Posted Thu, Apr 8, 5:50 p.m.

I was just pointing out, with what I hoped would come across as genial humor, that the article said that working through all McGinn's proposals would require six months or more of engineering and supplemental EIS. Your list of questions are quite a tall order for an online news reporter; ...

Posted Wed, Apr 7, 7:33 p.m.

Yikes! If all that were known, there wouldn't be any need for several hundred pages and several hundred thousand dollars of EIS.

Posted Wed, Apr 7, 5:36 p.m.

OK, Pythagoras, thanks for your message. AFAIK, the plan is for the 520 HOV lanes to be shared only as long as traffic in those lanes flows freely. Then they would become dedicated bus lanes. Isn't that right? And if so, doesn't that provide everything a transit advocate could want? ...

Posted Wed, Apr 7, 4:49 p.m.

Pythagoras, you need to triangulate your vision again. If you're in downtown Bellevue and need to attend a meeting in downtown Seattle, you're going to take the approved and funded direct light rail line over the I-90 bridge. Not to pick on you too much, but just to illustrate that ...

Posted Wed, Apr 7, 10:42 a.m.

I must say, Ted, that to repeat your error and boast of its long tenure does not resolve it. Cascade taxes and VAT are different, and in some quick research, you seem to be the only authority who confuses them. In your bicycle example, you described a cascade tax, which ...

Posted Tue, Apr 6, 1:27 p.m.

I should add, Ted, that you have that very peculiar form of American exceptionalism that absolutely prohibits you from learning from the experience of other countries. If VAT is so "dreadful," why has it become so widely used? Why is it "under study in many other places"? It was quite ...

Posted Tue, Apr 6, 1:17 p.m.

Holy cow, Ted, your ignorance of how a VAT works is breathtaking! It is NOT a "cascade tax" - see the Wikipedia article about it: "Value added tax (VAT) avoids the cascade effect of sales tax by taxing only the value added at each stage of production." Your example of ...

Posted Thu, Apr 1, 11 a.m.

The one thing that cities really need to learn is how to create quality housing that people can afford. I'm doing some work in downtown Burien, where only 6 of 124 condos in their new smart-growth, TOD Town Square project have sold. People who work at the airport, or work ...

Posted Tue, Mar 23, 2:04 p.m.

Courts do funny things, but are generally extremely hesitant to overturn the expressed will of a legislative body. Can you imagine the outrage if The Supremes scotched health insurance reform by a 5-4 party line vote, like the 2000 election? I haven't heard any credible analysis yet that projects much ...

Posted Wed, Mar 10, 7:32 p.m.

First, let's leave the House out of it, shall we? Long ago, the House Dems passed health care reform with a public option, cap and trade, and financial institution reform. But they believe in majority rule and one-man-one-vote over on that side of the Capitol. By definition, the atmosphere in ...

Posted Wed, Mar 10, 2:17 p.m.

At last, Ted has laid the groundwork for agreement! Left, right, bipartisan, lunatic libertarian or raving Communist - I bet we can all agree with his statement that Harry Reid is a "destructive bumbler"! But for the rest of his arguments, he might as well be schooling us on the ...

Posted Mon, Mar 1, 1:49 p.m.

Harris & afreeman, thanks for your notes on HSA's. I'll do some additional research when I have time. But on first glance, it doesn't seem to address universal coverage without direct subsidy and doesn't seem to do much about administrative costs. Since catastrophic insurance is still required, the insurance companies ...

Posted Sat, Feb 27, 8:19 p.m.

afreeman, you said other states have tried MSA's? What is their experience? What are their drawbacks? Has any other nation used them in an important way?

Posted Sat, Feb 27, 4:10 p.m.

Still, Richard, it's nice sometimes when people are honest about motivations and intentions. SouthHill and millions like him believe health care is no problem, or a private problem. So be it. I don't think they're the majority in this country, although they may be a majority in the Republican/Tea Party. ...

Posted Fri, Feb 26, 7:24 p.m.

afreeman, I'm still not getting it. You set up an MSA that's funded (by whom?) for, say, $10K per year. Your first accident or serious illness will exhaust it. Then who pays? So I guess you need catastrophic insurance. How does that change the cost curve? How does someone w/ ...

Posted Fri, Feb 26, 5:37 p.m.

Good, vanderleun! Let it all out! Your opinion is exactly what people suspect about Republicans. Honesty is good for the soul! But, to appeal to crass self-interest...what do you think of the argument that our current health care system costs more than anyplace else, imposes such large burdens on employers ...

Posted Fri, Feb 26, 5:27 p.m.

SouthHillConservative, I asked you straight up for an answer without insult or posturing, and you sent me a joke. The most authoritative estimates for illegal immigrants are 11 to 12 million, although at least one estimate goes to 20 million. I couldn't find 31 million. Some of the 12 million ...

Posted Fri, Feb 26, 4:48 p.m.

vanderleun, your writing is certainly colorful, but completely devoid of substance. For those who object to questioning the compassion of conservatives, you certainly make their case. Real people are declaring medical bankruptcy. Real people are dying from lack of preventive care and early treatment. I'm sure you enjoyed writing it, ...

Posted Fri, Feb 26, 1:57 p.m.

Taupe and SouthHillConservative, what is your plan or the Republican plan to insure the 45 million uninsured?

Posted Fri, Feb 26, 11:58 a.m.

I couldn't watch the whole thing either. But it seems crystal clear that whatever concessions are made to the R's, they will not support the bill in any form. Their talking points were repeated over and over: "step by step," "government run plan," "start over," "blank sheet of paper." Adding ...

Posted Thu, Feb 25, 11:40 a.m.

I think what Kent is looking for is statements that are measurable and/or falsifiable. While those kind of goals may not encompass all of human experience, a goal that is neither measurable or falsifiable should make the author think twice about whether it is even worth writing down. If you ...

Posted Thu, Feb 25, 10:07 a.m.

Fly, of course the countries of Europe have histories different from each other and from the United States, but we've ended up in about the same place - multi-party democracies, three branches of government (or four if you count the permanent bureaucracy), mixed economies with free-market bases overlaid by regulation, ...

Posted Wed, Feb 24, 1:41 p.m.

Harris, your examples above demonstrate that people jump on a train that's leaving the station, not one that's going nowhere. If the D's can demonstrate that they have the ability and stones to move legislation, the R's will hop on board; otherwise they will be seen as irrelevant and powerless. ...

Posted Tue, Dec 22, 3:58 p.m.

What a thoroughly shoddy analysis! The numbers Prof. Lazowska seems to be referencing can be found here: http://leap.leg.wa.gov/leap/budget/lbns/2009he.pdf. Go to page 281. What we see there is original 2007-09 General Fund expenditure authority of $792 million. We see $214 million of "cuts" but this is from the "2009-11 Maintenance Level" ...

Posted Thu, Sep 24, 9:58 a.m.

Aww, thanks Harris. This thread got me thinking about how a modern organization makes decisions. As I already wrote, they don't have two boards of directors. The political theory of the Founding Fathers was that no action is better than hasty action (also, of course, that the country is a ...

Posted Wed, Sep 23, 2:58 p.m.

Couple of things I want to add: first, perhaps it would have been better to divide health care reform into separate bills from the start. One dealing with insurance practices, one with expanded coverage, one setting up the insurance exchanges, and so forth. And the apparent desire for every committee ...

Posted Wed, Sep 23, 2:09 p.m.

Here are some facts on center-city densities and median home price, from Wikipedia and American Fact Finder (2005-2007 data): Seattle: 7,191/sq mi, $439,500 SF: 17,323/sq mi, $789,400 Chicago: 12,649/sq mi, $270,700 LA: 8,205/sq mi, $594,900 Boston: 12,561/sq mi, $426,100 I don't see, from these data points, any strong argument that ...

Posted Wed, Sep 23, 1:30 p.m.

Today's Republican Party has 0 interest in health care reform. Didn't do a thing about it from 1994 when they controlled Congress, and especially since 2000 when they were in control of House, Senate, and Presidency. Even those non-ideological R senators who might have some interest in working on health ...

Posted Wed, Sep 23, 9:29 a.m.

Weren't "we" anxious about debt when the Bush tax cuts were approved? When the Iraq war was being debated? When the "defense" budget topped $650 billion, as it will in 2009? Why is "pay as you go" now the principle that might kill a SELF-FUNDED public health care plan? I ...

Posted Wed, Sep 23, 9:05 a.m.

There is such an excess of demand for close-in housing, due to the concentration of jobs in the center city and the difficult transportation linkages to get there (geographic and man-made), that up-zoning the city to duplex zoning would undoubtedly cause the increase in land value that I suggested. "In ...

Posted Wed, Sep 23, 8:19 a.m.

Not only does the Senate magnify the power of minorities to obstruct decision-making, the filibuster multiplies it. The bicameral legislature is a stupid, stupid idea, probably the most obsolete idea of the Founding Fathers. What other organization runs with two boards of directors? But since we are unlikely to get ...

Posted Mon, Sep 21, 8:57 p.m.

mhays, your assumptions about pricing behavior come from Econ 101. Didn't you read the footnotes to that supply and demand chapter? Many buyers and sellers, perfect information, (and particularly) undifferentiated fungible commodity goods, among others. These conditions do not obtain in the real estate market, which operates differently from commodity ...

Posted Mon, Sep 21, 3 p.m.

Backyard cottages will make housing more affordable? Really? Let me tell you what will happen. Every house with a lot of sufficient size will be marketed as a house + a building lot, with a corresponding increase in price. You can write the real estate flyers now: "Add a backyard ...