taxes « Washington Policy Watch

September 14, 2011 • 10:58 am 0

National unity requires equality of opportunity

John Burbank, Executive Director

It isn’t any surprise that people are pessimistic and negative right now. If we have jobs, we are worried about keeping them. If we don’t, we are worried about making ends meet, especially as unemployment insurance has run out for tens of thousands of jobless workers in our state.

We see the stock market lose billions, then gain billions, then lose billions again in the space of several hours. Tuition has broken the $10,000 barrier at the University of Washington, and $3,500 at Everett Community College. More and more people are working without health insurance, while the state has steadily defunded basic health coverage. Class sizes are increasing, actual courses are decreasing, and physical education and arts and music are left shriveling on the vine of wilted revenues.

But we are not all in this boat together. We are not all sharing the doubt, fear and suffering. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: education, health care, minimum wage, paid sick days, retirement security, tax and budget, work and family, college, corporate profits, Everett Community College, Jack Layton, Jeff Bezos, New Democratic Party, schools, stock market, taxes, University of Washington

August 12, 2011 • 10:35 am 1

Tax Flight Is a Myth: Higher State Taxes Bring More Revenue, Not More Migration

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Attacks on sorely-needed increases in state tax revenues often include the unproven claim that tax hikes will drive large numbers of households — particularly the most affluent — to other states. The same claim also is used to justify new tax cuts. Compelling evidence shows that this claim is false.

The effects of tax increases on migration are, at most, small — so small that states that raise income taxes on the most affluent households can be assured of a substantial net gain in revenue.

The basic facts, as this report explains, are as follows:

Migration that’s occurring is much more likely to be driven by cheaper housing than by lower taxes. A family might be able to cut its taxes by a few percentage points by moving from one state to another, but housing costs are far more variable. The difference between housing costs in two different states is often many times greater than the difference in taxes. So what might look like migration in search of lower taxes is really often migration for cheaper housing. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: state economy, tax and budget, millionaire flight, millionaire migration, myth, public policy, state budget, taxes

July 25, 2011 • 8:56 am 1

Public policy choices built the middle class – and they can also destroy it

Click for full report

For 30 years Washington state and the U.S. as a whole have experienced a decline in the middle class. If you listen to the pundits on TV, it sounds like it was inevitable – or at least unavoidable. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The rise of the middle class in the post-WWII era wasn’t an anomaly. It was the direct result of policy choices at both the federal and state level to grow a middle class. Likewise, the current decline of the middle class is due to policy choices at the federal and state level – although the continuing effects of the Great Recession are making it worse.

In the report Under Attack: Washington’s Middle Class and the Jobs Crisis, EOI and Demos collaborated to examine the decline in middle income jobs, rising inequality, a decline in benefits that meet the basic needs of a changing workforce, and the rising cost of the American Dream, including home ownership and a college education.

This generation will likely be the first to have a lower standard of living than their parents. For example: from 2001 to 2011, tuition at the University of Washington increased by between 6% – 20% per year – from $3,983 in 2001 to more than $10,500 in 2011. Washington now ranks 32nd among the states in percentage of low income students participating in post-secondary education. The top 1% now claims 35% of the nation’s wealth – nearly double that of the past 3 decades – while overall wealth has declined for the bottom 90%.

The growth of the middle class in the 20th century was reinforced by high levels of public investment in infrastructure and education – and everybody, including the wealthy, paid their fair share. Today, wealthy individuals and corporations are paying the lowest tax rates in nearly a century – and state and federal policy choices seem focused on slashing educational opportunity, health and basic services, instead of investing in American infrastructure and talent to bring us out of the recession,

The obsession with the federal deficit is threatening to be the coup de grâce to the American dream. The American people and the people of Washington state deserve better choices.

Filed under: early learning, health care, retirement security, state economy, college, Consumption and Wealth, middle class, taxes, University of Washington, wealth

June 22, 2011 • 11:23 am 0

Lip-service investments in higher ed

From the Everett Herald:

John Burbank, Executive Director

Two weeks ago, Gov. Chris Gregoire convened a press conference with corporate leaders from Microsoft and Boeing. They were celebrating a breakthrough in higher education.

It was a breakthrough, all right — like 60,000 high school graduates walking out onto thin ice and breaking through. The troika offered a life ring for 1,000, through “Opportunity Scholarships.” The other 59,000? Let them swim … or sink.

Let’s consider what really happened to public higher education this year. The Legislature cut out almost a fifth of funding for higher education: $617.5 million. It raised tuition at the University of Washington by 35 percent in two years, and by 25 percent at community colleges.

Boeing and Microsoft? Gregoire was praising them because they committed $5 million a year each, totaling 1.62 percent of the shortfall. That contribution wasn’t free — the state, that is the taxpayers, had to make a down payment of $5 million, moving money out of public services and into a corporate-controlled nonprofit. And our state will have to do that year in and year out in order to get the corporate crumbs. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: education, boeing, higher education, microsoft, taxes

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National unity requires equality of opportunity

Tax Flight Is a Myth: Higher State Taxes Bring More Revenue, Not More Migration

Public policy choices built the middle class – and they can also destroy it

Lip-service investments in higher ed

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