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“Washington State Needs Tax Reform”

December 3, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

The State of Washington experiences recurring budget crises, so the Legislature keeps making drastic cuts.  Revenue keeps falling short of the needs, so they keep slashing and slashing. They have cut funding for state employees, state parks, K-12 education, higher education, health care, assistance for our poorest people, and pretty much everything. But it’s never enough. The Governor and state legislators scrutinize everything on the expenditure side, but they have been refusing to seriously examine the seriously dysfunctional revenue side. They don’t seriously examine “tax expenditures” – various tax breaks, exemptions and loopholes. Some of these have existed for decades […]

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TV: “Local Government Fairness and Accountability”

December 2, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

How many people actually pay much attention to local governments’ detailed decisions about zoning, funding streets and sewers, and so forth? Hardly anyone pays attention – except those who have a direct financial stake in those decisions, such as real estate developers and other persons who have direct financial interests in local governments’ decisions. So what happens as a result? The “special interests” are able to exploit local governments to serve their narrow economic profits, while the rest of us never know that we are being ripped off. For example, the local elites that run many local governments and media […]

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TV: “Support an Effective Public Sector”

November 17, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s March 2016 TV interview explores how a vibrant and effective public sector can serve the public interest. For a several decades – especially since Ronald Reagan’s era – we have been hearing anti-government rhetoric from politicians and other powerful interests who want to cut taxes in order to starve and shrink the public sector. Sometimes voters have gone along with that, cutting taxes and cutting governments’ abilities to meet needs. Those powerful interests also have pushed governments to sell public resources to private corporations (to “privatize” them) so they can reap private profits from activities […]