WA GOP: Fund filthy roads first

For background, see Democrats Challenge Republican Two Thirds Rule, Shut Down Senate Transportation Vote The Democratic amendment, which lost on a party line vote, would have also blocked a controversial GOP amendment that takes all sales tax revenue from transportation projects out of the general fund (about $1 billion) and puts it into the transportation…

Microsoft and Boeing convinced Gregoire to back a costly tunnel, but they avoid paying state taxes

In Road Kill: How Bertha Left the Surface-Street Option In the Dust, Ellis E. Conklin reports that “Powerful interests rallied around the tunnel and diverted then-Governor Gregoire from a less costly route.” Specifically, “The downtown business interests, the Chamber of Commerce, Boeing, the unions, they all wanted a highway, period. Nothing was going to stop…

Koch-powered lawmakers

Many Washington State legislators were elected courtesy of the Koch Brothers. In particular, Andy Hill and Steve Litzow squeaked by in 2010 via attack ads funded by the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity. The State Republican Party was later fined for violating election reporting requirements in that election.See State Republicans fined for violating reporting requirements…

Government-run health care is more efficient. Why?

Conservatives love to hate government, and they often say that the free market is more efficient than government at providing services. Inconveniently for conservatives, government-run health care systems in other industrialized nations provide higher quality health care at far less cost than America’s complicated market-based system.  And Medicare has lower overheads that private insurance. And…

Obama saved the economy — and the GOP

Obama gave a priceless gift to the GOP: immunity from prosecution for war crimes, torture,  disastrous wars, politically motivated prosecutions by the Justice Department, widespread corruption, and other criminality. In 2008, it appeared that the GOP was destined for many years of repudiation. They’d proven themselves corrupt, incompetent, and imperialistic. But Obama nursed the GOP…