Posted Tue, Mar 6, 11:21 p.m.

Zachariah - You'd be surprised to see how much overhead Seattle Community Colleges have in comparison to other community college systems. You should take a look into that, because it's always interesting to see what gets put on the chopping block when it's crunch time. The administrators' jobs aren't in ...

Posted Tue, Mar 6, 11:13 p.m.

Mr. Trahant outlines a lose-lose proposition, except for the (rare) rich and sick person, because: 1) People will tend to seek the cheapest insurance possible, either because they underestimate their need for broad coverage, or they can't afford it. So when catastrophe strikes, they'll be off to the emergency room ...

Posted Wed, Feb 8, 9:20 a.m.

Karen Handel's future with Komen is pretty clear: she doesn't have one. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/us/after-outcry-a-top-official-resigns-at-komen-cancer-charity.html

Posted Tue, Jan 24, 12:01 p.m.

Missing a word, typing too fast, 4th paragraph should have said: "...let's just cut tuition *assistance* for the middle class..."

Posted Tue, Jan 24, 11:29 a.m.

I love Brewster's conservative editorializing tacked on to the end of what is presented at the outset as an interview of a university president. It's so (not) subtle: "Allow in more out-of-state students, who pay much higher tuition (currently about 80 percent of undergraduates are from Washington state, higher than ...

Posted Tue, Jul 26, 12:25 p.m.

Street mimes make serious $$. They're raising a secret army, very hush-hush.

Posted Tue, Jul 26, 11:25 a.m.

Well, glad to see Crosscut has conclusively established they are firmly in the Seattle Times camp on paid sick days, with this, the 3rd (or is it 4th?) article written by someone against the current proposal. How many times are you planning to publish the same POV before you provide ...

Posted Wed, Jul 20, 3:04 p.m.

You know Ron, you're right. Restaurants shouldn't have to be responsible for serving clean food by keeping sick workers at home - customers will just have to risk catching the flu with their fries. And hot dog makers shouldn't be held accountable for selling contaminated meat either - kids who ...

Posted Thu, Jul 7, 5 p.m.

Absent a coherent national industrial/economic policy (and no, even more tax breaks for mega-multi-national corporations do not count as coherent policy), state and local taxpayers are going to get played again and again as Boeing squeezes every drop it can from the system. While we're turning away students from our ...

Posted Wed, Jun 29, 4:17 p.m.

First, getting fired when you are sick is in fact a civil rights issue - it's discrimination against someone with a temporary disability. Second, I agree with your statement: "the need for sick days for an individual doesn’t increase — or decrease — with the size of the company." Unfortunately, ...

Posted Wed, Jun 29, 12:27 p.m.

@Ronald: As the editor of Crosscut, you ran a column opposing paid sick days ran more than a week ago, with no response to it posted for a week. Now, with one in favor of paid sick days published just yesterday, another opposing it is published right on its heels. ...

Posted Tue, Jun 21, 1:45 p.m.

Ckbart, if employees dont use paid sick days, then no expense is incurred. The days don't get cashed out if they're not used, simple as that.

Posted Tue, Jun 21, midnight

Ckbart, that's not math, that's just fearmongering. The average worker who gets paid sick days takes just 3 days a year. In food service, where people swap shifts, it's about 2 days a year (see the report referenced by dbgill above). So 145 employees x 2 days @ 6 hrs ...

Posted Mon, Jun 20, 2:37 p.m.

This author clearly hasn't done her homework. Every discussion of the proposed ordinance so far has included provisions for employees to swap shifts. So her concern there is totally moot. As for the cost, where's the backup for the absurdly high cost figure? It's important to show your work if ...

Posted Thu, May 26, 8:28 a.m.

@dbreneman: Because the business lobbyists want costs to be even lower. Preferably zero. And they'll cite whatever stats or opinions they can to make their case, even though: - A state-by-state comparison performed by the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services found employers’ costs for coverage in WA are ...

Posted Wed, May 18, 2:32 p.m.

The push for paid sick days is coming from Seattle residents - business owners, people in communities of faith, food service workers, people working for women's health/safety, school nurses, and others who support the idea. The city council is taking notice, because those are their constituents. In a democracy, where ...

Posted Fri, Jan 14, 8:34 a.m.

It's called "full disclosure" Wilbur, and it's about having a more complete understanding of who the author is, what their biases are, and - most importantly - who signs their paychecks.

Posted Thu, Jan 13, 11:26 a.m.

What you won't see is the relationship between WashACE and the Association of Washington Business (where Davis was once VP of Communications), nor the echo chamber created in concert with other right-leaning orgs, like the Washington Policy Center, which features Davis' and others' work from WashACE, much like WashACE features ...

Posted Mon, Jan 3, 1:47 p.m.

When gas hits $5...then $8...then $10/gallon over the next 10-15 years, we won't need so much gravel for all those freeways. In the meantime, if it costs more to mine gravel from somewhere else, then so be it - that is a more accurate reflection of the true economic and ...

Posted Tue, Oct 26, 9:48 a.m.

Beaky: Okay, you've proven you can blow hot air. But can you lift the balloon? Where is $2 billion a year (that's the amount I-1098 will dedicate to education and health care) of "waste" and "lavish salaries"? What or who - specifically - should be cut from the budget, and ...

Posted Fri, Oct 8, 10:18 p.m.

Andy, how about we put out a call for a some willing volunteers to dress up as the combatants and have a little match? Yes, in the bike box of course, and live blogged, naturally. And we'll need FakeKnute, FakeAnthony, and FakeHubert twitter feeds (along with FakeTedVanDyk) so they can ...

Posted Fri, Oct 8, 7:59 p.m.

Ted Van Dyke is *so* jealous of all the attention Hubert G. Locke is getting right now. Can anyone say, "Cage match?!" Canes as bludgeoning instruments both allowed and encouraged, of course.

Posted Fri, Sep 24, 3:46 p.m.

A quick addition to sjenner's post about AGI: AGI also accounts for business expenses and investments (cost of goods sold, labor costs, vehicle expenses, etc.) via Schedule C and/or Schedule E, depending on the business type. Net business income - or loss - shows up on either line 12 or ...

Posted Fri, Sep 24, 8:53 a.m.

Ed, thanks for talking about this from such a personal perspective. Your stories, and those of others you've shared, make it clear why I-1098 is a good first step toward making our state a better place to live.

Posted Fri, Sep 24, 8:46 a.m.

So many facts wrong, so many claims unsupported. Where to begin? 1) I-1098 increases the B&O; tax small business tax credit to $4800, not $400 as you state. That means that under I-1098, 81% of all businesses will not pay B&O; tax, and another 12% will see their taxes reduced. ...

Posted Fri, Sep 10, 9:41 a.m.

This article is more like ad space purchased by the Defeat 1098 campaign than anything resembling journalism. But I've got to hand it to you Dan, you've done a very nice job giving room for the anti-1098 talking points here. In the first page alone, you've got 10 paragraphs written ...

Posted Mon, Mar 22, 10:27 a.m.

"But what makes a good teacher? There have been many quests for the one essential trait, and they have all come up empty-handed. Among the factors that do not predict whether a teacher will succeed: a graduate-school degree, a high score on the SAT, an extroverted personality, politeness, confidence, warmth, ...

Posted Sat, Feb 13, 2:41 p.m.

Gotta be careful with the old "you're a hypocrit(e)" attack when it comes to taxes, lest you be drawn into a total tangent. It's a common defense used by conservatives when cornered. Just remember that you can't beat them with logic -- you have to trump them with a higher ...