>When republicans are idiots: WA State GOP hasn’t paid legal fees for Top 2 case.

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Besides idiotically supporting democrat Tim “The Liar” Leavitt, Washington State GOP’ers have additional idiocy to contend with: They’ve failed to pay an owed $55,000 legal bill to the state for their multiple moronic challenges to this state’s Top Two election system.

The stupidity of the state GOP continuing to whine and snivel about the will of the people as expressed in the vote changing this state to the top two vote getter system for primary elections, SHOULD be self-evident.

I advocated all along that the leftists who ignore anything approaching diversity of thought should take all the heat for bitch-slapping the people of this state in their effort to avoid losing a little power.

That said, the state GOP owes $55,000 in what seems like hard dollars for their failed effort to again ignore the will of the people. And how idiotic is that? What did it get them?

Local News 53°F

Originally published Monday, November 16, 2009 at 2:35 PM

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Wash.: GOP hasn’t paid legal fees for Top 2 case

The state says Washington’s Republican Party is deadbeat in repaying legal fees associated with a failed challenge to the Top 2 primary system.

The Associated Press

SEATTLE —

The state says Washington’s Republican Party is deadbeat in repaying legal fees associated with a failed challenge to the Top 2 primary system.

In a federal court filing Monday, the Attorney General’s Office wrote that while the Democratic Party has paid the $37,700 it owes, the Republicans haven’t made a dent on their $55,000 bill. Furthermore, Deputy Solicitor General Jeffrey T. Even says a GOP lawyer told him not to expect payment any time soon.

The Libertarian Party has also failed to pay. It owes $16,300.

The political parties sued to challenge Washington’s Top 2 primary system, by which the top two finishers in a primary advance to the general election. Washington lost in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and paid the parties’ legal fees. But after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision of the appeals court, a federal judge in Seattle ordered the parties to repay the state.

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>Obama’s Keystone-Cop politics.

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There’s an increasingly major element of tragedy that is the comedy in the White House… now that Paterson blames the empty suit for his troubles.

Unforced errors that would make even the newest beginning tennis player blush and hide their heads in shame. An inability to avoid the appearance of incompetence and short-sightedness that is going to cost, if it isn’t already costing us, major amounts of spilled blood.

We all know the idiocy that has marked the tenure of the empty-suited, anti-American racist bigot occupying the White House; it would serve no purpose to rehash those elements of a failed presidency here.

So when we look at the stupidity of the White House and Paterson, all we can do is shake our collective heads at the morons running this country and believe we, as a Nation, can actually survive the empty suit’s hopefully impeachment-shortened tenure.

The set up? Paterson, something of a major-league adulterer himself, took over for a dumb ass named Eliott Spitzer, who felt the only way he could get laid was to pay for it, in amounts that simply boggle the mind.

The problem is that Paterson has been an abysmal disaster as governor, not unlike most leftists who manage to scam the job.

That he was/is a disaster isn’t a particularly difficult problem for the empty suit. The problem is that, unlike our half white president, Governor Paterson is all black… and vision impaired to boot.

Now, any fringe-left scum will tell you that no thinking, sentient being could POSSIBLY disagree with the empty suit’s program of turning this country into a Marxist, Socialist Utopia unless they are possessed by the demon racism.

It’s an automatic, built in, fall back possession for almost every leftist politician: explain and mute the opposition by running around, screaming, “RACIST!!!!”

It’s a crock, of course. But playing the racism card knocks the opposition off message and plays to white guilt.

So… how are we to react to the Empty Suits’s interference in New York politics? It’s difficult to claim racism under the circumstance. Given the president’s half-African, half Caucasian bloodline and Gov. Paterson’s black genetic make up, can either party claim “racism?” Can their surrogates, like Obama’s Winged Monkeys?

Of course not. Thus the moronic handling of this relatively simple matter again brings to light the rampant stupidity at play here… the frightening incompetence again displayed by the ACORN-in-Chief.

Paterson’s insistence on running is a huge help to the GOP. Leftist efforts to clear the field for Cuomo, now exposed as most of their amateurish crap eventually sees the light of day will hurt them with key constituencies and provide the possibilities for major inroads by Giuliani with both minorities and a frequently overlooked group that can still vote in large numbers: those challenged with physical issues can be exploited for purposes of charging, this time accurately, discrimination by those who would sweep Paterson out of the way in the interests of political expediency.

And if those running this show weren’t complete idiots, they’d already know that, and this whole sorry episode could have been avoided.
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>The stupidity of our state’s political parties knows no bounds.

>.
While no longer a Republican (I can hear the snickering already, but it’s true) I have a history with them that goes back a long way.

While I have a degree in Government (the rest of the world would call it political science) my first political involvement was when I actually put up a Carlson sign back in the halcyon days when I lived in the 49th… back when a guy named Fishback (I think that’s how it’s spelled) was the city manager of Sodom on the Columbia… and, of course, before I discovered that any resemblance between Carlson and Republicanism was purely coincidental.

That was around 20 years or so ago… maybe a little more… maybe a little less.

I began to volunteer. I had no political plans… I had no idea that volunteerism would lead me to where I am today.

I volunteered for Bob Smith and Linda Smith’s congressional campaigns. Ultimately, I became a 6 year staffer in the legislature… and ultimately, worked in the position of Executive Director for the State GOP.

The things I saw there began to sour me on political parties generally. The agendas of individuals… what jobs they could get… what appointments in the Administration… the turf wars, the manipulation… all of those things being much more important then the stated purpose of the party: to elect Republicans.

State party board members filled with hate, violating every political rule in the book when bent on revenge. Many with complaints… but none… NONE with the courage to face me.

The idiotic lawsuit to get rid of the blanket primary was the pinnacle of their stupidity. In the beginning, this was driven by the state democrats. Then a moronic GOP county chair PUBLICLY threatened to fund the democrat’s lawsuit if we didn’t join it.

There were other, equally asinine issues… we are, for example, one of two states in this country that doesn’t have their headquarters in the state capital. But the conclusion was clear: these clowns were much more interested in the various ways they could feather their own nest… or which appointment they could scam… which convention.

Others… the consultants and the lawyers… they’re in it for the billables.

At the local level, I set about to throw a cancerous state executive board member out, and that went precisely to plan… and we were better off for her exit from the scene.

Local party politics were no better. A county executive board member who was paid by democrats while we were attempting to elect Republicans; a moronic Republican PCO who endorsed every democrat he could, now, thankfully, gone from our ranks… but no action taken when I brought the information to my fellow board members.

These types of things, and more, have caused me to leave party politics.

Now, I work for the person. Now, I support someone based not only on what they say, but what they’ve done and who they are.

That’s why I can support a democrat like Brian Sonntag, while I can oppose a Republican like Jamie Herrera or Jon Russell… because frankly, I know far too much about them to ever be able to support them.

Part of that is, well, that frequently, political parties can be astoundingly stupid in their dealings with the people. And this whiny, idiotic lawsuit is a case in point.

What the main party hierarchies don’t get is that we have it the way we want it. We arrived here through the initiative process, and clearly, the idiots running the parties failed to grasp this situation and they quite apparently lack the vision or the capabilities to embrace this new system and to take advantage of the opportunities the new system presents.

Instead, they are determined to alienate the people by jamming a stick in our eye by ratcheting us back to the day of yester-year, and ignoring the expressed will of the people… people who will not take kindly to party interference in our political system.

Yes, yes… I know the arguments. But I warned everyone that the people view this franchise as a cherished institution and that the people would not brook this assault on our system.

No one listened. And here we are.

But what the idiots in charge don’t get is this: If they keep pushing this, the parties WILL see the first non-partisan legislature in the United States. In fact, they will see that every office that CAN become non-partisan, WILL become non-partisan.

Do the parties believe that the people supporting the top-two primary are just going to stay home and twiddle their thumbs while they screw that up?

Keep it up, guys. You’ll find yourself having to pick up the tab for the kind of primary YOU want, and thousands who have donated in the past will keep their wallets in their pockets when YOU need funding for your campaigns.

Why the hell should we give money to an organization who’s design is to attack the will of the people of this state?

Stupidity. Idiocy. You think you hate what we have now… you have no idea how bad it can get.

Parties continue to challenge Washington primary

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OLYMPIA, Wash. — A federal judge in Seattle has refused to dismiss a legal challenge to Washington’s top-two primary system.

Secretary of State Sam Reed had asked the court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties.

Even though the state’s top-two primary was upheld last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge John Coughenour (COON’-our) ruled Thursday the parties can continue to challenge how the primary is conducted.

The secretary of state’s office says the ruling means a new round of litigation that could change how candidates are listed on the ballot or in the voters’ pamphlet.

State Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz said the ruling means the state will have to amend the current law.
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>More unabashed stupidity from OUR government: Cash for clunkers.

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There are fools, damned fools… and our government.

As a general rule, government rarely SOLVES any problem. (Can you name one…. ONE problem government has solved? I can’t.) What they do is reduce the noise on the problems we face to a bearable level. It is, in fact, the implementation of the “squeaky wheel” rule.

Government typically wants the unwashed masses (That’s US, by the way.) to THINK government’s doing something. That’s why we cost ourselves tens of billions of wasted dollars by making all of the airport security workers federal employees, for example. It was a show, designed primarily to make us believe that our government, post 9/11, was actually DOING something.

In that regard… they were not. In the aftermath, it’s easy to forget that none of the 9/11 hijackers violated the security laws then in effect. Federalizing airport security BEFORE 9/11 would have made absolutely NO difference in the 9/11 outcome… unless the rules had been changed as well.

It’s important to remember that as we consider the latest plan to “save us” by removing older, more polluting, gas-guzzler type vehicles from the road.

Now, I haven’t seen the final version of this nonsense, and many of the rules in question would blind an accountant in their complexity, purely an accidental outcome to be sure. So, I’ll let Greg Gutfeld explain it to you in his own, inimitable, way:

Making Sense of ‘Cash for Clunkers’

Monday, June 22, 2009
By Greg Gutfeld

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FNC

Last week I was reading up on the “Cash for Clunkers” program which the Senate just approved, hoping to talk about it here. I gave up, however, because it didn’t make any sense.

Then it dawned on me: It didn’t have to! It’s a government program. As long as it’s paved with good intentions, it doesn’t matter if the road goes nowhere.

Here’s the deal: To get gas guzzlers off the roads, the government is offering vouchers worth up to $4,500 for your old car, to be used on a new car.

How does it work? (Breathe deeply.) You can trade in a car getting 18 miles per gallon for a car getting 22 mpg and get $3,500. But you’d get $4,500 if the new car is 10 mpg higher.

Now, if you own an old SUV, you could get $3,500 if your new wheels offer two more gallons per mile. If it’s five more miles, then you get an extra grand.

You follow? Good, then find a gun and shoot me in the face.

Now, here’s the fun part: None of this makes any sense if your old car is worth more than a voucher. Meaning this only works for crap worth under 3,500 bucks. And if that’s the case, then the government pays and loses money on every junk heap.

Lastly, try to find someone with a piece of crud up on blocks in their front yard, who can suddenly afford a new car. You can count all of them on one foot, even if you’re missing a toe.

So, in sum, welcome to the rebirth of big government. It’ll drive you nuts just thinking about it.

Greg Gutfeld hosts “Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld“ weekdays at 3 a.m. ET. Send your comments to: redeye@foxnews.com

There are, perhaps WAYS to make this actually WORK… but this plan ain’t one of them.

The purpose of this, I guess, is to get people driving $4500 or cheaper cars in on a new car.

Besides credit markets so tight it makes your butt squeak, as Greg pointed out:

Lastly, try to find someone with a piece of crud up on blocks in their front yard, who can suddenly afford a new car. You can count all of them on one foot, even if you’re missing a toe.

So…. here we have it. This aspect of the bill will, no doubt, have a huge roll out. “Good” for the auto-makers, “good” for the environment, “good” for the consumers.

Except… it will make little to no difference…. because the target market will not be able to afford a new car.

But it looks good, doesn’t it?
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>Governor: restore the State Auditor’s Funding.

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Neat, isn’t it?

The leftists running the Leg always seem to be able to find a way to scrounge up cash for crap like this:

$750,000 for Ward Lake purchase for Olympia parks…

$1.115 million for the Vashon Arts Center…

$325,000 for the Federal Way Performing Arts Center…

$950,000 for a “Zina Linnik Park”…

So, not only do they ignore the expressed will of the people via the initiative process, they hamstring the Auditor, Brian Sonntag, from implementing I-900 as the PEOPLE of this state demanded.

Is there some PARTICULAR reason the leftists don’t want Brian lifting their rocks to see what crawls out underneath?

Ron Hebron over at Sound Politics nails it:

Sound Politics
Sound Commentary on Current Events in Seattle, Puget Sound and Washington State

May 18, 2009

State Auditor Sonntag plays hardball over “dumb” cut to performance audits

In their desperation to save money the Legislature made a cut that will result in more spending, not less. State Auditor Brian Sonntag has made some real hits (baseball analogy) with his performance audits. He is hurting our elected officials’ ability to protect their favorite programs and hire each other’s kids. He is using objective measures and informed judgment. They just had to do something!

Seattle Times Newspaper:

State Auditor Brian Sonntag is a serious baseball fan. He’s a regular at Mariners games and has a rack stuffed with 20 wooden bats in his office. An inscribed ceramic ball on his desk reads: “Sometimes you just have to play hardball.”

Hardball is what the 57-year-old Democrat seems to have in mind when it comes to fighting the Legislature’s $29 million cut to his performance-audit program, which seeks to find efficiencies in state and local governments.

He’s asked Gov. Chris Gregoire to restore at least some of the money, saying the cut “decimates” a program that’s found millions in potential savings. Gregoire is expected to decide by Tuesday.

Sonntag has publicly described the money grab as a “sucker punch” and has thrown around words like “stupid,” “dumb,” “ridiculous” and “unacceptable” when talking about the plan. That’s not how politicians typically describe the work of other elected officials, especially members of their party who control the purse strings.

Senate Ways and Means Chairwoman Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, said Sonntag is blowing the impact of the cut out of proportion. Her advice to him: “Cool it.”

… Sonntag’s office said it’s working on a report that will show how much money the audits have saved.

It’s not available yet, but the office points to an audit of the state Department of Labor and Industries as an example. The audit recommended ways to improve the agency’s collection of benefit overpayments. As a result, the department had a 50 percent increase in collections, worth $4.6 million in 2007, according to the auditor’s office and Labor and Industries.

Overall, Sonntag’s office has received high marks for several performance audits, including a 2007 review of the Port of Seattle that said its contracting practices were lax and ripe for fraud and abuse. The audit prompted a federal investigation and a Port-funded probe that identified 10 cases of fraud.

A series of audits of the state Department of Transportation, however, received mixed reviews.

…If you agree with distinguished Senator Prentice then sit on your hands. If you agree with Sonntag then call Chris Gregoire.

See also Save Perfornance Audits – Evergreen Freedom Foundation – Olympian “Give the money back to audit program”

At one of those sources I saw the email addresses of Chris Gregoire’s senior staff members in a comment; don’t recall which.

Posted by Ron Hebron at May 18, 2009 07:17 AM Email This

____________________________________________________

In a war of money, keeping your top defense organization from getting the right kind and number of bullets makes absolutely zero sense.

Zero.

Restore the damned money. Knock of this kind crap before the people REALLY get steamed.

Or don’t. And we’ll see you in November next year.

>Gee…. the Columbian is going to blow a gasket over this one: US Senate Backs Allowing Guns In National Parks

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Last December, the Columbian blew a gasket over allowing guns into parks… as if they were some sort of zone where criminals (The odd murderer/robber aside) simply don’t tread, thus there is no conceivable need for non-criminals to be allowed their Second Amendment rights inside the borders of this federal property.

“… Jeers: To the Bush administration for overturning a 25-year-old rule and allowing people with concealed-weapon permits to carry loaded guns into national parks and wildlife refuges. The Columbian opposed this effort back in May, and, more compellingly, the change was opposed earlier by the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees. Yet this week the Interior Department announced that the new provision will take effect in January if the state in question allows concealed weapons.

“According to The Seattle Times, the change will have limited impact in Washington state. Even though the state has a concealed weapons program, the Times reported, “many visitors won’t be able to pack a gun because Washington only recognizes concealed-weapons permits from a handful of states with requirements as stringent. That’s just eight states, the closest of which is Utah.”

“So, in addition to loaded guns being taken into previously pastoral parks and crowded campgrounds, there now is this huge new bureaucratic and enforcement nightmare. We hope the next administration reverts to the old rule.”

The idiocy of such a position is obvious to someone not blinded by a bizarre, leftist, anti-gun agenda. And the verbiage?

“So, in addition to loaded guns being taken into previously pastoral parks and crowded campgrounds”

As if the view is somehow diminished by my decision to carry a concealed .45 Colt Combat Commander?

As I stated before: Idiots.

As I had written:

“In situations like these, I tend to think of those writing these editorials in terms of “what would THEY want if their life was on the line?”

If these writers were at risk in a classroom. If there was a Columbine-style shooting going on in a school where they happened to be; would they pissed that I was carrying a .357 magnum? Would they be so outraged when I pulled my weapon and ended the threat?

It’s not hard to imagine these sanctimonious hypocrites in a Virginia Tech classroom, whimpering on the floor in little liberal, whinny puddles, howling with outrage that some student or faculty member; or even worse, say, a college-student military-veteran had actually come to class with a firearm and was ready to use it to SAVE THEIR INCREASINGLY WORTHLESS LIVES had actually done so.

And so now what happens?

A completely-controlled-by-democrats Senate now BACKS allowing guns in Federal Parks AND Wildlife Refuges.

How much that must suck for the local fishwrapper.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., sponsored the measure, which he said would protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. The amendment allows firearms in parks and wildlife refuges, as long as they are allowed by federal, state and local law.

“If an American citizen has a right to carry a firearm in their state, it makes no sense to treat them like a criminal if they pass through a national park while in possession of a firearm,” Coburn said.

Twenty-seven Democrats joined 39 Republicans and one independent in supporting the amendment, which was attached to a bill imposing restrictions on credit card companies. The amendment was approved 67-29.

This is OVERWHELMING support for a position this newspaper abhors. I guess someone is clueless… and I’ve got to wonder who.

Will this newspaper re-evaluate their position to something that actualy relates to common sense?

Nahhhh.

Senate Backs Allowing Guns In National Parks
Senate Backs Amendment To Allow Loaded Guns In National Parks
WASHINGTON, May. 12, 2009
E-Mail Story
Print Story
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(AP) The Senate on Tuesday backed an amendment that would allow people to carry loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.

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Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., sponsored the measure, which he said would protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. The amendment allows firearms in parks and wildlife refuges, as long as they are allowed by federal, state and local law.

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“If an American citizen has a right to carry a firearm in their state, it makes no sense to treat them like a criminal if they pass through a national park while in possession of a firearm,” Coburn said.

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Twenty-seven Democrats joined 39 Republicans and one independent in supporting the amendment, which was attached to a bill imposing restrictions on credit card companies. The amendment was approved 67-29.

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Groups supporting gun control, park rangers and retirees opposed the amendment, which they said went further than a Bush administration policy that briefly allowed loaded handguns in national parks and refuges.

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A federal judge blocked the policy in March, two months after it went into effect in the waning days of President George W. Bush’s term. The Obama administration has said it will not appeal the court ruling.

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More:

>More stupidy from Leavitt: He just voted to waste ANOTHER $100,000 of our money on this massive waste of a bridge replacement.

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It is unfortunate that rabid bridge/light rail supporters in government are truly such lying scum.

Yesterday’s Leavitt lie?

“This project is going to move forward,” said Vancouver City Councilman Tim Leavitt, who backed the new spending. “We have to represent as best we can the interest of transit riders in Clark County.”

Here’s a clue to the utterly clueless Leavitt:

What you have to “represent as best you can” is the “interest of” EVERYONE in Clark County… not just those that ride a bus, you idiot!

What about the 65,000 plus of us that have to pay the toll just to go to work EVERY DAY that YOU won’t have to pay?

What about the interests of those of us getting screwed by YOUR plan to rip off hundreds of dollars from me and my family for a bridge that YOU won’t have to pay to cross every day to go to work?

What about OUR interests, moron?

Or is it like Steve Stuart… where you don’t give a damn about anything, including the voters?

When are you going to grow some balls and DEMAND that we get the right to vote on this monstrosity, you fricking COWARD?

“Mayor of America’s Vancouver?” You shouldn’t be class president of the 7th grade.

After bus-fare hike, C-Tran OKs up to $100,000 to help plan bridge

Thursday, March 19 | 11:32 a.m.

BY MICHAEL ANDERSEN
COLUMBIAN STAFF WRITER

Two weeks after hiking bus fares in order to break even, C-Tran agreed to spend up to $100,000 this year to help plan the new Interstate 5 bridge.

The money will come out of a $136,000 windfall from the ads that C-Tran has on its buses.

Two county commissioners and a city councilwoman opposed the new spending, which passed the local bus agency’s board Tuesday night, 4-3.

“We just raised the rates,” said Clark County Commissioner Tom Mielke, who voted against the idea. “I thought we didn’t have any extra money.”

On March 1, basic bus fares rose 20 cents, about 15 percent. Monthly C-Van passes for disabled people doubled to $46, and discounted monthly passes for seniors, students and disabled people rose from $20 to $30.

The fare hikes will raise an estimated $422,000 annually.

The up to $100,000 in new spending approved Tuesday would let C-Tran review legal documents for the bridge and advocate for features of the project that Clark County citizens might want, such as walled-off light-rail stations, C-Tran spokesman Scott Patterson said.

“This project is going to move forward,” said Vancouver City Councilman Tim Leavitt, who backed the new spending. “We have to represent as best we can the interest of transit riders in Clark County.”

If C-Tran doesn’t spend the money, Commissioner Steve Stuart said, Clark County residents would be shut out of key decisions.

“You’re either at the table, or you’re on the menu,” Stuart said.

Rail: bad for C-Tran?
Of the seven C-Tran board members present Tuesday, Stuart, Leavitt, Battle Ground City Councilman Bill Ganley, and La Center Mayor Jim Irish voted to spend money on bridge planning.

Mielke, Clark County Commissioner Marc Boldt and Vancouver City Councilwoman Jeanne Stewart voted not to.

Stewart noted that in 2005, when voters approved a 2005 sales tax increase to support C-Tran, the issue’s backers promised the money wouldn’t be used to finance light rail.

Mielke added that though many C-Tran riders might support light rail, light rail would be bad for C-Tran itself.

“We’re not there to represent the riders of C-Tran, we’re there to represent C-Tran,” Mielke said. “The only thing it’ll do if we put light rail in there is that it’ll take money away from C-Tran and riders away from C-Tran.”

More:

>No vote allowed! The only public works program more idiotic than the I-5 Bridge replacement/loot rail extortion is the latest Seattle idiocy (II)

>.

As I pointed out here: the current Alaskan Way Viaduct project has become a monster that will become an economic black hole even worse than the megacasino down here in Clark County.

So, what to my wondering eyes appear? A requirement to jack up taxes an additional $1.4 BILLION dollars to pay for our local version of Boston’s notorious Big Dig.

Well, government, here’s a clue: We’re broke. We can’t afford it. And like our Bridge down here, we don’t need or want it.

We already know that with our government, when they say the price is going to be $4 billion, they really mean 8. And no one cares… because THEY are spending OUR money!

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Doesn’t it have that impact on you?

Tunnel extras: $1.4B needed
While building a tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct would remove noise and blight from the Seattle waterfront, the project might elicit a roar from King County taxpayers.

By By Mike Lindblom, Seattle Times transportation reporter

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Gov. Chris Gregoire, center, shakes hands with King County Executive Ron Sims after he and Mayor Greg Nickels signed an agreement to screw the taxpayers over the unnecessary and criminally expensive replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep-bore tunnel.

While building a tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct would remove noise and blight from the Seattle waterfront, the project might elicit a roar from King County taxpayers.

Politicians are suggesting as much as $1.4 billion in new local taxes, fees and grant requests to pay for all the desired buses, streetcars, a sea wall, road work, utility relocations and parks associated with the tunnel.

The money could be collected without a public vote.

House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, already has questioned whether so many new taxes are a good idea. This after voters last fall approved doubling the Sound Transit sales tax, backed Seattle measures for Pike Place Market and parks, and in 2006 approved a Metro Transit sales-tax hike plus a Seattle property tax for transportation.

The new $4.2 billion tunnel proposal includes $2.8 billion for the tunnel and other highway sections through Sodo, and the remaining $1.4 billion from local government.

How to raise the city’s share:

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels proposes these sources to pay for improvements related to tunnel. The state’s tunnel and other highway work is estimated at $2.8 billion — but the total reaches $4.2 billion if the other projects and King County bus improvements are added.
Parking tax: $200 million, roughly a 10 percent boost in parking costs
Downtown property tax: $300 million, from landowners who benefit
Utility rates: $252 million, a 2 percent to 2.5 percent increase
Car-tab tax: $65 million, at $20 a year per car
State grants: $5 million, routine revenue-sharing
Federal grants: $55 million, for streets or streetcar
Obama stimulus funds: $80 million, for east-west Mercer and Spokane streets rebuilds.
Sources: state DOT, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis

Related
Q&A Ask a question about the tunnel
YouTube State animation of the tunnel
Cascadia Center research on bored tunnels worldwide (PDF)
Anti-tunnel initiative filed in Seattle (PDF)
Archive Gregoire announces tunnel plans; car-tab taxes to pay for more transit
Archive Politics Northwest Will Frank Chopp support a tunnel?
Archive Who’ll pay? Another “Big Dig”? When will it open?
Twitter search Reactions to viaduct news
Viaduct Timeline
Archive Viaduct tunnel rises again
Archive Tunnel option was disliked by nearly everyone

More of this incredible stupidity:

>No, it doesn’t: Does convention center really need to grow again?

>.
The Seattle Times asks the rhetorical question: Does (the) convention center really need to grow again? To that, I answer “no, it doesn’t.”

Clearly, those in a position to ask such a moronic question are incapable of grasping how bad our economy is.

They only want a paltry $766 Million to expand this. The center HAS been expanded… AND ATTENDANCE IS BELOW THE NUMBER BEFORE THE EXPANSION, a neat factoid that shows that the LAST expansion, let alone a new expansion, would be the same type of colossal waste of money Vancouver is attempting to engage in with the utter and humongous waste of money known as the I-5 Bridge replacement/Loot Rail project.

The parallels are striking in that both projects are a colossal waste of money, in an economy that cannot afford vaporizing hundreds of millions of dollars for someone else’s vision that the people do not share; and when completed, neither project will make any difference, except in removing $5 billion or so from our pockets.

Expanding the convention center is a moronic idea not unlike believing the world is flat, and this thing should be killed, along with the careers of everyone supporting it.

Does convention center really need to grow again?

By Jim Brunner
Seattle Times staff reporter

Backers of Seattle’s convention center say it needs a $766 million expansion to lure more free-spending conventioneers downtown. But the Washington State Convention & Trade Center’s track record — and the struggles of convention centers elsewhere — raise questions about the wisdom of expansion.

There are plans for another expansion of the Washington State Convention & Trade Center, but the center’s track record and the struggles of convention centers elsewhere raise concerns about the wisdom of the proposal.

Never mind the lousy economy. Backers of Seattle’s convention center say the time is right for a $766 million expansion to lure more free-spending conventioneers downtown.

Despite the state’s $5 billion deficit, they’re asking the Legislature to give a quick go-ahead to the project, which would double the exhibit space at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center (WSCTC). A coalition of downtown business interests and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels are solidly behind the idea.

At first glance, their case seems compelling. Seattle’s Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates the city has lost $1.7 billion in potential visitor spending since 2004 because the convention center was booked or too small.

And the expansion would be paid for entirely out of an existing tax on hotel rooms in King County — money already dedicated to the center — so it wouldn’t add to the state’s budget worries.

But the convention center’s track record — and the struggles of convention centers elsewhere — raises questions about the wisdom of expansion. Consider:

More:

>Once again, the US Senate GOP blows the call: “McConnell says GOP could back stimulus.”

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I used to be a hard-corps Republican. GOP idiocy like this made it easy to leave a party that had left me a long time ago.

Michelle Malkin bangs it like a drum. Once again, my government will make me ashamed. Once again, I’ll find myself wishing for a political fairy god-mother who could make all of the idiots disappear on both sides of the aisle who’ve led us into this moronic idiocy, and who are too incompetent to lead us out.

I have no political affiliation at this point. I completely support candidates based on what their vision and history is, regardless of the letter after their name.

Mitch McConnell provides no reason to support the GOP. He has no vision, no plan, no clue. He disgusts me, as does any elected official who supoports his brand of socialism. After all, why vote for fake demoicrats when there are so many of the real thing available?

H/T to Michelle Malkin, the Goddess of Conservative Blogging

Mitch McConnell gives us another head-banging-against-the-wall moment

By Michelle Malkin • January 4, 2009 06:16 PM

Take some Maalox before you read this headline from The Hill (via HA headlines):

“McConnell says GOP could back stimulus.”

The upshot, as I read it, is that the Republican Party is willing to entertain the Democrats’ massive stimulus so long as they get kabuki hearings and some nominal input into the package.

Here I was, gearing up this week for a united conservative front against the Obama boondoggle, and Mitch McConnell opens his mouth. Where’s my head-banging-against-the-wall graphic again? Oh, there it is:

Fellow conservative Twitter users, give Mitch McConnell your feedback here.

Posted in: GOP, Subprime crisis

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Idiots.
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