Tiempo para poner en las sombras de ojos verdes

Es hora de la verdad con el presupuesto del Estado, y cuenta hasta el último centavo. Pero ¿por qué no empezar a actuar del gobierno como unnegocio? Esa es la pregunta formulada por el representante estatal Andy Billig de Spokane, en este editorial invita a la reflexión. Es tan obvio.Descuentos significa menos dinero que in Cuando un negocio está teniendo un momento difícil, se vuelve a examinar los descuentos queofrece. Pero el Estado ha puesto lagunas del impuesto de sociedadesfuera de los límites. Y eso es sólo una receta para una mala gestión.

President Obama Meets with Participants in the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike

President Obama invited the surviving participants in the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike to honor their fight on behalf of all workers for safe workplace conditions, respect in the workplace, and a better life for themselves and their families. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed while in Memphis trying to support the striking sanitation members, who were working toward forming a union.

See a timeline of the strike.

Working Washington Protests Tax Dodger Weyerhaeuser

It's Tax Day. Maybe you paid your taxes, but you know who didn't have to pay any last year? Weyerhauser, which kept $37 million.

That's why on Thursday we gathered around the Weyerhaeuser shareholders meeting to protest that they've taken our money, but instead of creating jobs for this community, have eliminated 748 jobs since 2005.

Not only did we spread the word about Weyerhaeuser to shareholders as they arrived in Federal Way -- we also asked some questions inside the shareholders meeting about creating a plan to create good jobs.

Federal Way Mirror reports:

"I pay taxes. Why shouldn't Weyerhaeuser?" asked Federal Way resident Omar Rubi. "They should create jobs for the community if they're going to take tax breaks."

Wendy Hall, co-chair of Pierce County Jobs With Justice's organizing committee, hoped Thursday's protest will motivate lawmakers to address corporate tax breaks.

"We're in a budget crunch," Hall said. "The least they can do is pay their taxes."

Pay Your Taxes? These 10 Corporations Did Not

On tax day each year, everybody is supposed to pay their fair share to keep our country running...unless you're the beneficiary of corporate tax cuts and loopholes like hundreds of American corporations. Senator Bernie Sanders recently compiled a list of corporate freeloaders and topping the list are corporations such as Exxon, Bank of America and General Electric. The same Republicans who are spending their days attacking hardworking middle class Americans and blaming them for our fiscal crisis are unwilling to call on corporations to pay their fair share of the tax burden. See the list at MoveOn.org.

Mortgage Brokers Get Tax Break, Everyone Else Gets Hurt

In this time of budget crisis, we need to ask: do mortgage brokers need million dollar breaks? The state tax code contains hundreds of giveaways to special interests that drain taxpayer money just as we’re considering huge tuition hikes and the elimination of health care and other important programs. Since 1997, mortgage brokers have received a B&O tax exemption for money received from trust accounts.

In the last four years, this tax break has cost the public $4.8 million, and it benefits only mortgage brokers.

What’s at stake? How else could we spend $4.8 million?

Ashley Molenda works with some of the most vulnerable members of our community at DESC, an emergency service center in downtown Seattle. Ashley’s program makes one-on-one contact with mentally ill people living on the streets—people in dire need of help—with counseling, housing, and maintaining access to medication and other services. The program saves lives; it also saves money by helping clients remain self-sufficient and avoid hospitalization or needless arrests. “If we don’t reach these people to provide help, nobody else will,” says Ashley. “Without effective treatment, they will just bounce back and forth from emergency rooms, to jail, to the street. It’s a cycle that cuts lives short. It also costs the public more in the long run.”

There should be no sacred cows when it comes to balancing the budget, not for mortgage brokers or anyone else. There is simply too much at stake.

(Also posted to Families for a Fair Economy)

What’s at Stake

Every parent of school-age kids knows a simple fact: the fewer the kids in a classroom, the better. This New York Times story about the trends of growing class sizes states: “Since the 1980s, teachers and many other educators have embraced research finding that smaller classes foster higher achievement.” But the Great Recession has sent states scrambling for money, and stuffed classrooms to the gills. This is bad news for K-12 parents, but it doesn’t get better for families sending a kid to college. With double-digit tuition increases on the horizon, it looks like education is being sacrificed on the alter of an all-cuts budget. Just another example of the middle class getting squeezed.

(Also posted on Families for a Fair Economy)

Nurses Care About Our Communities

Later today in Yakima, nurses, healthcare workers and community advocates will appeal directly to bank officials in Yakima to return the multi-million dollar tax breaks they receive under an outdated tax loophole, while patients and families lose access to healthcare. “More cuts to Basic Health and the Disability Lifeline will mean more people who can’t get the help they need. If state leaders succeed in closing Yakima Valley School, that’s going to cost our community 300 jobs as well as services that we badly need. Tax breaks for banks and big business are money on the table that could be used to help patients. The banks should share in the sacrifice that so many of us are being asked to make,” said Sandra Quick, an RN at Yakima Valley School.

“We’re essentially giving revenue away, but we don’t know where our patients, families or neighbors will go for healthcare,” Sandy continued. “It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not right.”

(Also posted to Families for a Fair Economy.)