What Are They Saying About Levy Equalization This Week?

"We're going to be talking about Basic Health soon, Disability Lifeline soon, levy equalization. School districts are going to get nailed."

--Marty Brown, the Governor's budget director, during the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council meeting from Thursday.

"That discussion includes the Basic Health Plan, which provides health insurance for poor people, and Disability Lifeline, a welfare and health care program for unemployable adults. Both programs are entirely state-financed. Levy equalization payments that aid rural and property-poor school districts also could be on the table, Brown said."

--Marty Brown in the Kitsap Sun

"Just as we saw Reagan Dunn rail against tax increases and then attempt to shift budget away from Publc Health to sherif deputies to guard his castle, we will see Republicans in the legislature the rose on the tax cut camp song beg on the Senate flloor for levy equalization funds. The answer will be no, you wanted no, you ran on no, go get no."

--A commentator at Crosscut

Can't get a two-thirds majority to raise revenue for, well, anything? Then act like the Republicans claim they would act, and start making those painful cuts. You know, by cutting things like school levy equalization.

Yeah, I know, levy equalization is good policy and all that, but let's try to approach this from a classical, free market, Republican perspective for a moment. I mean, if folks out in rural Washington are unwilling or unable to raise local school levies sufficient to educate their children, then perhaps they shouldn't even have public schools? That's the market at work, right? So why should taxpayer dollars be sucked away from school children in Seattle to help pay for schools in communities that obviously don't care enough about their children to properly educate them? At a time of budgetary crisis like this, how can we possibly afford to pay for all this rural welfare?

--David Goldstein, normally of Horse's Ass, posting at Slog

Read more here, if any.

By Early May the State Deficit Will Be $20 Gazillion Dollars

I go to the Stranger's Blog Slog for lighthearted fun like killer pitbulls and pedophile youth pastors, but now they can kill my soul with economic news as well. Consider these posts, ALL FROM TODAY:

• 9:58 a.m.: Unemployment Hits a 16 Year High
  
• 11:43 a.m.: Boeing Layoffs Announced
  
• 12:25 p.m.: Seattle PI Up For Sale
  
• 4:00 p.m.: A video on The Last Days of the PI

I think the best solution is to close the schools, all of them, for the remainder of the year. This will save money in teacher salaries, and the private schools can fill a void and make it a free market kind of deal. This will make certain folk deliriously happy, like me, because I could finally cross "Collect Unemployment" off of my bucket list.

Read more here, if any.