One thing I've noticed missing from the Darcy Burner campaign are testimonials from people who have known her and worked with her, telling us what a wonderful employee, colleague, boss and/or community leader Darcy was. (If I've missed any, let me know). That would be a natural way to overcome the "who is she and what has she done?" problem. Her biggest claim to fame is that she was a Microsoft executive, which she had to downgrade to "successful businesswoman", who "managed multi-million dollar budgets" and had "at least five people working for her". I'm still waiting for people who worked with her at Microsoft to come forward and explain what she was actually responsible for, how well she worked with people, how effective she was at selling her ideas, and what she ultimately accomplished.
If she's running as a successful businesswoman, these are fair questions, are they not?
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 03, 2006 03:49 PM | Email ThisHer job experience is nil. Although she does have a brother in the military.
Posted by: hah on November 3, 2006 04:09 PMI think this is a good starter for one of the reasons I support Dave. But hey, getting stuff done for the citizens in the district which you represent isn't important. Not when you're out to defeat Hitler Bush and get Jim McDermott and Nancy Pelosi promotions.
http://www.house.gov/reichert/images/Reichert-Funding-Map_web.gif
Posted by: Reporterward on November 3, 2006 05:30 PMLike I say on my website:
"Darcy has been active in her community and in state politics. She left Microsoft to spend the time necessary to be elected to the United States Congress in the 8th District. "
I can't help it if no one in state politics has any record of me doing anything. You'd think at least one of those imaginary people would come forward! And those rumors that I washed out of Microsoft, and so decided to go to law school? What?
Only four more days, then I can go on to my next endeavor! This campaigning for so long is really getting boring!
For the record, I'm a member of neither the Republican nor Democratic party. I've voted for candidates from both in the past. I'm not a single-issue voter, but evaluate candidates on the merits of their overall abilities and positions. I'm what used to be called a moderate before the left moved so far to the left and the right moved so far to the right that no one was left in the middle.
While I never worked at Microsoft, I've known Darcy Burner for almost 15 years. Darcy is extraordinarily smart, fanatically hard-working, pragmatic, level-headed, and a clear and independent thinker. In person she's also quite warm (most of the time) and pretty funny.
Does she have the traditional leadership experience that one finds in Congressional representatives? No. Does that disqualify her from serving? Not in my book.
While she's made what I consider some beginner's gaffes in her campaign and done some things I wouldn't have, what first-time candidate for office doesn't? Having known her well for well over a decade, I think she'd make an exceptionally able representative.
All this talk about raising taxes on working people is, to put it bluntly, a load of crap. Anyone who knows Darcy in person will tell you that she has more respect and consideration for blue collar and working class families than 10 typical Republican (or Democratic, for that matter) members of Congress.
In an environment where members of both parties (but especially the current administration) seem to favor providing privilege to the already privileged, Darcy is a breath of fresh air.
As I said, I don't expect my opinion to influence anyone here, because I don't think people read either left-wing or right-wing blogs to become better educated or informed. But what the hell, hope springs eternal.
You gave exactly the perfect example of liberal and Marcy/Darcy avoidance-speak:
" All this talk about raising taxes on working people is, to put it bluntly, a load of crap. Anyone who knows Darcy in person will tell you that she has more respect and consideration for blue collar and working class families than 10 typical Republican (or Democratic, for that matter) members of Congress. "
Do you or Marcy/Darcy even understand why that is a non-answer and a totally inane comment?
ps: that's a YES of NO question. One word will suffice.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskold on November 3, 2006 10:31 PMAnd exactly what do you mean by "working class families?" Aren't we ALL "working class" if we work for a living... or are some more working class than others? I know the Dems like to play the class warfare card, so am I not working class because I'm an engineer and not out there digging ditches? Just asking.
And do you mean beginner's gaffes like basing her support out of Seattle, cozying up to the far left blogs, sending out "Bush lied, people died" tired old Democratic far left talking point flyers? These are the kinds of things that show she is NOT level-headed and a clear and independent thinker. It shows she's part of the far left establishment of the Democratic party.
And how can you say that raising taxes would be a load of crap. If the slogan of the Dems is "A New Direction for America"... what exactly is that direction? If taxes are at 20 year lows, isn't a new direction to raise taxes? The Dems have stated they want to repeal the Bush tax cuts, reinstitute the marriage penalty, etc. That certainly sounds like tax increases to this taxpayer.
I will agree on one thing, she is a breath of fresh air... a fresh airhead.
Dave Reichert on the other hand is one of the most powerful freshmen Congressman, ranking higher than the majority of others in this state. To me he's much more effective than our illustrious Senator Cantwell, who ranks down there around 99/100.
Vote for Reichert... put Darcy on the back burner.
Posted by: Tucker on November 3, 2006 10:49 PMThe most fundamental difference between Republican and Democratic tax policy these days is that Republican tax policies tend to reward accumulated wealth with lower tax rates on unearned income, dividends, and the like, while Democratic tax policies tend to reward work with lower tax rates on low- to moderate levels of earned income and higher tax rates on unearned income.
If you look at tax receipts over the past 6 years, almost any nonpartisan economic analysis will show that the percentage of tax revenues from earned income is now much higher than it was before 2000, while the percentage of tax revenues from unearned income is lower. The total tax revenue may be the same or higher now, but the distribution of the tax burden among income types has changed considerably. This is the kind of analysis I'd expect from Darcy, along with a cogent discussion of where we as a society actually want the tax burden to fall.
Sadly, it's impossible to have a reasoned discussion about any substansive issue on either side of the political fence these days, because the campaign machinery of both political parties is oriented around fear-mongering, personal attacks, rumor, innuendo, and sleaze and the electorate has demanded nothing better of them.
However, I suspect you'll find these comments just as "inane" as you found my previous post, validating my earlier assertion that people don't read either left- or right-leaning blogs to be exposed to opinions other than their own.
Knowing Darcy personally, I can tell you she's about as far from socialist or an airhead as you can get. She is, in fact, a deeply thoughtful and analytical person. Now this next comment might surprise you, but I agree with you that she can come across as arrogant in her public presentations. I'm personally surprised by this because she's not a particularly arrogant person one-on-one, though she does not always suffer fools gladly.
On working class families, my personal definition is families the bulk of whose resources are in the form of earned income rather than unearned income. That includes most families in America. It's this group who shoulders a higher percentage of the tax burden now than they did in the past, because most of the Bush tax cuts benefitted unearned income. The Democrats I know who talk about allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire -- and this includes Darcy Burner -- always include replacing them with tax cuts aimed at earned income. In effect, they want to shift more of the tax burden back onto unearned income. You can argue about whether or not this is a good thing for society, but the claim that Democrats in general or Darcy Burner in particular just wants to raise taxes on everyone unilaterally is disingenuous at best.
And by the way, Darcy is on record numerous times explicitly denying that she wants to reinstitute the marriage penalty. Whether you believe that or not is up to you, of course, but asserting that person X is in favor of action Y when they've said in print that they're NOT in favor of action Y, without also acknowledging that they've said they're not in favor of it, seems a little questionable to me. If you think a candidate is lying then say so, but don't ignore the candidate's stated position on the issue. This goes for all candidates, on all issues, in all races.
For the record, I consider myself on the edge of the "working class families" group; I was lucky enough to do pretty well in the bull market of the late 1990's, so while I still have to work for a living like most people, I have the advantage of some additional unearned income every year. The Bush tax cuts probably benefitted me more than they did most people, but I still think they're a bad idea if we as a society want to encourage and reward work.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming, already in progress . . .
Instead of acting as a one-man darcy apologist, go get her to answer a DIRECT question.
We'll be waiting.
I will stand corrected if any current MS folks can give an example of a PM who actually manages budget.
That said, this multi-million budget thing is another resume-padding just like the "executive" title.
Posted by: C. Oh on November 4, 2006 01:10 AMI abhor her stance on taxes. Her comments in the Carlson interview shows that she fully intends to raise taxes if ever given the chance, and frankly we can't afford someone as greedy for more of our money as Burner is. The checks I write to the U.S. Treasury are plenty big enough, thank you. I don't need more tax burdens from Burner.
Posted by: Michele on November 4, 2006 01:49 AMBut just for fun, let's take a look at your assertion about Darcy Burner and taxes, and about the Carlson interview specifically. You said:
She told John Carlson last summer that she thought her taxes were too low. That means she thinks the taxes of a lot of people in the 8th district (where I live) are too low.
Have you considered that with the second part of this statment ("that means...") you're jumping to conclusions?
Remember that I said many Democrats I know (and a few Republicans I know) feel that the tax burden falls too heavily on wages and too lightly on unearned income. They propose to shift the mix of income subject to taxation back to something closer to its historical mix. By the way, I haven't heard anyone here dispute the fact that unearned income is now taxed more lightly, and earned income -- i.e. wages -- taxed more heavily than in the past.
Now, suppose I'm a candidate for political office who thinks this way. Suppose further that I have a family income from wages of, say, $250,000 and that I make around a million dollars a year in unearned income including stock dividends, capital gains on stocks, and other sources that are not wages I work for.
If I say "I think my taxes are too low" because that million a year in unearned income makes me the beneficiary of big tax cuts at the expense of people who don't have that kind of resources available, what does that have to do with your taxes, or with the taxes of a typical family earning $60,000 to $75,000 a year without big stock holdings generating capital gains and without big savings generating interest and dividends, etc? For that matter, when billionnaire Warren Buffet says he thinks his taxes are too low -- something he's said on numerous occasions -- do you think he's also saying that your taxes are too low? Or is he saying "People like me should be paying higher taxes so that other people don't have to"?
Unless you personally are the beneficiary of significant unearned income, what Darcy Burner thinks about the Bush tax cuts may or may not having anything to do with what she thinks about your taxes. You'd have to read her financial disclosure statements to know for sure whether your situations are at all similar, and whether what she says about her own taxes implies anything about what she thinks about your taxes.
Or you could read her written position on taxes, which boils down to "taxes fall too heavily on wages, and the already well to do have been the beneficiaries of the recent rounds of tax cuts". As I said before, if you think a candidate is lying about their positions that's fine, but forming an opinion without actually considering their published statements on the issues seems hasty to me.
As for being duped, well, all I can say is that I've known Darcy for almost 15 years, and you evidently haven't. So I'll trust my first-hand experience with her more than your assertions about her, if it's all the same to you.
You don't have to agree with me, but this all started because Sharkansky posted an entry saying he wanted an endorsement from someone who knows Darcy. Well, now you've got one. Listen to it, don't listen to it, it's up to you.
But I can guess how most readers of this blog will respond, just as I can guess how most readers of, say, The Daily Kos, would respond to a post from a longtime friend of Dave Reichert endorsing him. And THAT, in short, is what's wrong with politics in the US over the last 8 to 12 years. No one on either side of the aisle really listens with an open mind or thinks beyond party affiliation and ideological labels anymore. That's why I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat.
Posted by: Prometheus on November 4, 2006 04:42 AMI'd take your endorsement more seriously if you signed your real name to it. An anonymous endorsement doesn't really inspire much respect.
Posted by: ba on November 4, 2006 06:41 AMDo PMs manage multi-million dollar budgets? Yes, it is common.
On taxes - why not just read what she says http://darcyburner.com/blog.php?p=233
So two people who know Darcy endorse her strongly. I am sure that you will find someone who is jealous of her success or put off by her ambition but in my experience she has strong dedication and remarkable ability.
Posted by: Don23 on November 4, 2006 08:50 AMI'm already partying all weekend. How fun it will be to watch the returns in HDTV! Every painful expression on the faces of you Republicans who have disrespected your base will be so fun to watch in high resolution. The PARTY is ON!
Posted by: John McDonald on November 4, 2006 09:26 AM'Hell hath no fury'... especially in the hormone induced teeter-totter emotionalism of the high school years.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskold on November 4, 2006 09:33 AMLetter from a senior citizen
I am a senior citizen.
During the Clinton Administration I had an extremely good and well paying job.
I took numerous vacations and had several vacation homes.
Since President Bush took office, I have watched my entire life change for the worse.
I lost my job.
I lost my two sons in that terrible Iraqi War.
I lost my homes.
I lost my health insurance.
As a matter of fact I lost virtually everything and became homeless.
Adding insult to injury, when the authorities found me living like an animal, instead of helping me, they arrested me.
I will do anything that Senator Kerry and Senator Kennedy want to insure that a Democrat is back in the White House.
Bush has to go.
Sincerely,
Saddam Hussein
But the proposals I'm hearing are to increase taxes on unearned income and decrease taxes on earned income (wages) either directly or through targeted tax breaks so as to shift the burden of taxation from wages to wealth. Under such a system, your "pitiful government paycheck" would be larger than it is today because you'd pay less in income taxes and be the beneficiary of tax breaks aimed at wage earners, but you'd end up paying a higher tax rate on capital gains and other unearned income if your investments really did that well. On the other hand, if your investments didn't do well, or in some years you didn't earn enough to invest in the first place, you'd pay a smaller tax burden on your wages with no offsetting increase in tax on unearned income, so you'd come out unambiguously ahead. That's why people say this approach rewards work instead of wealth.
There's also the fact that the highest levels of unearned income are not generally found among wage earners who invest a few thousands of thousands of dollars here and there, but occur as inherited wealth and net worths in excess of 10 to 20 million dollars, which are currently taxed at much lower rates than at any time in recent US history.
We can argue about whether shifting more of the tax base from wages (earned income) to unearned income is a good idea, but let's be clear about what the idea really is first. It's NOT simply to increase the tax rate on income, dividends, and capital gains and stop there. Some people believe that shifting the tax burden to unearned income is simply punishing success; other people believe that it's reasonable for people who succeed in this way to help pay the costs of a society that makes such success possible.
We should, as a society, be engaged in an ongoing series of great debates about fiscal policy, tax policy, social policy, and foreign policy. That's what a democracy should be. But it's hard to have those debates when each side so mischaracterizes the other side's positions and proposals that any serious attempt to discuss them ends up drowned out in the noise.
It used to be that at least some news media organizations would try to encourage real investigative journalism to get at the truth of things, but over the past 10 to 12 years it seems that the media has also descended into "he said / she said" reporting, scandal mongering, and outright advocacy on both the left and the right.
Posted by: Prometheus on November 4, 2006 11:26 AMI then choose to invest a portion of that taxed money in the stock market. Fortune smiles on me and I score and double or triple my investment. I made some cash. Why should I be taxed extra on that money which I have already paid taxes in?
Remember that you're already taxed on unearned income, just at a lower rate in the past. And that you're only taxed on your profits, the difference between what you invested and what you ended up with, so you're not taxed twice on the money that originally came out of your paycheck. And that you're only taxed when you actaully sell the assets and realize the gains. And that the tax rate decreases the longer you've held the investment, to encourage long-term capital investment.
No credible candidate I know of is seriously proposing to change the fundamentals of this system; the proposals all have to do with the specific tax rates applied to capital gains and dividends, the types of unearned income that should or should not be exempt from taxation, etc.
If you really want to talk about an unfair tax, we should talk about the Alternative Minimum Tax, a tax originally intended to apply to a few hundred very high income families, which taxes people on unrealized gains and which lacks any indexing to inflation, so it applies to more and more taxpayers every year. With the White House and both houses of Congress controlled by the same party for 6 years now, it's unconscionable that no one has attempted to address this one.
It's equally unconscionable that when Democrats controlled the White House and the Congress in the early 1990's, they didn't do anything about it either. But the problem gets worse as time passes and inflation pushes more and more people into the AMT pool. Still, it's understandable why politicians are reluctant to tackle the AMT, as fixing this will require raising significant tax revenue elsewhere to offset the hit that the AMT is projected to take out of middle-class taxpayers over the next 10 to 20 years, and when you only care about the next election cycle, it's much easier to stick your head in the sand and refuse to acknowledge the problem. But we're getting pretty far off-topic here.
Posted by: Prometheus on November 4, 2006 11:44 AMIncome tax should be lower, too. Rates of 30+ are obscene.
Posted by: Michele on November 4, 2006 02:27 PMThis will have nothing to do with whether Darcy Burner was a Microsoft executive - I identified her as one only because Politics1.com's page said she was and I had to use something (I have a lot of House campaigns to cover...) It also doesn't have anything to do with the other thread about whether she voted in a Republican primary.
I'm from Pennsylvania. I've never been to Washington State, so I can't really be an expert on its political scene.
Anyhow, I'm covering competitive U.S. House campaigns for BNN, throughout the nation. Accordingly, I identified the 5th and 8th CDs and wrote stories about them. The one on the Burner/Reichert contest is linked above.
I always welcome comments/reactions, and I try to be as objective as possible.
You can read all of my swing district stories (including the 8th CD as well), by cut/pasting this link:
http://www.bloggernews.net/1category/government-news/us-government-news/congressional-news/
Questions? Comments? Information? You can contact Craig Dimitri at cdimitri1@yahoo.com.
Thanks.
I mean, she like managed like four people at Microsoft, the whole two years that she was there. I mean, like, she once coached a soccer team for one week, like, what more do you want for dedication?
She, like, went to law school for like one whole year! That's like one more year than Al Gore finished. Darcy rulez! She's like, so kewl, she's like, so, um, she rocks. She's so much better than Gorge Bush, like she'll stand up to him, you know?
Darcy is so kewl, she invited me to kneel in front of Prez Willie with her :-0
Posted by: Marcy's Best Friend on November 4, 2006 10:55 PMbut here and in other blogs, it's as if the writers are simply interested in hearing themselves speak.
thank god I'm not in politics.
Posted by: newtoWA on November 5, 2006 03:35 PM