Is not trusting the Washington State Legislature in the future enough reason to continue the legacy of suffering and tax inequality now?

Proverbs 14:31 "He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God."

Despite what you may or may not have discerned and/or possibly feared from my contemptable ramblings here at the Weekly Volcano under the guise of El Vacio Moral, I grew up in the church. From the time where memory kicked in as a child to the point in my teens when it started lapsing at seemingly predictable intervals, there was always one constant: Yeshua bin Yoseph. Despite my seemingly endless talent for stirring up trouble through my complete questioning of faith and eventual abandonment of organized religion to study and worship in my own way, I have always considered the direction The Man would've taken, even when I fucked up big time. As they say, hindsight is always 20/20.

Last Monday, UW Tacoma hosted The Great State Income Tax Debate. We got to listen to Bill Gates, Sr. and Slade Gorton passively duke it out, both displaying an ample ability to champion their side's point with stats and numbers and a pinch of fear for voting yay or nay on I-1098. Both of them came armed with representatives of venture capitalism, who equally amplified their respective cases.

"One of the great lies perpetrated on the American People over the past 25 years is the idea that if you tax the rich or super-rich, it will be bad for everyone," started Nick Hanauer, taking the Pro-1098 side. "If you take some small proportion of the income that somebody like me earns and reinvest in the public good that we will all suffer because somehow people like me have this magical ability to keep the economy going. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing bad will happen to you as a consequence of me paying a couple three or four million more in tax."

Matt McIlwayne, taking the Anti-1098 stance, utilized many comparisons to Connecticut and other income-tax dependent states and their difficulties in maintaining a steady economic growth rate to spurn the business climate forward, as well as 1098's inability to address the "regressivity" of Washington State's dependence on a sales tax.

McIlwayne also decried the 1098 proposed B & O tax rebate's ability to spurn business growth:

"It represents those very small businesses that, as long as they stay very small, would continue to be eligible for that rebate. That's not where the job creation comes from in our economy. That's not where the jobs come from." 

From the editorials I've been scouring, from KOMO's Ken Schramm to The Seattle Times' Bruce Ramsey, it seems the majority of Op-Ed columnists and newspaper editorial boards have come out in near-unison, calling for the defeat of the 1098. The crux of the argument they make is the fear of our own greedy, arrogant legislators - painting them as rabid, money-hungry dogs with nothing but their own interest in mind. These are people, we're told, WHO WILL ABSOLUTELY, POSTIVELY, UNDOUBTEDLY APPLY (AND PROBABLY INCREASE) THE INCOME TAX TO ANY WASHINGTONIAN MAKING OVER EIGHT BUCKS A YEAR.

These warnings could be right. COULD BE - that is, assuming Washingtonians are an apathetic bunch of mouth-breathing mongoloids, completely incapable of doing anything other than jones-ing at the feeder bar of the public teat.

But are we right to blindly oppose this initiative because of a possibility, when so many of Washington's neediest citizens are getting screwed by the recent round of budget cuts, due to our state's constitutionally bound requirement of operating on a balanced budget?

Recently, Gov. Chris Gregoire released a sweeping array of across-the-board cuts to almost every department, many of which directly impact those who require public assistance: LOW INCOME PEOPLE.

Responding to Republican demands for her to call a special session to address the current budget quagmire - and as a prime example of the functionally dysfunctional Charlatanism we lovingly call "Representative Government" - Gregoire replied:

"I can't call a special session and get nothing done."

This was perhaps in reference to last year's special session to deal with the then $700 million budget shortfall, which led to departmental cuts and unpaid furloughs for state employees, and a ridiculously long and unnecessary stalemate in which many of our proud legislators waived their special session per diem, "standing in solidarity" with the bums of their home districts.

I-1098 is set up to apply a 4 percemt tax against our wealthiest, well-to-do citizens, and apply its revenues directly to funding another one of our constitutionally bound requirements: EDUCATION.

The tax would initially produce revenue of around $1.7 million, with roughly 45 percent ($766 million) would directly go to funding education. 1098 would also give a Business & Occupation (ironically a tax which was also initially instituted "temporarily" in the ‘30s to quell a budget deficit) credit of around $249 million, reduce property taxes by applying $357 million in new revenue directly to it, and provide an additional $328 million to our rapidly depleting health care funding.

If we apply these numbers to the current round of budget cuts, you could see almost immediate results.

State Education is set to take an immediate $84 million hit, which would be easily-and directly – supplemented by 1098.

One of the most disturbing cuts is headed for DSHS funding for family planning. ONE THIRD OF ALL PREGNANT WOMEN in Washington are covered by our state and federally funded health care. In the cuts announced by Gregoire, $280 million has been slashed from DSHS.

$1.2 million of that comes directly from Reproductive Health services for contraception and family planning. Planned Parenthood Votes!, the political action arm of the women's services agency, estimates the cut could roughly cost the state $50 million in the long term, due to increases in unplanned pregnancies, especially among low-income women, many of whom require on Planned Parenthood for basic sexual health services & routine check-ups.

And, the group also counters (LISTEN UP CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS!) the cuts could result in 17,000 MORE ABORTIONS PER YEAR! (How's that for fear-mongering?)

Most importantly, the cuts WILL MASSIVELY DEPLETE FEDERAL MATCHING DOLLARS FOR HEALTHCARE, in which the state receives $9 for every $1 invested into our State Healthcare system. Cutting the state expenditure to cover those not eligible for Medicaid Programs and who are without insurance will deny the Washington State Take Charge program the federal funding it is dependent on.

Perhaps I'm invoking a little bit of "Catholic Guilt," of which I'm very familiar, but doesn't this seem a higher cost for everyone to pay than the 4 percent tax of the collective earnings of our most enabled, wealthiest, and most able to pay citizens?

It's true that many of our most fortunate citizens have taken great economic risks to receive their great economic rewards, and with it, great power to shape our current state of affairs, and especially the power to shape elections.

But as a wise man once said, "With great power comes great responsibility."

Perhaps one more Biblical reminder will suffice, then:

Matthew 25:40, 25:45: "And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'...'He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'"

Owen Taylor is tired. Very tired. He's also the only hack Volcano editor Matt Driscoll knows crazy enough to take the job as political correspondent. Thankfully, he's got enough underworld connections to make it interesting. El Vacio Moral is Taylor's weekly court-ordered therapy session where he rants about his dwindling faith in the government to get anything right. You can find it here at weeklyvolcano.com on Fridays, definitely after noon.