Month: October 2024

Capital Gains Excise and Climate Commitment

Republican operatives know that in order to sell a repeal to the average voter of the Capital Gains Excise Tax (I-2109) and the Climate Commitment Act (I-2117) they must, to put it in the kindest of terms, twist the truth. Brian Heywood, the wealthy venture capitalist who hatched and then funded the signature gathering for the four Greed Initiatives, and Jim Walsh, the Washington State GOP chairman who worked with Heywood to get them on our ballots know that to sell these repeals to the voters they must instill fear. All four of these statewide Greed Initiatives are sold as threats to the earnings and savings of the average voter. 

It doesn’t take a brain trust to see that Brian Heywood is most interested in repealing the Capital Gains Excise Tax (I-2109). Heywood is a multimillionaire transplant from California who came to Washington State to “make money” in the money industry, i.e. not by making things but by wheeling and dealing in stocks and bonds to grow wealth in the form of capital gains. For Mr. Heywood a chip of 7% out of that part of his annual capital gain that exceeds $250,000 could still be a substantial sum of money, perhaps enough to curtail an ambition to own a yacht or another race horse, poor fellow. It is tough to drum up sympathy for such ambitions, so Republican rhetoric seeks to focus the voting public on the lie that the Capital Gains Excise Tax is a threat to the personal nest egg of average voter, especially capital appreciation of their home or farm. It’s a lying argument: capital gain on the sales or exchange of real estate (including homes and farms) is exempt. Capital gains made in IRAs are exempt. Even capital gains made on trades and sales of stocks and bonds are exempt up to that indexed $250,000 amount referenced above. The only folks who will pay any money to the State of Washington based on this tax are those like Mr. Heywood who can well afford it. 

Call it a lie, misinformation, disinformation, or just appalling ignorance, but here is the sort of argument for repealing the Capital Gains Excise Tax that Republicans put forward:

When it comes to the ahhh income tax, the seven percent tax, think about that. Most people save and work all their life and they have a home. Not everybody has a home but those who have a home, seven percent is going to be taxed before—when you die—I don’t like that, that’s not right, that should be passed on to the kids, the mother earned it, the father earned it, so let’s make sure we’re taking care of everybody.

Those are words spoken by Republican Tony Kiepe in a KPBX Inland Journal interview by Doug Nadvornick of Kiepe and Natasha Hill. Kiepe and Hill are the two candidates vying to represent Legislative District 3 (much of the City of Spokane) to the Washington State Legislature. Mr. Nadvornick asked Kiepe and Hill what their thoughts were on “the four initiatives.” (Start at 21:30 at the link for the full discussion.) 

Kiepe either has no clarity at all about the Capital Gains Excise Tax—or he is flat out offering disinformation. First off he calls it an income tax—which the Washington State Supreme Court has declared it is not. He correctly identifies the tax as 7%, but rushes to suggest that it applies to everyone’s home equity—an obvious misreading of the law. Be fearful—be very, very fearful and suspicious! The Gum’mint is after your money! 

Natasha Hill says she’ll vote a resounding “No” on all four initiatives—as will I—correctly identifying these four repeal proposals as antithetical to the common good and serving only corporations (especially fossil fuel corporations) and a few of the exceptionally wealthy. Kiepe declares he will vote “Yes” on all four initiatives arguing that with his vote he will be, thereby, protecting “the most vulnerable.” Horse manure.

Vote “No” on all four of these initiatives along with me. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Republicans selling this repeal to the general public also studiously avoid mentioning that the Capital Gains Excise Tax only applies to certain capital gains above $250,000—and that the exemption is indexed to inflation (specifically, the “consumer price index,” see RCW 82.87.150). For example, for tax year 2023 the exemption from the tax had already risen to $262,000. 

P.P.S. Here are the rest of Kiepe’s comments about the other initiatives. Note how he confidently puts dollar values to supposed and often non-existent perils like an imagined, hyperbolic threat to keeping your gas stove. Awww. Such concern for the poor. Is it possible that Mr. Kiepe actually believes his own rhetoric?:

All four initiatives I’m gonna vote yes and I’ll tell you why. The Carbon Commitment Act…the most vulnerable people that live on minimum wage, they have a monthly set income they’re paying forty to fifty cents a gallon it’s a hidden tax on your gasoline. Look at your utility bill, how much more you paying on your utility bill. I mean they don’t show how much more—it’s about forty percent. It should be transparent so you know exactly what you’re paying on your natural gas and electricity on a utility bill

But I want to help everybody, especially those who can’t afford these extra taxes. Can you imagine if we lose our natural gas and we have to change our stove to electric, we have to change our heaters downstairs to electric? What’s that gonna cost for the people who don’t have the money to do that? It’s not the rich people, it’s the poor people that’s going to pay for this. What’s it, twenty thousand dollars, thirty thousand dollars for a new HVAC system? Two thousand to four thousand dollars for a stove? So you’re gonna have to pay for this? So I will vote yes to make sure we’re protecting you.

“Right to Work” vs. Right to Bodily Autonomy

George Orwell, were he alive today, would wryly smile at the Republican devotion to the “right to work.” One would think, of course—and many do—that “right to work” laws are meant to guard the individual liberty of workers to engage directly with an employer. In reality, “right to work” has been, for decades, an ingenious and integral part of the Republican Party’s strategy to divide and conquer labor and labor’s power to bargain. Meanwhile, corporate management consolidates while it provides insanely large executive salaries and benefit packages. It is really all about power and rhetorical cleverness.

So what do “right to work” laws actually seek to accomplish?

Simply put, “right to work” laws undermine union bargaining by requiring unions to tolerate free-riders, employees who benefit from union contracts but don’t want to contribute to the collective effort to negotiate a union contract by paying union dues. Of course, “right to free-ride” wouldn’t have the deceptive Orwellian doublespeak allure of “right to work.” 

Using this deceptive rhetorical tactic, Republicans have sponsored and passed “right to work” rules in twenty-six states (not yet including Washington State and not yet nationally). I was stimulated to write this post after listening to Michael Baumgartner mention his support for “right to work” in the October 8th forum at the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center while his opponent, Carmela Conroy, expressed pride in being a third generation union member. 

Here’s what Emry Dinman reported:

The Republican [Baumgartner] agreed “unions are great” but said they should be optional.

“It’s just un-American to force folks to join any organization to get a job,” he said.

That he thinks “unions are great” is a nice—and totally meaningless—and an unsupported flourish. The second sentence is the very definition of the Republican Party’s decades-long effort to trash union power using “right to work” rhetoric. You can bet that Mr. B. would be delighted to enshrine union-undermining “right to work” into federal law if ever offered the chance to vote to do so. 

Republican dogma only pretends to support “freedom”—and only when such pretense serves Republican purpose. Consider for a moment the blatant inconsistency of the Republican Party claiming to value supposed individual rights such as the “right to work” while simultaneously celebrating state governments that pass laws curtailing a woman’s right to make her own reproductive healthcare decisions. 

In the recent forum Mr. Baumgartner was asked if, in view of his previous opposition to an abortion exception in the case of rape in 2012, if he would vote for a federal law to nationally legalize abortion in that specific case if presented with such a bill in Congress. (See here at about 2:54) He looked quite uncomfortable and a bit sheepish as he ducked the question by insisting, “Well, I won’t vote on any abortion legislation because it is the role of the states.” Based on that answer and his discomfort, if there is anyone who believes Mr. B wouldn’t vote against a bill legalizing abortion in the case of rape, I would like to offer that person a bridge for sale. No one should trust this man in Congress to protect their bodily autonomy. He hides behind “States’ Rights” now—but if he had to vote yea or nay on a federal bill to ban abortion nationwide you know he would vote with his party. 

And Baumgartner’s commitment to “freedom” is entirely malleable. It depends on what his party (and the Washington Policy Center) need him to support. “Freedom” is rhetorically fine, if, by invoking it, they can weaken unions or kill a pesky progressive tax (I-2024), but “freedom” is to be denied for a woman’s right to control her own body.

Vote Carmela Conroy for Congressional District 5 U.S. Representative. You cannot trust Baumgartner to protect your freedom.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. In general, disingenuously appealing to individual “freedom” is a tried-and-true Republican tactic to undermine any movement of which Republicans disapprove. Consider wealthy hedge fund manager Brian Heywood’s Initiative 2124. Its intent is to bankrupt the collective funding of long term care insurance. The method? Appeal to individual’s “freedom” to opt out of paying a tiny payroll tax of 0.58%—less than a penny on a dollar. Of course, these same Republicans don’t want you to cop a clue that their real objection is that the highest earners will pay, over time, more dollars into the fund than those high earners are likely to get out of it, that is, this is a tiny progressive tax on earnings. OMG! Consider the injustice of that! High earners might provide a net subsidy to low-wage earners to provide some care in the event of medical or physical catastrophe. Heavens! Not that! That would be, dare I say it, dreaded ______ism! [Sarcasm alert.]

Today, Tomorrow, and Friday–at least in Spokane County

In 2011, by state legislation, Washington State finished converting to our present Vote-By-Mail system. By state law (RCW 29A.40.070) county auditors in Washington State must mail a ballot to each voter “at leasteighteen days before each primary or election” [the italics are mine]. The November General Election is held nationwide on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November (by federal law). On account of that timing, typically Washington State Ballots are put in the mail just a little more than 18 days before, that is, mid-October, commonly on a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mid-month. This year that would center on Thursday, October 17. However, Washington State’s county auditors have the latitude to mail ballots even earlier—if their homework is done early.

Of course, “mailing ballots” sounds simpler than it is. With our sliced and diced electoral landscape with its many overlying jurisdictions, the printed ballot required for the voters of one precinct may be quite different even from that required in an adjacent precinct. Once the contents of each precinct’s ballots is determined, each county gets in line to have their ballots printed. (I am told that one printing company does nearly all the ballot printing for a slew of western states, so place in the queue matters.) 

Once those obstacles are mastered there is nothing that keeps a county auditor from mailing ballots a week (or more) earlier. This year ballots will be mailed from the Spokane County Election’s office (part of the Auditor’s office) today (Wednesday), Thursday, and Friday, October 9, 10, and 11. If everything is working correctly you should have your ballot in your mailbox by this weekend. (The same week-early mailing occurred in 2020, the last presidential election year.) 

Don’t Wait—Do Your Homework and submit your ballot

Once you’ve filled out and returned your ballot the volume of calls and door-knocks should diminish. Campaigns have access to databases that show whose ballot has been received and accepted—but not for whom you voted. The campaigns use this data to focus their efforts elsewhere. 

Pro-voter tip: At vote.wa.gov you can check to see if your ballot has been “accepted” by clicking the tab “Your Ballot and Voting Materials.” (There you can also read an online version of the Voter Guide. (You should also receive both a state and a county guide in the mail.)

There are good sources of information about the candidates and the ballot measures you will see on your ballot. My favorite source for reasoned, rational information is The Progressive Voters Guide (click to go there). By entering the address of your voter registration (not necessarily the same as the address to which your ballot was mailed) you can see the guide customized to the races that appear on your ballot. 

In past years I have recommended checking out “WeBelieveWeVote,” as a guide to rigidly right wing candidates to avoid. This year WeBelieveWeVote seems to be barely functional, displaying “The Voter’s Guide will return in November,” although I still see an occasional yard sign for the organization. Perhaps publicly signing on to what many voters consider extremist articles of faith is now seen by the more clever right wing candidates as a losing proposition.

Insofar as you might find what I have written useful, for best way to access earlier articles published in this blog, Indivisible—The High Ground, I recommend the archives at jxindivisible.org. I archive there because WordPress has a more robust Search function than does Substack. At jxindivisible.org you can scroll through titles and articles or enter keywords like “Baumgartner” or “French” or “PFAS” in the Search box to call up articles in which that keyword appears. (I use this archive to help bolster my aging memory, especially for links to references.) Looking back, I realize that, with the exception of the post “Carmela Conroy for Eastern Washington” I have concentrated less on the excellent candidates I support than I have focused on the candidates I believe deserve to lose. 

Do your homework, fill out your ballot, turn it in promptly, discuss your voting choices with like-minded friends, and encourage them to register and vote. Most of us understand that Washington State’s electoral votes, to a high degree of likelihood, will go to support the Harris/Walz ticket, i.e. we’re not a swing state. That said, control of the U.S. Congress and that of state and county government is also at stake in this election. Don’t neglect the down-ballot races. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry 

The CD5 candidate’s extremism v. Carmela Conroy’s voice of reason

Former Spokane County prosecutor and career foreign service officer Carmela Conroy and Mr. Baumgartner are vying for the U.S. House seat to be vacated by Cathy McMorris Rodgers the end of this year. Choose carefully. If you wish to make sure that the next Las Vegas mass murderer has access to the “right” equipment for the job, Michael Baumgartner is your guy. 

Surely Michael Baumgartner would rather it were known only to a select audience, but he is a 2nd Amendment extremist—and is proud of his voting record that proves the point. He is anxious to make sure that everyone can access the most efficient people-killing equipment legally available—the “bump stock”—a device that, in practical terms, converts a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun. Bump stocks came into public consciousness when, in 2017, a lone gunman firing from a 32nd floor hotel room in Las Vegas killed sixty and wounded over four hundred more defenseless concert goers—a grim lone-gunman record. (See P.S. below for bump stock regulatory background and more.) 

Keep this bump stock background in mind as you contemplate this quote from Mr. Baumgartner from an interview he gave a couple of months ago (watch here starting at 5:08):

Let me say first on the bump stock ban I was in the senate when the Democrats brought that to the floor in the Washington State senate. I voted against it, ahhh. and did not support that, and did not support President Trump’s measure to ban bump stocks and was glad that the Supreme Court has overturned that because as we know the far left wants to take away ALL of our gun rights and every step they can get closer to that is all just part of their plan, their goal.

The “bump stock ban” Baumgartner is proud of voting against passed the Washington State Senate as ESB 5992 on February 27, 2018 by a vote of 31 in favor (Republicans and Democrats) to 18 against (all Republicans). Signed by the governor, the law is now part of the Revised Code of Washington (RCW 9.41.190) [the bold is mine].

(1) Except as otherwise provided in this section, it is unlawful for any person to:

(a) Manufacture, own, buy, sell, loan, furnish, transport, or have in possession or under control, any machine gun, bump-fire stock, undetectable firearm, short-barreled shotgun, or short-barreled rifle;

This bump stock prohibition still stands in Washington State as a perfect example of the “states’ rights” that Baumgartner otherwise promotes in the video and elsewhere. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal bump stock prohibition because it was an ATF regulation, rather than a U.S. Congress-passed law. Baumgartner, if elected this fall to the U.S. Congress, will work hard with other extremists to keep bump stocks and all manner of other military hardware as unregulated and available as possible. He will oppose passage of a federal bump stock ban—or any gun regulation whatsoever. Of course, he will drape that stance in 2nd Amendment absolutism while drumming up angst over an imaginary slippery slope.

Carmela Conroy, Baumgartner’s far better qualified opponent in the November election—as well as this gun-owning, shooting-sport-participating writer—stand for the sensible gun regulations that a majority of Americans want to see enacted. 

Baumgartner’s YouTube interview from which his quote was drawn is a treasure trove of the far right extremism that lives beneath the shallow veneer of Baumgarnter’s “Aw, shucks” exterior. Both the interview setting and the interviewer are revealing. The setting is 3 Aces “Personal Security Operations Center” on Broadway in Spokane Valley. Click that link. “3 Aces” seems to be advertising something more like paramilitary training than personal security advice. (Shades of Matt Shea’s “Team Rugged?”) The interview is conducted by William Kirk, a lawyer who claims to specialize (and have exalted credentials in) both “gun law” and in “DUI Defense.” Researching Mr. Kirk is a tour of self-aggrandizement using glitzy website presentations. Mr. Kirk appears as the sole attorney and personality of two Washington west side organizations of self-proclaimed renown, Washington Gun Law and the Cowan Kirk Law Firm. 

Let us work to elect Carmela Conroy as our Representative to the U.S. House this fall, not her far-right extremist opponent.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

P.S. Bump Stock Background: On October 1, 2017, just seven years ago in the first year of Trump’s presidency, a lone gunman perched in a room on the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel committed the deadliest mass shooting by one person in American history. Made possible by “bump stocks”, a device that essentially converts a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun, the shooter fired off more than a thousand rounds in just ten minutes into a crowd of concert-goers, killing 60, wounding at least 413 more and causing injuries to hundreds more in the resulting stampede. Ponder that. 

The incident was so horrific that, in 2018, additionally spurred by the Parkland High School Shooting in February of 2018, Trump tweeted and even the NRA supported “additional regulations” around bump stocks. The ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives) heard the call, administratively reclassifying bump stocks as “machine guns,” thereby requiring registration and fees under the National Firearms Act of 1934. 

Then earlier this year 2024 (thanks to the same six Supreme Court Justices responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade) the ATF regulation was struck down, the six Justices declaring that ATF had overstepped its statutory authority. Note two things: (1) This the same Supreme Court majority that McConnell and Trump brag about establishing and (2) this ruling does NOT prohibit either state or federal legislation that would regulate bump stocks. Nationally, now that the memory of Las Vegas and bump stocks is fading, there is zero chance of any regulation of bump stocks passing Congress until there is a substantial Democratic majority in both the House and Senate.

The Obvious Choice to Represent Real Americans

We, the voters of eastern Washington, have a historic opportunity this fall to elect Carmela Conroy as our Representative to the U.S. Congress, the candidate who actually represents the values and interests of a majority of eastern Washingtonians. 

Imagine for a moment, the wheat and potato farmers of eastern Washington (and, for that matter, the apple farmers of central Washington) who export their produce across the Pacific, having in Congress a Representative who speaks fluent Japanese, has served in multiple assignments with the U.S. State Department in Japan, and retains deep cultural ties in Japan. 

Imagine having a Representative in the U.S. House from our region who possesses a law degree and a thorough understanding of our legal system with three years and ten months experience as Deputy Prosecuting Attorney in Spokane County.

Imagine having as our Representative a woman who understands the broad world from the vantage point of having honorably served with distinction as an apolitical foreign service officer with the U.S. State Department for twenty-four and a half years in posts including terrorist-plagued Pakistan and Afghanistan; a woman who, as a result of that work, lists among her many endorsements include personal endorsements by seven former U.S. Ambassadors and the endorsement of the National Security Leaders for America, a group of 741 National Security Leaders, comprised of over 230 general and flag officers, including 15 retired four-star generals and admirals, 10 cabinet secretaries, 10 service secretaries, and 148 ambassadors.

Imagine a Representative who takes seriously the scientific consensus on issues like the reality and danger of human-caused climate disruption, who believes we should all have the freedom to make medical decisions about our own bodies and to decide whom to love, who believes that being “awake” to the complexities of our nation’s history is essential to avoid repeating our mistakes.

Imagine a Representative who is fully competent with military small arms but agrees with the vast majority of Americans that unfettered, unchecked, unregistered, indiscriminate availability of military grade weaponry is a lethal danger to our children and to society overall.

Imagine a Representative who grew up as the daughter and granddaughter of skilled union laborers, who paid her own way through college and law school (when that was still feasible without massive debt) and who understands the struggles of working families. 

That Representative for eastern Washington is Carmela Conroy. Don’t let this historic opportunity to have real representation in the U.S. Congress pass us by. What can you do to help? Read the details on her website; represent your opinion to friends, relatives, and neighbors; share this post (and any others you like) widely and freely. Donate to Carmela’s campaign. Volunteer. Get the word out. That is the biggest challenge—and word from person-to-person is the most effective. And, then, by all means—

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry