income tax.If we stopped propping up capitalism which is supposed to be the best system supposedly, we would be trillions of dollars ahead instead of almost bankrupt. I hear that 46 states can’t paytheir bills and that in ten years this country will be no longer solvent.Let’s stop giving charity funds to the rich.
Capitalism as designed by early American ruling elites (Howard Zinn chapters 1-3 & 10-11 of the Peoples History of the United States -online version available-will answer your why, how, whats!!) is a system that is out of synch with nature and the greater human spirit. Coal mining is the reason mercury levels are so high in fish according to a chef on Martha Stweart the other day. OK so like what is the point? Are we not human?