The fact is, if you wanted to take the discussion that far, you’d also have to consider exactly what transportation does for our income levels. In less than the 25 years before Sound Move taxes could be rolled back in the event of a loss, ST2 *would produce more economic benefit than it cost*. For users of the system, it’s almost immediate – a few months of commuting by Link and you save more than your entire contribution to the cost. And every time someone’s money doesn’t go to oil from somewhere else, they’re more likely to spend locally, meaning dollars for local pockets.

So, no, lrt?’s comment isn’t sound. He isn’t interested in cost-benefit analysis. If he was, he’d have gone here a long time ago, instead of trolling with simplistic arguments:

http://future.soundtransit.org/documents/ST2%20Benefit-Cost%20Methods%20Report%202008.pdf

With 1.1M households in the ST taxing area, or about 2M adults, gives a Prop 1 sales tax of $167 per adult, not $69.

I think the issue here is “median” vs. “mean”. Of course, you’re computing the mean, but there’s a large amount of taxes paid by business, some of which may be picked by consumers.

Also, because of a large number of very rich people, and because incomes seldom fall below zero, the mean personal income in most societies is a lot larger than the median. If you have 5 people making $50K a year and a CEO making $30M, the mean income is about $5M but the median is still only $50K. The same goes for taxable expenditure.

It’s a very complex argument to make. If we’re saying that Prop. 1 is a $125 increase in taxes per person, we’re not being accurate. If we’re saying it’s a $69 increase in taxes per person, we’re not being accurate (in 15-25 years from now).

Personally, given the complexity of the argument, I’d rather be inaccurate in 20 years than tomorrow. It also helps that this decision helps my political cause, but you get my point.

As for dissenters being treated harshly… I praise lrt? for putting up with some pretty tough accusations in the context of this thread. He didn’t deserve them.

First of all, the number you calculate — $167 — is even higher than the “No” campaign’s number of $157 ($284 per household / 1.8 people per household). You can see that this type of “common sense” math is just plain wrong, but it’s easily how the “No” campaign manipulates people into believing this stuff.

Obviously I assert that $167 isn’t the real cost. There are two factors that make your math not accurate:

1) Businesses who purchase products from other businesses within this district (and foreign countries, and out-of-state tourists, and people who live outside of the ST district who do the same) contribute to the sales tax but do not have a household here. A ton of local businesses buy locally, of course, again feeding into the taxing mechanism.

2) “Average” is not the same as “typical” — especially in a consumption tax. Wealthy people “consume” and pay sales taxes on a disproportionate amount of money since they have far more disposable income.

Your $167 figure (times 200, or 1/0.05) assumes the “average” adult — not family, just one adult — spends $33.4k on taxable items a year (and rent, groceries, and other necessities aren’t covered by sales taxes). That’s a ton of a disposable cash — about 14 iPhones a month. People in Seattle are not well-off.

If you think the $69 is misleading, well I think we just disagree. I think the numbers can be backed up, as we’ve tried to do dozens of times in this thread — but if you’re not buying it, let’s call the whole thing off.

How about this: 5 cents for ever $10 you spend. That’s what 0.5% sales tax is. You can decide how much disposable income you spyend a month and put your own math in. Me? I’d pay about $78 a year. Whoop-de-doo.

Far more significantly though is the fact that the $69 figure refers to the increase over sound move and assumes that sound move will continue even if ST2 fails, but you yourself have argued that if ST2 fails, that Sound move could very well be dismantled, and even if it is not purely dismantled, the intent is for those taxes to retire once the bonds are paid down.

So if ST2 passes we pay $69 more than we are paying now, but ~$125 less than we would pay if ST2 were to fail (and sound move were to expire).

That additional $56 is coming out of our other pocket.

I still think it’s a good deal and I’ll probably be voting for Prop 1, but I continue to find it frustrating how harshly dissenters are treated on this blog.

There is no way to pump up the tax numbers in the way you are since taxes are not static, they’re dynamic. They are dependent upon actual sales and not a flat fee divided equally amongst people. Sound Transit did an actual check to see exactly how much people spent on average and determined that the average adult in this area spends $13,000 on taxable goods (33% of one’s income) and they pared that down to an actual taxed amount of $69.

http://www.visitseattle.org/resources/pubs/CICreport.pdf shows that in King County alone, taxable sales amounted to over 50 billion dollars. That’s 200 million in tax dollars for 2007 for Sound Transit coming from King County alone. 64% of the population of the district lives in King County. Assuming a rough equity based on population, the overall maximum taxation would be 292,000,000$ for 2007 at .4% taxation, which it was not. This fits in well with the common knowledge that King County taxes slightly higher (but not much higher) than Pierce and Snohomish Counties, giving us the spot on assumption that this was a round taxation and within Sound Transit’s declarations. 200 million is 74% of the tax receipts listed for this year. A maximum of 52 million is Pierce County’s 2007 contribution (data extrapolated from here: http://www.lifeinpiercecounty.com/illegal-signs/DEPT%20OF%20REVENUE%20RESPONSE%20TO%20EXCISE%20TAX%20INQUIRY.pdf). The remainder comes from the small portion of Pierce County in the boundary, easily giving us the above stated $268m.

The main thing to take away from this is that the budget is sound. Taxes function as a dynamic number and depend entirely on how much you spend. However, you need to also take into account things like tourism revenue, extra-regional purchasing (i.e. someone crossing over for purchases at the mall in Bellevue) and the simple fact that some people spend more than others.

$13,000 is close to 1/3rd of the Per Capita income here and is reasonable as a projected amount of taxable spending. Remember that unprepared foods aren’t taxed in any regular way (variable, often 0%) and as such, they do not figure heavily into one’s taxable income. Nor do a majority of utilities or one’s rent.

If you make more than $40k a year and spend 33% of your gross income on taxable items, then you are average and will pay, yes, $69 a year. If you spend less than 33% of your gross income on taxable items, that $69 shrinks. If you spend more, it grows.

$69.

However, what we’re telling you about what Sound Transit will do is different than what’s authorized. Sound Transit is authorized to collect Sound Move taxes until the end of time with or without this vote. It’s just improbable – they’d have no public opinion leg to stand on.

When we vote for ST2, that will be $69 a year more than people are already paying. Yes, in 25 years, when the ST2 tax is rolled back, the Sound Move tax will still be there. But to call the agency dishonest…? We’ve covered this. Sound Transit has covered this. The campaign generally says $69 a year in new taxes. That’s what happens right now if we vote yes.

But you don’t have a leg to stand on. You use bad numbers yourself, for things like the mileage built, and then you complain that Sound Transit isn’t… advertising what you want it to? The fact that you KNOW Sound Move taxes would be extended by ST2 means they’re informing you quite well. You’re the only one who’s actually using bad numbers.

One thing to keep in mind: pretend economists like Jim MacIsaac and John Niles purposefully create their own proprietary methodologies for achieving the largest possible figure.

I started noticing how dishonest and disingenuous both of these men are when I began noticing how they like to pump up eachother’s academic medals.

I learned a long time ago that truly smart people don’t spend a lot of time trying to impress others with their resumes. When you actually read through the piles of theoretical garbage Kemper’s guys crank out on a daily basis, you can see they are more like junk scientist paid assassins, as opposed to scientists seeking truth. Indeed, the right wing think tanks which pay Mr. Niles don’t exactly expect him to come up with unbiased data and conclusions. They pay him to twist the truth as much as possible.

And the local media never calls them out on it. Ever.

It’s probably more than that. The initial Sound Move bonds will start being paid off a little sooner than that, but that money should go to repaying the later bonds (like U Link) sooner.

Of course it’s impossible to ‘know’ when. We’re going to vote on more transit before then anyway.

Could you give us more details on where you came up with your 25 year number? U Link construction will be complete in 2016, and bond repayment would go more quickly after that. I think you made up the 25 year number (actually, I’m an idiot, it’s in the comment you replied to… sorry)

UW to Airport is more than 18.5 miles – even Westlake to Tukwila is longer than 13 miles. But you already know that. Stop lying.

$69 is all we’re voting on. You don’t have an argument, you’re just trying to mislead.

Stop trolling.