1. Are Democrats in Olympia willing to get behind new taxes this year?
We will know soon enough. Spokane Rep. Timm Ormsby (D-3) is collecting co-sponsors today so he can drop a bill as early as Monday that would triple the hazardous substance tax—from 0.7 percent to 2 percent—on companies that produce dirty stuff like petroleum.
The haz mat tax—passed by voters in 1988— is supposed to go to pollution cleanup, but Rep. Ormsby’s legislation would dedicate 70 percent of the money to core general fund core services for three years.
We’ll see soon who’s willing to sign on to the additional taxes, which, business lobbyists argue, will be passed on to consumers or put industry jobs at risk.
2. We’re not sure if every Democratic member of the US Senate got a personalized shoutout from President Obama in his State of the Union address on Wednesday night (it was certainly long enough to accommodate such a list). But the way Morning Fizz sees it, both of Washington state’s senators—senior Sen. Patty Murray and junior Sen. Maria Cantwell—got a nod from the President.
Sen. Murray recently introduced a bill that would give $30 billion in bailout money (TARP funds) to help community banks.
On Wednesday night, Obama said:
“So tonight, I’m proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat.”
Asked if they thought the President was referring Murray’s bill, Murray’s office demurred. They said that while “[Sen. Murray] spoke directly with the President about her bill,”
“I don’t think we can say that. We haven’t seen the details of the President’s proposal, but it sounds like a similar goal and the same amount of dollars dedicated. Senator Murray had brought her idea up with both Secretary Geithner and President Obama. She was very pleased to hear the focus on community banks come up in the speech.”
Obama’s shoutout to Sen. Cantwell was more subtle.
Cantwell has proposed reinstituting part of the depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which would put up a wall between investment banking and commercial banking—preventing Wall Street investors from using your regular bank deposits on the market.
On Wednesday night, Obama said:
“We can’t allow financial institutions, including those that take your deposits, to take risks that threaten the whole economy.”
Sen. Cantwell’s office has not told us if they think the line was a reference to Cantwell’s proposal (which she’s co-sponsoring with Sen. John McCain).
However, in a press release yesterday about her vote against reconfirming Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Cantwell took the time to reference Obama’s speech and Sen. Murray’s legislation. And not in a good way. Noting the $30 billion plan, Cantwell’s release said:
“Cantwell urged the Obama administration to immediately use funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to infuse capital into small community banks for small business lending. The plan, announced by President Obama in his State of the Union Address, can be done by executive action rather than time-consuming legislation. Community banks should receive $50 billion in TARP funds, not the $30 billion in the White House proposal, she said.”
Bold is ours. Slapdown is Cantwell’s.
3. People’s Waterfront Coalition founder and director Cary Moon took issue with the city and state’s rosy assessment of a new proposal for the south end of the downtown Alaskan Way tunnel yesterday, arguing that the two transportation agencies in charge of the tunnel have not done enough analysis of the cost, potential seismic problems, and impact on historic buildings of the revamped south portal of the tunnel.
At a brown-bag forum yesterday at the Klondike Gold Rush Museum in Pioneer Square, representatives from the state and city departments of transportation (WSDOT and SDOT) laid out recent changes in the proposal for the south portal to the tunnel. Most significantly, tunnel planners have moved the proposed tunnel several blocks to the west, skirting hundreds of historic buildings that would have been demolished under the old First Avenue tunnel plan.
“We learned a lot about what it takes to build a tunnel in the last year,” said Ron Paananen, viaduct project manager for WSDOT. Steve Pearce, viaduct project manager for SDOT, echoed Paananen’s assessment, noting the “amazing arrival experience” drivers will have as they approach the tunnel from the south. “We wanted to celebrate that view.”
Moon, however, said the planners had ignored “a whole host of other risks that are raised with this new alignment. We got pretty far with risk assessment with the other alignment, but we didn’t do that here.”
Moon said the new design still leaves “a whole bunch of other historical buildings” in harm’s way, and ignores the fact that the new tunnel location is right next to the water table, on seismically vulnerable fill. “This is probably the worst place in the whole city to put a tunnel portal,” she said.
WSDOT estimates that around 59,000 drivers a day will enter and exit the tunnel in Pioneer Square.
Video of yesterday’s event is available here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).
4. Erica will be on KING-5′s “Up Front” this weekend, talking about Mayor Mike McGinn’s proposed ballot measure for the seawall and its prospects in front of voters and the city council.
5. Last night’s One Night Count of the homeless in King County found that the number of homeless people living on the streets has declined since last year’s count, from 2,827 to 2,759. The Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless attributed the decrease to increased awareness of homelessness in the community, as well as an increase in available services for the homeless. The count does not include the estimated 6,000 people staying in emergency shelters and transitional housing in King County.
Today’s Morning Fizz is sponsored by Is That Jazz?:
“We’ll see soon who’s willing to sign on to the additional taxes.” With due respect, guys, that’s a bit misleading. For some of us, it matters a lot what we’re buying with the new revenue. I’m waiting to see how this funding would be allocated.
“skirting hundreds of historic buildings that would have been demolished under the old First Avenue tunnel plan”
Hundreds? I don’t think so.
Historic Building=old. There are plenty of great looking buildings in Pioneer Square, but there’s also plenty that should be torn down.
Additionally, for any progress, occasionally you have to remove what’s already there, and some of these more dilapidated older buildings should be given the teardown.
@Deb. I can’t imagine anything short of spending revenue on roads or coal that would make my not want this tax. The one thing that will seriously reduce our environmental impact and prepare us for peak oil would be real taxes on gasoline. Because of our mess of legislation that keeps us from taxing gas (except to build more roads), this is the closest thing we get. Yes, it’s just a side benefit from cleaning up our sound, and probably won’t ammount to much fuel tax increase, but it’s the only positive step I can see working.
Re: #3
The main fear I came away with from the brownbag was the freeway this will create (or maybe just lower) on the waterfront. They’ve designed a free-flowing offramp from 99 to the waterfront right at the point where there will be a tollbooth. Looking at the street-side routing, I don’t see why anyone would pay the toll – you have an almost straight line from one end of the tunnel to the other portal. Look at that freeway, um I mean boulevard, in the picture above.
@MJM The fear is that vibrations from digging will cause buildings to fail – perhaps even collapse. Maybe these will be old ugly buildings, maybe they will be the ones we want to protect. The point is we don’t get to choose which ones this will affect.
@MtE
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Sure you do. Decide where to bore.
Do the business lobbyists arguing that the hazardous materials tax ” will be passed on to consumers or put industry jobs at risk” realize that those two options are pretty much mutually exclusive? Not that logic is the stock or a business lobbyist, but still.
@ Fat Tailed,
The issue is this: The way the haz substance works, the oil companies contend that in some instances they have to eat the tax and in others they can pass it on. (Complicated rules.)
So, yes, it does seem like a contradictory argument. But they do make both complaints.
By passing on a tax the price of the good is increased and the amount of that good sold will decrease. With the volume decreased the number of jobs will also be decreased.
Technically the supply curve is shifted up, which means it intersects the demand curve to the left which translates into higher prices and lower quantity.
Josh feel free to call.
Cary Moon is rapidly eroding any credibility she once had with her histrionics. It is time to ask her just who is in the Waterfront “Coalition” she claims to represent. By my count there are two people in that shell of an organization, and one of them is Cary.
@morning fizzy — A good free market argument. Alas, doesn’t seem to work that way in the material world. Businesses are always arguing in the abstract that any new cost whatsoever is just passed on directly to purchasers. Then in the concrete they complain about their lack of pricing power, especially in this economy — in other words, their *inability* to pass on new costs. And new costs come from a wide variety of sources, taxes only being one of many.
@Josh — Huh, sounds like there’s more logic there than I expected. Still seems silly given the wide market swings in petroleum prices from month to month and year to year to argue that 2% more is going to make a huge impact, or even a noticeable one as compared to other sources of swings in commodity prices.
The costs will be passed on at some time and in some way. Reducing a company’s income will result in some reduction – I doubt it will be to upper management or in the mid term to anything but jobs or new projects.
Your argument is a little like the property tax increases that are billed as only $48 when the total bill on that house is more like $4800 which too some extent is made up of a bunch of $48 dollar levies. Taxes and other regulations will add to the cost and the price of goods and services.
I’m not arguing against the tax, just saying that it will add to the price and will reduce jobs – not overnight but over time.
Mat the Engineer, look at 167 hot lanes and understand why people use those.
Now see that idea stretching up 405 (yes, is true).
Those are seperated by paint and signage.
What is the wrap rate cost of a truck sitting in traffic?
What is the cost of random delivery times?
“Historic Building=old. There are plenty of great looking buildings in Pioneer Square, but there’s also plenty that should be torn down.
Additionally, for any progress, occasionally you have to remove what’s already there, and some of these more dilapidated older buildings should be given the teardown.”
Yeah, but if they do they’ll just build another wine bar or a taffy shop for tourists. Shouldn’t we keep some semblance of Seattle’s architectural heritage? Dilapidated buildings with historical significance should be restored and used. Not given the tear down. The ugliest among them is still better than 90% of the structures today.
[Mr. Baker] Of course I was exaggerating when I said that nobody would use the tunnel. But look at the volume of people that drive in the HOT lanes compared to those that don’t – it’s a small fraction, almost by definition. My point is that we’re designing a massively expensive solution yet will get something approximating the surface only plan in all ways except letting a few trucks and businessmen drive faster.
Trucks aren’t a good enough reason to build this thing – there aren’t nearly enough of them to make this thing pay for itself. If you want HOT lanes in Seattle, just add paint, signage, and toll collection devices.
You are still exaggerating.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/3FBD89BD-FCE8-4769-BF4A-5C4CB95C7FD9/0/SR99_Cost_Tolling_Summary_Jan10.pdf
here is the last update on tolling.
I thought that between Mat the Engineer and Publicola that readers might want to know what you are exaggerating.
[Mr B] 99 volume, according to WSDOT’s own study, would go from 111,200 to 57,400 vehicles per day, pushing the rest to the streets (admittedly at the “high toll” level, but the “medium toll” level doesn’t attract many more users and loses potential revenue). But I think once people realize their other options, far fewer would take the tunnel then this. Even using WSDOT’s numbers, could we reduce these remaining 53,800 vehicles for other ways? Definately.
@MtE:
That’s the reduction in vehicles. There is the assumption that, with the massive improvements in bus service (and maybe year-round water taxi), total need for road for cars will decrease.
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Will more cars take Alaskan, or go up to I-5? Sure. But, overall, there will be a reduction in total cars on the road, and the tolling will (hopefully) open the door to a system-wide tolling system in King County (which is desperately needed)
@Andrew
I totally missed that! While I would agree that a restored, safe, re-windowed historic building is awesome, I do not believe that it is the taxpayer’s job to pay for that. If private investors or individuals or groups are unwilling to clean up some of the nastiest garbage that we call “architecture”, then tear it down.
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Hell, I work in a building that’s hella old (79 years, I believe), and the reason why it’s cool – it’s well maintained. Hiding POS buildings behind “historic” is idiotic, and just makes progress harder than it should be.
@ Rep. Eddy: Would you support new revenue if it fully funded the State Need Grant, as the Governor has requested?
So, is that image there of a viaduct-free waterfront supposed to be what we WANT to see? Because that looks awful. A massive expanse of brick and concrete, hot and bleak in the summer and cold and boring in the winter. It is view-friendly (to the people in the buildings to the East) but not really particularly pedestrian friendly, I think. Open plazas are nice sometimes, but in that image it sort of looks like a wasteland.
Get something onto those expanses of brick, and then you’ll have something. I would rather walk through narrow pedestrianized streets between small shops than on that wide paved plaza, any day.
Cantwell is just so hot.
Re the One Night Count:
68 less people found without shelter in all of King County is not exactly a victory.
In Seattle, the number actually increased a little, from 1,977 last year to 1,986 this year. One thing should be factored in in Seattle: sweeps of green areas and ticketing of cars/trucks parked on city streets were done very close to the Count. We don’t know where those people went, but the absence of recent camps and cars/trucks in their usual places was noted by a number of counters familiar with those areas. Those people may have gone further back into the green areas and not counted; who knows where the car/truck people went — possibly to other areas. The point is that even though the Seattle count was probably lowered because of those sweeps, it was still higher than last year.
We’re almost 5 years into the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, and we’ve lost more housing units than we gained. Not exactly a victory over homelessness, nor can we say that the Plan is working. But still–people do say it.
“Erica will be on KING-5’s “Up Front” this weekend, talking about Mayor Mike McGinn’s proposed ballot measure for the seawall and its prospects in front of voters and the city council.”
And let us all pray that she never wears that God-awful top again.