Taxes create family-wage jobs
We're getting tired of hearing how taxes kill jobs.
I got a double dose of this uninformed sentiment while covering yesterday’s tea party rally at the Legislative Building with Andrew.
It’s obvious that quite the reverse is true. Taxes create good, middle class jobs, the kind you can raise a family on. The most common job of the around 111,000 jobs provided by the state of Washington and paid for by our tax dollars is that of K-12 teacher. Other jobs supported by state taxes include state trooper, public health nurse, college professor, judge, parole officer and road construction worker. These are family-wage jobs educating, nursing and protecting the citizens of Washington. They definitely provide something for our money.
When Washington cuts taxes, it must cut services, which means laying off the state workers who provide these services. Because the bad economy put a huge dent in state revenue, three thousand state employees lost their jobs last year and potentially 1,500 more state workers could lose their job during the next round of budget cutting. Cutting taxes kills jobs, taking money out of our economy.
If you want to see what slashing taxes does to a community and its jobs, take a look at Colorado Springs, the second largest city in Colorado. The Denver Post reported on January 31st:
There was anger hovering in the air at yesterday’s rally at the Capitol, some of it justified but misplaced. Anger at losing your job and frustration at not being able to find a new one and anger from struggling to keep your small business alive during the recession is more than understandable.
What the tea partiers don’t get is that when the government is employing people whose paychecks fuel the economy, when it's helping the unemployed retrain and find work and when it's providing health services to people who can no longer afford them, it's part of the solution.
The tea partiers are misguided to call for eliminating or gutting state revenue, but if they are interested in changing the unfair way Washington taxes its citizens, they could make a positive difference. Washington’s regressive tax system (the most regressive in the country) allows the richest to pay little in taxes, while those with the least pay the most. This should make you angry.
According to Lisa Brown, economist and state senate majority leader:
I got a double dose of this uninformed sentiment while covering yesterday’s tea party rally at the Legislative Building with Andrew.
It’s obvious that quite the reverse is true. Taxes create good, middle class jobs, the kind you can raise a family on. The most common job of the around 111,000 jobs provided by the state of Washington and paid for by our tax dollars is that of K-12 teacher. Other jobs supported by state taxes include state trooper, public health nurse, college professor, judge, parole officer and road construction worker. These are family-wage jobs educating, nursing and protecting the citizens of Washington. They definitely provide something for our money.
When Washington cuts taxes, it must cut services, which means laying off the state workers who provide these services. Because the bad economy put a huge dent in state revenue, three thousand state employees lost their jobs last year and potentially 1,500 more state workers could lose their job during the next round of budget cutting. Cutting taxes kills jobs, taking money out of our economy.
If you want to see what slashing taxes does to a community and its jobs, take a look at Colorado Springs, the second largest city in Colorado. The Denver Post reported on January 31st:
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.Tea partiers, beware of what you wish for.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends.
There was anger hovering in the air at yesterday’s rally at the Capitol, some of it justified but misplaced. Anger at losing your job and frustration at not being able to find a new one and anger from struggling to keep your small business alive during the recession is more than understandable.
What the tea partiers don’t get is that when the government is employing people whose paychecks fuel the economy, when it's helping the unemployed retrain and find work and when it's providing health services to people who can no longer afford them, it's part of the solution.
The tea partiers are misguided to call for eliminating or gutting state revenue, but if they are interested in changing the unfair way Washington taxes its citizens, they could make a positive difference. Washington’s regressive tax system (the most regressive in the country) allows the richest to pay little in taxes, while those with the least pay the most. This should make you angry.
According to Lisa Brown, economist and state senate majority leader:
In Washington, individuals in the lowest 20 percent of the tax bracket pay 17 percent of their annual income in state taxes, and individuals in the top 20 percent of the tax bracket pay less than 3 percent.What Washington needs to do is flip its tax system over -- increase taxes on the wealthy and decrease taxes on low to middle-income earners so that everyone is paying their fair share. One method of doing this is through a high earners tax, coupled with a decrease in the state sales tax. This idea is supported by progressives. Is it something that the anti-tax tea partiers could get behind too?
# Posted by Kathleen : 11:34 AM
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