Subduction Zone

Northwest Dealings

Category: Washington

Legislature / Washington

Full Time Legislature?

Well, swecker’s full time legislature proposal doesn’t rise up to Carl’s level of support for me: Just to show how bi-partisan I am, here’s a Republican bill I support. Nope, I still haven’t seen a republican bill I support. Sen. Dan Swecker made his pitch for a full-time Legislature on Thursday and, although the plan isn’t going anywhere soon, he did find some receptive listeners. … “I would like to see the Legislature get more proactive in getting involved in the nitty-gritty details of running the state ,” he said. What might this really mean? Let’s look at one aspect...

King County / Seattle / Transportation

Southwest May Move Headquarters

Southwest Airlines may move its headquarters from Dallas: Southwest has hinted that Dallas is a less-than-ideal city for its administrative offices because it’s inconvenient to move its people there for meetings. Southwest chief executive Gary Kelly has previously said that if the carrier were picking a new headquarters from scratch ohne-rezeptkaufen.com , Dallas wouldn’t make the first cut because of the Wright restrictions. Southwest is Dallas’ fifth-largest taxpayer, contributing $15 million last year. It provides 5,000 jobs and its activities at Love Field create $2 billion to $3 billion in economic activity, said Ron Ricks, the carrier’s top lobbyist. If...

Economics / King County / Taxation / Transportation / Washington

The Right Approach to Using Extorted Money

Some King County council members have finally figured out that money taken from citizens should not be used to support commercial endeavors: County Councilmen David Irons and Dwight Pelz on Monday formally presented a pair of proposed bills that would prevent the use of county funds or state or federal grants to support efforts to allow commercial airlines to operate at Boeing Field. Sadly, I doubt they’ve learned that this approach should apply across the board. For instance, airlines and their passengers should pay all the costs related to Sea-Tac; the stadiums should be payed for entirely by the teams...

Economics / Law Enforcement / Washington

Turn It Over To The Police

There was an article in today’s Seattle Times about a phenomena called curbstoning which, given their liberal definition of the article, any of us who have bought a vehicle from a private party have been involved with. Read the article for the juice on curbstoning. What really struck me was that apparently our fine legislature has found some need to require that anyone who sells 5 or more vehicles during a year must buy a $500 license, have a commercial place of business and more. You fall under this legislation even if you simply negotiate on the part of another...

Economics / Seattle / Taxation / Transportation

Urban Transportation Projects as Market Failures

The Seattle Times today presented one of the best arguments I have seen for terminating the Monorail Project: • Operations would almost certainly have to be subsidized somehow Koupit Clomid , as no public-finance expert interviewed by The Times believes the monorail’s claims that it can support itself from fares, ads and self-generated revenue. “Typically, urban transportation projects in the United States are not self-supporting,” said Scott Trommer, senior director at Fitch Ratings, one of the nation’s three bond-rating agencies. “They require subsidy support, from some kind of dedicated tax or government grants.” And, terminate all the other analogous projects....

Taxation / Transportation / Washington

Incomplete Picture for Viaduct Funding

In a Seattle PI guest editorial titled Complete Picture for Viaduct Funding Davd K.Y. Tang and Steve Leahyin urge Washington residents to contact their congress critters and ask them to support federal funding for the Seattle Viaduct project. Why, though, would anyone pick up the phone, write an email, etc., based on the incomplete information in this piece? How much money are they asking for? What will be the total cost of the project? How will the so called regional share be funded? Why should federal money be involved at all? Could the entire project be funded by tolls? If...