![[Opinion] Light rail? Where we’re going, we don’t need light rail!](https://external-preview.redd.it/teN8vG-05odQUWJbLifNh2tjZtCKu2ifofi2T_-Pth0.jpeg?width=140&height=78&auto=webp&s=f2ec7fd12340812b47fccec5e886719939720df1)
This might be the dumbest article I've ever read. It advocates for scrapping the light rail, and replacing it with, wait for it, high speed driverless buses. Yup. You read that right. High-speed driverless electric buses.
Jesus Christ. It's literally the Onion in non-satirical form.
Do you have to register normal classes before trying to get Dawg Pack tickets?
Washington State is about to impose an income tax, 9.9% for all income over 1 million dollars (adjusted for inflation year over year) for the first time in state history. Washington has long been infamous for having one of the most regressive tax systems in the United States, and new policies have made the tax system slightly less regressive.
Since the start of the 2020s, people, especially in business, have been criticizing policies and aspects of the economy (at all levels, Seattle, county level, and state level) like the capital gains tax, the JumpStart Payroll tax, the high minimum wage, expensive costs, high union membership, and the high B&O gross receipts tax rate for large businesses. Howard Schultz even wrote an entire op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled "Seattle Turns Hostile to the Great Businesses It Made". Additionally, Jeff Bezos left for Florida.
This policy fight comes amid the election of socialist mayor Katie Wilson and the relocation of Starbucks jobs to Nashville. Several decades earlier, Boeing relocated headquarters and moved 787 Dreamliner production jobs to North Carolina, despite being given the largest tax break in history at that time by the state of Washington (that was later overturned at the request of Boeing due to a WTO ruling)
My question is, is the fierce criticism of Washington State's economic policies warranted?
edit: a better title would be economic environment
I found this in my family photo album and was genuinely astounded. SUB TWO DOLLAR GAS??? IN SEATTLE???
This is almost certainly never going to happen again. I miss pre enshittification times.
Answering clarifications from last time:
This is the STATE GENERAL FUND only. The overwhelming majority of state revenue comes through sales and property taxes, but this includes all revenues and expenditures received by the state that go to the general fund.
The state publishes revenue/expenditure data in two methodologies. The methodology I used was Method 1, which is where the benefits go. Method 2 is based on where expenditures occur. I chose method 1 because it made more sense from a "who is being served" perspective, and Method 2 makes Thurston look like humanities largest welfare taker ever due to most state employees being located there.
For election results, I averaged President, Governor, US Senate, Treasurer, Auditor, Sec of State, Attorney General, Insurance Commissioner, and Lands Commissioner results from 2024.
I found these findings interesting, so I decided to share them here.
>Last week, Washington State Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad suggested to the New York Times that if her party secures a legislative supermajority, lawmakers may undo this system, a change that would require voter approval.
>In an interview with the Standard this week, Conrad clarified that she doesn’t want to end Washington’s Redistricting Commission, and blamed Republicans for igniting the current redistricting war.
>“I am not pushing for us to undo the independent redistricting system,” Conrad said. “But there’s a national discussion that is happening around how to meet the moment … The Republican-controlled Supreme Court just gutted the Voting Rights Act.”