Sound Transit claims it can extend light rail to Husky Stadium without raising taxes. How will this financial perpetuum mobile actually work?
the project hinges on getting a $700 million federal subsidy to ease the pain of the $1.45 billion cost for construction and trains. The local share would include $550 million in bonds repaid by sales and car-tab taxes.So in addition to crowding out other uses of the existing taxes (which would create pressure to raise taxes to pay for other things), Sound Transit will use "monoraillike financial techniques" to stretch out the interest payments in exchange for horrendous extra costs in future years that are safely hidden today. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 18, 2005 10:29 AM | Email This
And now the lord high Sound Transit nobility has apparently fallen for the same shucking and jiving. Or they think that the public is so stupid as to believe such garbage.
Even Horsey in today's P-I was sneering at folks who pass on vast debts to their kids - exactly what the Monorail/Sound Transit finance plans guarantee, if not chopped off smartly.
But maybe Horsey's financial probity is not to be applied to the Democrats who preen themselves over the antidemocratic virtues of Sound Transit?
Posted by: Hank Bradley on November 18, 2005 11:03 AMWhen will these people realize there is no way to tax anybody but "Joe six-pack"?
Since the only TRUE commodity is people's "life energy" it is therefore the source of all wealth.
By the way, check out this math. If you live to be 85 years old, you will only live 745,110 hours. (85 x 365.25 x 24). Every dollar they take from me means they take some of those precious hours away. If you calculate your working-hours instead, the available resources are even smaller. Something in the neighborhood of 100,000 hours. ([50 working years] x [50 weeks a year] x [40 hours a week].)
Kind of puts a new spin on things doesn't it?
Posted by: Jeremy on November 18, 2005 11:21 AMYou are dead right. Please keep up the pressure. This one will be really really costly.
Posted by: Kip German on November 18, 2005 11:31 AMWhen this federal subsidy is denied, we all know what that means. More taxes. Grrrrrrrrr, I just can't take it any more.
Posted by: C. Oh on November 18, 2005 11:54 AMWow, that's another great way to look at it!
Do you think they'd accept the loss of even 10 lives during construction as "acceptable losses"?
Not hardly!
Posted by: Jeremy on November 18, 2005 12:30 PMWhat I see is not so much one budget crisis after another as one leadership crisis after another.
These agencies continue to be headed by wastrels who throw the citizens money down one rat hole after another for no apparent benefit to the citizenry.
What is even worse is when corrupt pols enhance their own investments by flooding them with service such as redundant public transit options while most of the City and County are still either unserved or underserved.
A case in point is the continued operation of Express bus service by Sound Transit to 10th & Commerce when the service is made redundant by
the Tacoma Link Light Rail.
My best estimate is that this uses up over 2500 service hours that could be better used serving other places.
These buses also clog traffic and tear up the City streets with buses that are not providing a tangible benefit to the citizenry.
Rest assured I do not object to buses being
operated on the City streets, but I do object to them being so operated when there isn't any public benefit to doing so.
Some of these buses do serve the County City
Building as well, but the riders who use this stop can walk a few blocks to work, it will do their big fat hind-ends some good to walk the three or four blocks.
If you really want to know what this is all about this is it in a nut shell... there is a clique of Tacoma/Pierce pols that are hold a stake in/have members of their family who have a stake in/have bussiness associates in on every one of the significant redevelopments happening along these redundant routes. It speaks for itself.
Posted by: JDH on November 18, 2005 02:19 PMPosted by: strombus on November 18, 2005 02:53 PM
DID YOU READ IN THE TACOMA DAILY INDEX THAT THE CITY OF TACOMA HAS A SURPLUS IN THE CITY TAX COFFERS.
INSTEAD OF SPENDING DOWN THE $35 MILLION DEBT OR HEAVEN FORBID GIVE BACK TO THE TAX-PAYER,JULIE WANTS TO START UP SOME NEW ADVISORY COMMITEE.
Maybe if Sound Transit called the light rail project "the Baghdad subway," all the right wingers at SP would get on board the train.
But, why invest our tax dollars at home, when some theocrat or warlord could use that very same dough for valuable projects to enhance their future power base in _______ ,(name that town) Iraq? Plus, some future neocon President will probably end up bombing and destroying that very same Halliburton make-work / public works project our tax dollars are currently building right now.
FYI, Stefan: I see the P-I issued a correction to this story. Turns out the finance plan wasn't "monorail like" at all, and the State Treasurer Murphy agrees.
God forbid a right wing blog would ever correct its blatant misinformation in tow! That would go against everything SP stands for!
The paragraph Stefan re-posted is now gone. Oops! In its place:
The debt service to capital ratio will increase but still is well within Murphy's standard and well below the monorail project's.
Sound Transit will borrow only about a third of the cost of the line -- $566 million. It will pay $1.25 billion in interest costs attributable to the University Link project. The ratio of debt service -- defined as principle plus interest -- to capital cost is 1.25.
Despite deferring principal payments, Sound Transit's debt would still be 30-year debt.
(Editor's Note: The preceding four paragraphs were replaced from the original version of this story in order to clarify financial information.)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/248845_transit18.html
Just another day in the creative reality land we've all come to know and love at SP!
Hey, is that the same Jim Johnson who wrote most of Tim Eyman's initiatives? The same hack who was so sloppy, half of them were thrown out by the very court he now sits on? (now that he's off Team Eyman, it appears they have more competent legal counsel, and can actually write initiatives that don't get tossed out after a week)
And because Johnson wrote the flawed I-776, doesn't that mean he won't have a vote when it comes before the Supreme Court?
Word.
Posted by: GregL on November 23, 2005 01:19 AM