AP's David Ammons reports tonight that Mrs. Gregoire says she'll support some sort of cap on annual property tax increases, but not a 1 percent cap like that embodied in voter-approved I-747, just overturned in King County Court. She also says we should get U.S. troops out of Iraq in as timely a manner as possible because of reports North Korea may well have capability to reach Seattle with a missile.
"I am disturbed by what we are hearing (about Korea). ... To me, this points out that we need to bring our troops home. This is another wake up call."
David Postman notes that in her media availability yesterday, she explained that withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq will somehow allow us to better stop a Korean missile aimed at Seattle. Our leader - with as firm a grip on foreign policy as on the state budget and excellence in public education.
And the crowd's voice swells: .....Dino, Dino, Dino, Dino!
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at June 19, 2006 10:40 PM | Email ThisNot to be bullied by unjustified latino leverage, Gregoire told Fox to make nice on buying apples or Washingtonians would go back to baking their own meth.
Posted by: Andy on June 19, 2006 10:47 PMActually, my youngest and I both think Dino would make a terrific U.S. president.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
I just watched "Chris" on TVW -- this media availability thing is a joke. She stands at a podium to make the thing look good, but it's pretty silly considering she's addressing no more than 10 journalists seated around a board room table.
You can listen to "Chris" and her designs for "real security" of the nation-state of Washington if you have Quicktime.
P.S. Does anyone remember the uproar over McGavick's statement about the war on terror being as close as the northern border? Gregoire mentioning the capture of 17 would-be terrorists in Canada jogged my memory; it would seem McGavick's comments were actually quite prescient, no?
Posted by: Patrick on June 19, 2006 11:04 PMWhat the heck does one have to do with the other? Is she now advocating we invade N. Korea or something?
Posted by: Mike H on June 20, 2006 12:11 AMThank you, Frau Gregoire, for reminding me why to ever let this current crop of democrat "leaders" come to national power would be suicidal.
Also, has Frau Gregoire stopped to contemplate that North Korea has now become an imminent danger to WA because of Messrs. Clinton and Carter; Mr. Clinton for allowing the sale of sensitive technology by Loral to China (Wanna bet the North Koreans have gotten important missle-guidance technology from China), and Mr. Carter for helping to broker a "peace" deal giving North Korea breathing space to further develop their nuclear weapons program?
BTW, never underestimate for a minute the harm that Jimmy "I'm-holier-even-than-Jesus" Carter has done to this country and to the world.
Posted by: Cartman on June 20, 2006 12:21 AMI'd feel far more comfortable with the Pope in control of our national security than I would with Jack Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Chris Gregoire, etc.
I know it is the tradition of this board not to know the facts, but you really should check this out:
State coffers will swell by more than $959 million over the next three years, erasing a projected state deficit that had worried the governor and legislators.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_wa_revenue_forecast.html
I know it is easy to forget a major story from four days ago, especially if propaganda is more important to you than the truth.
Good to see you keeping up the proud traditions of this board!
She says, Quote: "The 6 percent, she said, clearly begins to tax people out of their homes"
Really? So let's investigate a bit:
My primary home property taxes in King County just went up 13%, in this year alone, on a piece of property that King County took 50% of last year with their CAO land steal!
And my Island County cabin went up 20%, in this year alone.
And She state's that at 6% it ""clearly"" begins to tax people out of their homes.
Well what does it do to the people at an increase of "13%" in King County and "20%" in Island County on her scale of "Beginning to tax people out of their homes?
Awaiting next year's Supreme Court Review
Awaiting next year's Tim Eyman
Posted by: GS on June 20, 2006 01:52 AM"ya know if the north koreans had some low wage workers to send over to pick apples and deal blackjack, we could probably get past this missile thing."
Posted by: dave on June 20, 2006 07:15 AMI think the gargantuan increase in property values and the subsequent huge increase in our assessments should be getting the GOP salivating. They can do something this election cycle. It is a plum ready for plucking.
The 1% increase is the levy rate on the assessed value and not the assessed value itself. At least that is my knowledge. That is why there is such a splurge in available funds to government. So, what are the Democrats in my area doing? They are doing what Democrats always do- spend, spend and spend some more.
Rs should be either reducing the property tax or saving it. It should be the number campaign slogan this year. It seems a no-brainer. It takes the emphasis away from the consensus issue (i.e. this years soundbite that everyone agrees with)- traffic- and puts some space between the Rs and Ds (i.e. contrast).
Posted by: swatter on June 20, 2006 07:33 AMYou'll also notice that story about the budget windfall cited one-time construction related revenue as the source. As implied in some news coverage of the story, it would be imprudent for the state to bank on this for authorizing any new ongoing spending. Thus, the core structural problems with the state budget - where obligations are expected to outpace revenue - remain.
Take for starters this:
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=budgeted19&date=20060619&query=state+surplus
Even the Times thinks this isn't automatically news to celebrate.
Posted by: Eric Earling on June 20, 2006 07:47 AM"State coffers will swell by more than $959 million over the next three years, erasing a projected state deficit that had worried the governor and legislators. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_wa_revenue_forecast.html
I know it is easy to forget a major story from four days ago, especially if propaganda is more important to you than the truth."
JDB: As soon as the Democrat controlled state legislature and the Democrat governor get their hands on a budget surplus, rest assured they will find many ways to spend it down quickly. In the meantime, Gregoire's claims last April of having delivered "fiscal responsibility" at the same time Democrat-controlled spending by the state legislature had produced a then-anticipated deficit of $718 million, is a pretty fair signpost for her fiscal acumen in my opinion. It's nice to be saved - maybe - by a new rosy revenue projection, but it's far better not to go into the red in the first place. I think we will have to agree to disagree here.
Posted by: Matt Rosenberg on June 20, 2006 07:50 AMYou catch the NYT headline last week?
Bush Deficit Reduction Offtrack
In the body of the article we find what offtrack means:
3 years ahead of schedule.
Question for the Queen,
So have troops here in US will stop N. Korea from launching a missle.
How?
Posted by: JCM on June 20, 2006 09:27 AMQuite frankly, I have a hard time believing any budget projections coming out of Olympia.
Posted by: Gary on June 20, 2006 09:50 AMObviously, this is what she meant. Nothing else makes sense. It'd be idiocy to advocate bringing troops into a target zone without the means to repel the threat.
Posted by: gmcraff on June 20, 2006 09:55 AMWhat exactly is it you see Dino Rossi doing. In all honesty, his campaign seemed to consist of being a nice guy. His seems to espouse cutting taxes, cutting regulations and letting capitalism take its course - all well and good in theory, but there's nothing concrete there to go on.
Maybe I'm missing something, but that's how I saw the guy.
Just Curious
Posted by: Just Curious on June 20, 2006 10:34 AMI highly recommend reviewing this as a preface to reviewing my previous comments.
If there really were interceptor launch sites, plus radars, being built in the Olympics, the peninsula would be liberally coated in dingbat protesters. And, oh, how the environmental lawsuits would fund the orthidonics for the children of lawyers throughout the state...
Posted by: gmcraff on June 20, 2006 11:23 AMSo cutting taxes and regulations and letting capitalism take its course is good 'in theory'? Many of us think it's good in practice, also. Cutting taxes is concrete.
Look at what we have now- a 9.5 cent gas-tax increase for an emergency with the viaduct, then all-of-a-sudden there's no emergency, we're looking at alternatives, and they haven't stopped collecting the tax. That's just one example. We have more.
What was there to 'go on' with Gregoire? Higher taxes, and no change to the culture of the state. We got that in spades.
Lower taxes good 'in theory'. You libs crack me up. Communism just never got a fair shake, right? That's why they're trying it here, huh?
Posted by: Larry on June 20, 2006 11:32 AMThe libs don't care... they blame the survey for being "conservative".
Next poll will have her higher.
Posted by: swatter on June 20, 2006 01:08 PMKeep peddling them apples to Presidente Fox Chrissy.
Posted by: apples & tacos on June 20, 2006 02:51 PMHow's the aim on these NK missles?
Posted by: BananaLand on June 20, 2006 04:09 PMPutting aside the turgid debate about the Iraq war, it is primarily a fight of ground troops, with comparatively little in the way of naval and air power employed in the theater to deal specifically with Iraq. Pulling every single grunt stationed in Iraq right now and placing them on the West Coast won’t do a darn thing to protect us against the threat of a North Korean missile launch, which may or may not be capable of reaching Seattle.
Our primary defenses are a) missile defense systems that have been in the news and b) North Korea understanding that our naval and air power in the Pacific theater will give them a thumping and a half if they take any offensive action against us or our allies. Indeed, recent reconfigurations of US military power in the Pacific (discussed in broader perspective here: http://www.afa.org/magazine/june2005/0605edit.html and with more specificity to North Korea here: http://www.iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/52218) are designed with such responses in mind.
If readers really want to dig into it, discussions of possible strikes on North Korea are discussed here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/oplan-5026.htm and here: http://cns.miis.edu/research/korea/dprkmil.htm The later link has a particularly good discussion in the conclusion on the complications of military action on the Korean Peninsula.
We have a much bigger problem on our hands than Governor Gregoire seems to imply if we actually need to deploy large numbers of ground troops not already in the Pacific theater to a lengthy Korean conflict. So with all do respect to the Governor and the head of the Washington National Guard, and understanding the threat of a missile launch, what rational reason is there for bringing the troops in Iraq being drawn into this equation? If the Governor is trying to make any substantive points, rather than mere political ones, then her statement about the North Korean situation simply isn’t credible.
I could have sworn that they used the excuse of the limit on property taxes to slam us with new taxes in her first year..........
Posted by: sgmmac on June 20, 2006 08:16 PMReal insiders know that we're actually looking at a 500+ million deficit for the next biennium.
GO FIGURE! Better hide you ASSets.
Posted by: SP Fan on June 20, 2006 09:56 PMIt almost sounds like you would welcome a ballistic missile strike on Olympia.
Zat true????
It's you who hate America.
Posted by: Unkl Witz on June 20, 2006 10:47 PMI was wondering why an illegitimate "governor", one who had to take three counts to manufacture enough "votes" to "win", would be stepping into the rarefied realms of international diplomacy and foreign policy, but your comment made clear the reason why Fraudoire is pulling this stunt. If SayWA really is like a small country, and Fraudoire is its illegimate Queen, then of course formulating national policy is within the Queen's purview.
Posted by: Interested Observer on June 21, 2006 07:22 AMFor both I-722 and I-747, the PEOPLE voted for annual property tax rates increase to not exceed 2% and 1% respectively. Twice, the VOTERS of the state have said that anything higher than 2% is too high. ( enter rhetorical question) Why would Gregoire not understand that? ( exit rhetorical question)
Posted by: SouthernRoots on June 21, 2006 10:04 AMYou would think that the courts in this state would look at any decision which overturns a citizens' initiative with very strict scutiny, especially ones that pass with almost 60% of the vote. But it's the complete opposite. And somehow these judges keep getting elected.
Posted by: Palouse on June 21, 2006 11:17 AMWhat, did Mr. Monopoly get a promotion?
Posted by: Interested Observer on June 21, 2006 11:31 AMPORTLAND--Do Americans worry about terrorism? Seventy-nine percent of Americans told the most recent CNN survey of national concerns that they did. They considered the fight against terrorists "very important"--more so than Iraq, the economy, immigration or gas prices. But it isn't true.
Something interesting is revealed when you turn the same poll into an open-ended question. Unlike CNN, which asks people to react to a laundry list of issues, a poll by CBS News simply asks them: "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?" When Americans aren't prompted, terrorism barely registers among their concerns. Worries about the Iraq war rank first, at 28%, followed by the economy and the difficulty of finding a job (15%), and illegal immigration (12%). Terrorism ranks a paltry fifth, with just 5%. More people fret over paying too much for gas (6%) than the remote possibility of getting blown up by Al Qaeda.
Humans are susceptible to suggestion. Ask them if they're afraid of being bitten by a pit bull and they'll probably say yes, come to think of it, hell yes--especially after watching a barrage of hysterical news stories about a gruesome pit bull attack. But, except when prompted by pollsters and media hysteria, few people wallow in cynophobia. Only a tiny fraction of the population would list pit bulls among their top concerns. The same is true about terrorism. Few Americans worry about it in their daily lives. Which makes sense, since the odds of falling victim to a terrorist attack, or suffering the loss of a loved one, are slim to none.
Of course, you wouldn't know from the news that Americans don't worry much about terrorism. Four years after 9/11, there's little relationship between real life and our all-terror-all-the-time news and politics. Smoke has cleared, grief has faded, and shock has yielded to dispassionate realism: though horrible and devastating, 9/11 wasn't the cataclysmic event we've been led to believe.
Three thousand Americans were killed on 9/11. Studies indicate that the average person knows 250 people, so roughly 750,000 Americans knew someone who died. That means more than 99.8% didn't. Compared to the overall size of the economy, the fiscal impact wasn't that big a deal. The short- and intermediate-term cost of 9/11, borne disproportionately by New York City, has been estimated at between $25 and $30 billion--the same as the cost of occupying Iraq for five months. True, the collapse of the World Trade Center, which released clouds of asbestos that will kill thousands of New Yorkers for years to come, was an epic environmental disaster--but no one cares about that. The overwhelming majority of Americans were materially unaffected by 9/11. While even Americans who don't live in New York or Washington suffered a diminished sense of psychic invulnerability, the passage of several years without another attack--getting away with two of our most brazenly unjustifiable military adventures in history without retribution--has restored most of our feckless fearlessness.
Peter Beinart, an editor at the ideologically schizophrenic New Republic, has written a book called The Good Fight: Why Liberals--and Only Liberals--Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again. Reviewers may agree or disagree with Beinart's premise as laid out in the subtitle, but few are likely to question his underlying premise, which is universally accepted by the left, right and everyone in between: that the "war on terror" is and ought to be a high (perhaps our highest) national priority. Writing that "the United States again faces a totalitarian foe," Beinart equates America's post-9/11 fight against "Islamo-fascists" with the war against the Axis during World War II. If the Islamists represent that much of a threat to our safety and political sovereignty, it follows that social programs, civil liberties and our privacy might have to be abridged in order to defeat them. But it's a ludicrous comparison.
Just as we must make distinctions between threats that are long-term (Saddam's Iraq, Iran) and those that are short-term (North Korea, Pakistan), a nation should know how to separate its "enemies" from its "competitors." An enemy power wants to invade your country, subjugate its citizens and steal its wealth. The last time this happened in earnest was 1812, when Great Britain tried to take back its former colonies. Even during World War II, neither Nazi Germany nor Japan had territorial designs on the United States aside from a few, relatively inconsequential, island territories in the Pacific. From this perspective, America has no "enemies." Neither Al Qaeda, nor any other known terrorist organization, nor any nation-state, wants to invade the United States and rule its people, nor could it do so if it so desired.
America has competitors, not enemies. Throughout the Cold War the Soviet Union competed with the U.S. in Third World proxy wars. As I will discuss in my forthcoming book Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?, Russia and China are vying for influence and control over the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other countries in the oil-rich Caspian Sea basin. Non-state actors such as Al Qaeda want to transform moderate and secular Muslim states to rule under a Wahhabi-style caliphate. These are threats to American influence abroad, not to America itself.
It's easy to forget in the current media environment, but all this competition is taking place overseas. No one--neither North Korea, nor Iran, nor Al Qaeda, nor China--has lifted a finger to alter American domestic politics, culture or religion. They haven't tried to influence any nation in our hemisphere. The conclusion is simple, obvious but nevertheless counterintuitive: as Americans tell pollsters when they're asked the right way, there isn't much at stake in the war on terror.
Even if Islamist fundamentalism were to sweep the Muslim world (which is its objective), it wouldn't matter much to most Americans. After all, Saudi Arabia still manages to sell us plenty of oil while beheading adulteresses. The same would likely be true of Iraq, now a battleground between the U.S. and Islamists. A Talibanized Iraq would continue to sell oil to its largest consumer.
Americans worry about Iraq, not because of the nationalist insurgency conflated with "terrorism" in the press, but because it's too expensive: too many dead and crippled soldiers, too damaging to our international reputation, too hard of a hit on the treasury. The longer the Iraq war grinds on, the higher their 2009 taxes will be.
Beinart was wrong about Iraq in 2003; he supported a preemptive strike just in case Saddam had WMDs. He's wrong again now. Contrary to the counsel proffered by his DLC-influenced militant moderates, Democrats would be smarter to recognize the war on terror as a distraction from the real issues--such as jobs, inflation and healthcare--that most Americans worry about. Let the GOP have the terrorism "issue." It reinforces how out of touch the Republicans are with the everyday concerns of the American people.
Posted by: Ted on June 26, 2006 09:32 PM