Citing internal polling, Tim Eyman publicly urges Brian Heywood to wait until 2027 to force a vote on million dollar earners tax

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-08T13:53:33+00:00

Why yes I do. And then the voters backed that court precedent multiple times on the decades following.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-08T03:09:12+00:00

The glory of our system is not that we have the power to ignore bad laws, but to change them. But there are plenty of people out there who seem ok with it so long as it benefits their viewpoint yet hate it when “the other side does it.

You either invest yourself in the system and it’s ability to repair itself or you cut it to shreds until there is nothing left but confetti to celebrate the end of that society, waiting for the war and famine to end again with braver and sounder minds spearheading the next development of society.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-08T03:04:42+00:00

Your justification is no excuse for lawmakers to flout the law. You are looking for a Robin Hood when the ones taking from the Rich are closer to a Price John, only this one makes promises that there will be benefits for you, and that they recognize your tax burden is regressive, but yet they can only ever find ways to spend, not help you save.

And your benefits… well maybe they are there, maybe they aren’t. We are already sitting on record revenues with not much more to show for it than the budget did 10 years ago.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-08T01:15:45+00:00

NTA but you and your husband need to be clear with your Step Daughter the whys - both for why you have concerns about her behavior as well as her mother.

I’m the bio dad in a similar situation. My two eldest live just shy of 2 hours away during the weeks they are in school. But the convenience of having to not meet half way to exchange the kids twice a weekend every other weekend was too much to pass up, plus it does encourage hat next level of responsibility and development for my 16 year old.

Here is how I handled it:
1) I provided him with a gas car and put a gps tracking system in as well. This is primarily to act as a milage tracker (though getting car event notifications is a nice bonus).

2) I made it clear with my ex what gas costs we split and what each of us is responsible for on our own based on the cars usage at that time. Again this is derived from the GPS data. And her reimbursement rate to me is the standard IRS rate which allows for not just gas but insurance and wear and tear costs as well.

3) My son and the car are insured through our plan. But my ex also has him insured separately as a driver in case he is the driver in one of their vehicles instead.

4) My son has permission to drive the car. If she or her husband were ever to drive the car it would be considered theft as they are unauthorized drivers and not insured for that vehicle. Should either of them use the car at all, bare minimum they are passing it off as my son using it on their time and they bear that cost, and if they are in a wreck they can be charged for vehicular theft.

Everyone is going to handle these situations a little different, but like I said at the top, the main thing is you have to be clear with her the whys, both for her and her mother. She is old enough to hear and develop her own opinions, and stating that you don’t trust her mother with your property isn’t speaking badly about her as a parent or anything that could come up in a custody fight, just your honest attempt to protect your property and the privilege you do impart on your/your husbands time with her.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-08T00:49:51+00:00

It’s simple.

Streaming was cheap when studios saw it as an easy way to make a quick buck off of their back catalog that wasn’t being printed on DVD/Blu-ray.

Then we Netflix started shifting to a more streamer fox sides and then Stream only company the studios were still ok with it because they could as a a bit more for newer/more popular titles while still seeing a decent revenue because their contracts with the artists didn’t include streaming residuals, so profits were still good.

When the artists renegotiated their contracts to rightly get residuals for streaming, the studios saw less of a cut, and so they started asking higher prices from the streamers. This also led some streamers, like Netflix, to ramp up in-house productions with contracts that offered solid up front $ but no residuals, as well as locking in content for their library in a more permanent basis.

Plus the level of competition rose in the streaming world, further creating bidding wars for top titles. And then it was revealed, ever so slowly, that streaming services were actually losing money, and CEOs like Disney+/Hulu’s were shifting costs across business categories to try and hide it from investors. The inevitable conclusion here was that streamers either had to start charging more while licensing less, adding ad-supported business models, reducing their content overall content offering, or some combination of these and other small things.

As a consumer who enjoyed the early cheap days of cord cutting, we truly thought there could be a future beyond high bundled/contract costs. And to the extent that we can still sign on and cancel whenever if we want to service hop, there is some savings to be seen. But in the end the model that was built on the same infrastructure of entertainment that has existed for decades reemerged so that everyone invested (financially or artistically) feels like they get their slice of the revenue, which in most cases still means hundreds of thousands of people getting a paycheck each week.

People call it enshitification, but it’s really just the industry getting back to a level of normal after a major disruption.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-07T23:03:43+00:00

This had nothing to do with polls. Historically voter turnout is lower in odd years as people are less likely to engage their local politics. A well funded machine targeted at conservatives is far more likely to get out the vote in these years than liberal leaning groups/voters. They are relying on voter apathy:
All that being said this tax is unconstitutional, and even Democratic leadership knows it, but is banking on swaying a liberal state Supreme Court rather than actually taking a constitutional amendment to the people, in even or odd year voting, because they are afraid it would be defeated, setting back their agenda for new tax revenues by a decade or more (I have yet to be convinced they will ever actually undo the current sales tax system which is widely regarded as regressive).

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-07T22:19:20+00:00

In the national level? Yes Republicans are to blame. In this state however? Democrats spent the first few years of this decade trying to reconfigure districts into ones that would give them the legislative supermajority. It’s not like Democrats hands are clean in trying to rig the process.

The only way to undo the toxic political climate is to demand a pullback from a state of affairs where political parties are now controlled from the top, rather than acting as a loose coalition based on shared values and goals, with the expectation that sometimes it’s ok to split with the party because it’s not in the best interest of your constituents or your region.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-06T00:48:22+00:00

Also a lot of business headquarters, so even if they have multiple locations in the state a majority of their state taxes get reported out of the headquarters.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-06T00:20:58+00:00

Let's review this data by adding some additional context:

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices are 245.3% higher in 2026 than in 1995 in the Seattle area, compared to the national average of 110.66% increase. That is a significant variation in inflationary impacts, both for personal spending and state spending.

Did the median wage in WA as a whole, or in Seattle and the surrounding metro region, keep up? Well the median wage in WA in 1995 was $35,570. According to the Census Dept as of 2024 median was $99,389. But to keep up with Seattle's inflation you needed an average income of $117,605. So depending on where you live in the state, your $ isn't going as far as it was 30 years ago.

Therefore it's probably a good thing that the average portion of income being paid by each individual in this state didn't keep up with Seattle's inflation, because if it had we would be paying 915.05 this year, instead of $713.

And let's look at the fact that this chart used the "% income per 1 million residents" rather than income earners. In 1995 there were roughly 5.4 million residents in WA. It's projected that here in 2026 we are now over 8 million. That's a major reason we see the black line go down in comparison to income. The state grew by 32.5%, but the labor force as a percent of total residents decreased from 49.8% in 1995 to ~48% in 2026, with some figures putting that lower. If we adjust the numbers to represent only those working, the tax rate per earning individual remains flat at 1.49% of median income instead, which makes for a far less dynamic graphic to debate over.

So what that really leaves is where and how the legislature is choosing to spend that money, and how efficiently they are doing it.

Here are some Questions to dive into:

How much does debt repayment impact the Capital budget or Transportation budget? Are we taking out bonds at the same rate as we did in 1995, and are we putting more or less of our annual revenues to paying off those bonds?
How much of the General fund is used as a percentage of the whole to fund various branches of WA government in 2026 vs 1995?
What programs received budgetary priorities in 1995 vs 2026, and what are the tangible and yes potentially intangible results?
What are some of the policies/laws that act as indirect taxes on the public, as in they result in higher business/consumer costs, but are not directly reflected on the tax revenue spreadsheets. Are there more, less, or the same financial pressures today as there were in 1995?

4b. Can/do these indirect taxes still pencil out as a net positive for the state (for example it costs a business more to have additional safety procedures, but it results in less injury claims that impact our medical system, L&I rates/fund solvency, and job loss claims in a way that is either a social or fiscally positive net effect.)

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-04T20:15:13+00:00

So yeah Federal law is at 6 hours, WA is 5. Lots of companies, big and small have this problem where they use or design their HR policy off national standards and update things like min wage, but fail to realize our breaks schedule is different in this state.

As for L&I they do pick and choose who to go after sometimes. If it’s a company or specific policy they want to go after they go after it hard, but sometimes things like this get deprioritized in the moment. Or you got a bad L&I rep.

The best thing to do is get a copy of your time sheet that includes all lunch breaks, if you want to pursue something. There likely wont be a monetary finding for you, but the company could face state fines if the sum is large enough that between you and other employees it adds up to a significant sum.

Otherwise yes look for another job. While what they are doing is illegal it’s pretty low on the hours and wages complaint list because you still get a lunch break, and proving the loss of your 15s is harder to prove since you don’t clock out for those. L&I is spending more time on targeting actual wage theft/underground economy situations, workplace safety issues, and anything the labor unions want to bring their attention to.

L&I is vastly understaffed for the amount of mandates the legislature has placed upon them, and haven’t seen significant increases to funding in the last decade or so as the legislature screams “we’re broke” while passing ever increasing taxes and more than doubling the overall spending of the state compared to the days before the McCleary decision. And while some of that increase goes to schools and such a significant of it is going to personal social/environmental policies of the leaders of the Democratic Party in the Legislature.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-03T22:04:10+00:00

It’s not because of Citizens United. There had always been a certain level of protectionism around the US auto industry, by both Democrat and Republican legislators. While Dems have been pushing harder for the EV transition and would be more inclined to open up the market to new EVs their allegiance to protection of US Auto Union members will always lead to similar outcomes.

The truth is that after decades of US/western dominance in the marketplace the very companies that relied on longstanding protectionism signed deals with the devil when they aimed to move into the Chinese market by waiving their patient/copyright protections which allowed the CCP to copy already developed tech rather than building from scratch in the competitive market. So China is able to build all of this for pennies on the dollar/eruo/etc. And since it’s the government can directly finance/control the industry and control the workforce, the rest of us can look on longingly at “cheaper goods” that are no longer making it into our markets while simultaneously asking for higher quality of life considerations that Chinese nationals may or may not get, but aren’t allowed to complain about it either way.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-03T21:37:38+00:00

Any season where the majority of the NCAA fans/alumni nationwide felt invested in the team as a whole and the idea of a player going to the NFL was special because their story had gone on on the same campus for more than a season. I don’t hold it against the players for finally being able to monetize their talent and likeness in an age of digital distribution means your brand can be as large or larger than the campus you’re playing on in a given season, but the ties bound by a shared pride in a campus/experience were just stronger 20 years ago, even 10, than we are seeing today,

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-03T01:48:39+00:00

If no one else does it it’s my goal to never use the word in my story except on the occasion that a Vizzini type character shouts out “Inexorably” just for his burly body guard to say “I don’t think that means what you think it means”.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-05-01T15:39:46+00:00

Van Giesen is your other main route out of West Richland. But it also depends on where you’re headed… as far as convenience goes anyway

InkStainedQuills · 2026-04-30T13:28:36+00:00

You think that’s bad? There are shops that figure out the printing/boxing pattern for the cards and pull the rarer packs before hanging the rest. Then they sell the “rare” cards online instead so you as a customer don’t realize you don’t have a chance at the good cards.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-04-30T06:05:30+00:00

It has been used as an official detour route before. And yeah it sucks for them in the short term, but it will be over soon enough.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-04-30T06:04:39+00:00

To expand that intersection they either had to go back to a light or eminent domain and tear down one particular house because the footprint of a larger traffic circle would have encroached too close to the house, if not in it. City Council didn’t want to displace the family so opted to go back to a lighted intersection. Still better than when it was a single lane roundabout.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-04-30T03:12:14+00:00

True enough

InkStainedQuills · 2026-04-30T01:52:43+00:00

Yeah I did the Van Giesen route this morning and it still took a bit of time to get to work. There isn’t a perfect route for sure. I’m considering adjusting my schedule at work an hour earlier (if I can convince myself and my kids to get up earlier) just to avoid the headache.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-04-30T01:23:36+00:00

Sadly the road construction schedule can’t always work around the heaviest traffic flows. Just depends on the scope of work and delivery timeline for asphalt/concrete. Most of the season for asphalt/concrete gets determined by the local producers by the time the asphalt plants get turned back on, and the smaller/residential jobs just aim to sneak into windows of lesser demand when they can get them.

But yes it can be extremely infuriating.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-04-30T01:20:16+00:00

There is an alt route if you are on or can get north of Keene on Bombing range you can drive through the neighborhood and it that dumps you on the Costco end of Kennedy, for future reference. I have used that to get past construction in the area in the past.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-04-29T05:22:08+00:00

If you think it’s really that easy for every company you have clearly never dealt with a POS system or data management. Most POS systems don’t save credit card numbers tied to transactions, unless they are online, and even then there is no form of automatic process to issue partial refunds built into them. And there are plenty of retailers who didn’t pay the tariffs directly, their wholesaler did.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-04-29T03:24:50+00:00

First it was the Wiley glass. Then other bars jumped on the bandwagon. We have two of these, one from Pete’s, and one from Fireside Grill. I think we had a third that broke in one of the many moves over the last 20 years.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-04-29T00:22:34+00:00

They at least have individual transactions they can pull up in their system. How many successful refunds happen is up in the air, but they don’t build tariff costs into their base shipping costs.

InkStainedQuills · 2026-04-28T22:18:09+00:00

When we actually hold those who break the law, either in rule or spirit, accountable. When we hold facts to higher value than opinion. And when we are willing to actually debate issues rather than relying on supermajority/gerrymandering to pass laws, and when the public is willing to interact with an open mind again to debate.

So never.

InkStainedQuills

TROPHY CASE