Strong believer that kindness, pragmatism, and listening make life better for all of us. Be kind. Pro capitalist. Not a partisan.
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Elan retweeted
Washington voters, important message below. Don’t skip the Supreme Court races. This is the court the state needs to reverse 93 year old precedent and say your income is not your property so that they can impose an income tax on us with no constitutional safeguards or limits. Let’s elect an elected court, not a selected one. Five seats are on the November 3 ballot. LOBES: Larson, O’Donnell, Bloom, Edwards, Stevens (not Stephens).
Washington has 9 Supreme Court justices. Six were appointed by Democratic governors. Five had never been a judge before: Charles Johnson, Sheryl Gordon McCloud, Sal Mungia, Colleen Melody and Theo Angelis. The other four had prior superior court or appellate experience.
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Elan retweeted
Democratic staffers are fragile little babies who need to stop trying to sabotage the few based Democrats like Mary Peltola. Seriously, you make me sick
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Elan retweeted
There are about 20 million Americans below Kindergarten age.
If we paid $1,000 a month for each, it would cost roughly $2.4 trillion over a decade.
And still would not cover the full cost of child care, which is often far over $12,000 a kid.
Childcare in America should be free.
The Free Childcare for America Act would make care free for millions of families, pay family or friends who provide care, ensure childcare workers earn a living wage, and provide $1,000/month for parents who stay home.
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Elan retweeted
They call ESSB 6346 a “millionaires’ tax.”
But the statute does not measure your wealth. It measures one year’s income.
Starting in 2028, a taxable pension payout, a large traditional IRA withdrawal for medical care, a Roth conversion, or a distribution from an inherited traditional IRA can push you over the $1 million standard deduction.
Money accumulated over decades can show up on one year’s tax return.
There is no averaging those decades. No deduction for the years you earned far less.
The statute taxes the year, not the lifetime.
“Millionaires’ tax” is the sales pitch.
A tax on a million-dollar year is what they passed.
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Elan retweeted
Nearly every claim in this post is wrong or misleading. I’d be happy to walk through how.
But here's my real question for income tax proponents: if WA's system is so hard on the bottom 20%, why is last session's relief for them written to vanish if a court strikes down the millionaires' tax? If helping working families was the goal, why make it contingent?
Working families already pay 3 times more than the top 1% in Washington.
Now, millionaires and billionaires are trying to pass I-645, a ballot initiative that would give them a $300 billion tax break by cutting social programs in K-12 schools.
Make it make sense.
piped.video/watch?v=HHesreBC…
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Bring back insane asylums, workhouses, and vagrancy laws. There's nothing kind or compassionate about letting mentally-ill drug addicts roam the streets like 28 Days Later. And it makes for a terrible city experience for everyone else too.
I was surprised how bad it was just walking from the hotel to the Rails World venue. One strung-out guy wanted to fight me for some reason, another was swinging wildly and swearing profusely. Lots of zombie vibes too. Whatever Austin is doing, it's not working.
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I remember this day vividly. I was safe here in the West Coast of the USA. Watching the tsunami modeling as things developed.
Because there was concern about the global financial system’s health, and our involvement with ICI, I was on calls with some of the world’s largest finance institutions to offer our help.
Companies had employees stranded across the country. Families did not know if their loved ones were safe. But stories of hope began to come in.
Companies were housing the employees of other companies or providing transportation. Messages to family members relayed.
We didn’t have offices in Japan, and the closest office we had was in KL far, far away, and we didn’t have the things needed to help, but I will never forget seeing so many people willing to help so many others.
I am sure there was not enough help for everyone. I know there was a great deal of tragedy, but I was privileged to see humanity at its best first hand.
This story is AI written and it is what it is, but it does touch on a moment that brings at least for me, hope for the future.
NOBODY tells Americans this part of the story.
March 11, 2011.
A black, 30-foot wall of ocean swallowed Northeast Japan.
Our government froze. The Pentagon had no orders.
Communications were dead.
You know what Captain Thom Burke and Rear Admiral Robert Girrier did on the USS Ronald Reagan?
They didn't wait for the White House.
They didn't wait for paperwork.
They looked at the TV screen, saw their friend drowning, and committed the ultimate military sin:
UNAUTHORIZED ADVANCE.
“We’re going. NOW.”
They turned the massive nuclear carrier full throttle straight into the disaster zone.
Then came the hydrogen explosions at Fukushima.
Radiation plumes drifted across the Pacific.
Every foreign embassy told their citizens: RUN.
The US Embassy ordered an evacuation zone: STAY 50 MILES AWAY.
Did the Ronald Reagan turn around?
DID YOUR SAILORS RUN?
NOT. ONE. INCH.
Nineteen-year-old kids from Texas and Ohio stood on a freezing flight deck, radiation detectors in hand, launching helicopters into blizzards.
They hovered over submerged rooftops, pulling shivering mothers and babies out of the black water.
When Japanese refugees were brought aboard shivering in shock, your sailors gave up their own warm bunks and slept on the cold steel floor.
While the rest of the world ran away from Japan,
AMERICA CHARGED STRAIGHT INTO THE FIRE.
You didn't do it for a treaty.
You didn't do it for politicians.
You saw your friend bleeding, and you kicked the doors down to save us.
Happy 250th, America.
Japan will remember your boys forever. 🇺🇸🤝🇯🇵
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Just to be clear, my anecdote isn’t AI, but I assume the story I’m replying to is.
It was a wild moment. People huddled inside wondering when/if it would be safe to try to leave. Strangers carpooling and companies putting other companies staff on their planes.
Conference bridges with the CEOs of some of the largest finance companies in the world… and little 40 person fund managers.
All the while the fuel rods were in those pools and everyone was worried the pools would flood (some did), or something worse would happen.
In any case, humanity prevailed in the face of crisis. People were kind to others.
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Yeah… I take people more seriously when they speak better English (or whatever language we are speaking…)..
“Profanity is the parlance of the fool. Why curse when there is such a magnificent language with which to discourse?"
-Theodore Roosevelt
I’ve thought about this a lot lately as I see more and more public figures using profanity to make a point. It seems like they’re trying to demonstrate passion or attract a younger audience. Whatever the case, I think it lessens the impact of what they’re trying to say. There is a time and a place for profanity and it isn’t in public or in professional conversation. It is indeed the “parlance of the fool.”
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Elan retweeted
Should WA courts be held to open records act? New initiative seeks that. @TCSWashington thecentersquare.com/washingt…
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🧵 Washington's 2028 deficit got worse this month. You'll hear "weak economy" all year. Some of it's true. But the state's forecast has a rule that keeps the official record from ever saying how much of this is the tax laws, including the one on your ballot Nov 3.
Our state continues to face significant short-term budget challenges, and this latest forecast does not change that.
We have one more revenue forecast and another caseload forecast before I propose my budget in December. These will be critical to understanding the scale of the shortfall we will be facing. My team and I have been working for months to prepare. We are focused on delivering a balanced budget while preserving core services and protecting our state’s most vulnerable.
ofm.wa.gov/news-publications…
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Bob has been so reckless that all of his plans depend on his income tax scheme which faces several hurdles:
•The WA Supreme Court overturning 100 years of precedent
•An initiative to repeal the income tax and protect voters failing
•Collections must match rosy forecasts
Our state continues to face significant short-term budget challenges, and this latest forecast does not change that.
We have one more revenue forecast and another caseload forecast before I propose my budget in December. These will be critical to understanding the scale of the shortfall we will be facing. My team and I have been working for months to prepare. We are focused on delivering a balanced budget while preserving core services and protecting our state’s most vulnerable.
ofm.wa.gov/news-publications…
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🧵 Washington’s new revenue forecast dropped today from the Office of Financial Management.
Near-term numbers are soft.
Recovery shows up later — in 2029–31.
Almost all of that later-year boost comes from one uncertain source: the brand-new 9.9% tax on income over $1 million.
That tax has collected $0 so far.
First payments aren’t due until 2029.
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The forecast also shows weaker B&O and retail-sales tax projections.
That lines up with softer business activity, higher unemployment, and the usual lag you see when high earners and mobile capital start adjusting to new top rates.
It doesn’t matter if we call it “capital flight” or just rational response, the result for WA jobs and prosperity is the same.
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The state is booking multi-billion-dollar upside in 2029–31 that depends on three things all going right:
1. The tax survives constitutional challenge
2. Voters reject the repeal initiative
3. Actual collections match the optimistic forecast
Until those are settled, treating that revenue as solid is a gamble.
Here’s OFMs release:
ofm.wa.gov/news-publications…
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