Transit Takebacks

Seriously, this MVET shit is fucking pissing me off.

For those of you who either aren't local to the Puget Sound area, or are but somehow haven't heard about this: in November, the regional transit authority, Sound Transit, ran a huge measure ($54 billion) known as ST3 on the ballot to expand the light rail system (and some other things), funded by increases in the sales tax, property tax, and Motor Vehicle Exise Tax (MVET), commonly know as "car tabs".

The package passed by a solid margin, and everything looked great.  But then the MVET bills started coming in in February, and people started freaking the fuck out.

See, nominally, all the package did was bump the existing MVET (for Sound Transit) from 0.3% of your car's value to 1.1%.  The so-called problem is that the way the value is determined is essentially a linear depreciation from 85% of the MSRP, rather than the inverse-exponential type curve of "true" depreciation (if you go by KBB, for example).

This resulted in people with newer cars (the crossing point between this system and a KBB value is around 10 years old) being taxed for a higher value of their car than it was really worth, which is, like, so fucking unfair and shit.

But here's the thing: people are either fucking idiots or fucking assholes.

First of all, most people didn't know about the valuation system initially.  They just starting crying because their car tabs were way more expensive than the last year.  Well, no shit, that's what happens when a significant percentage of the total increases by almost 4x.  But it was only after they ran shrieking to the DOL that they realized that the tax percentage was on a higher value than it supposedly should be.  And then the fucking meltdown really happened.

But you know what? That goddamn valuation system has been around for the entire fucking life of Sound Transit.  It didn't fucking change at ST3.  And do you know why it was being used?  Because they got it from the goddamn motherfucking Legislature, that's fucking why.

That's right!  Up until 2006, this is the exact same valuation system that was used by the goddamn State of Washington.  Not only that, the enabling legislation for ST3, which came from, y'know, the goddamn Legislature, specifically stated to use this valuation system, not the 2006 one that's closer to "true".

So no, assholes.  Sound Transit didn't fucking lie to you; this is the same damn system they've been using the whole time.  You just weren't fucking paying attention, or even worse, you're cynically using this to peddle your same old bullshit.

And that means that everyone bawling their fucking heads off about this and making a goddamn nuisance of themselves to their legislators doesn't have a motherfucking leg to stand on.

If you didn't vote for ST3 in the first place, this is nothing but a cheap-ass effort to damage a vote you didn't like the result of, based on nothing but lies and bullshit, and you're a goddamn asshole.  And if you did vote for ST3, then either (a) you figured that the taxes were worth it, in which case shut the hell up, or (b) you didn't do your homework ahead of time, in which case shut the hell up.

And can we cut the goddamn fuckmuppetry about "fairness"?  First of all, life isn't fucking fair, as I'm sure I've heard sometime before once or twice in my life.  Second, just because people didn't do their fucking homework or didn't like the result doesn't make it unfair.  I'm pretty sure we all learned that fucking lesson back in kindergarten.  If you don't do the work, you don't get to complain about the result.  And sometimes the group does things you don't like, and you get to suck it the hell up, because we live in a goddamn society and not every fucking person gets their fucking way all the fucking time.

Third, the MVET valuation schedule wasn't ever fucking supposed to be "true"; it was supposed to be a standard, predictable way of assessing a car to level taxes for standard, predictable results, because surprise surprise, things run better with standard, predictable funding sources.  I get that that's a technical argument, but you know what?  I don't give a fuck.  Just because something doesn't meet your goddamn expectations doesn't mean it's not fair.  Just because something isn't "common sense" or in line with your gut doesn't make it unfair, because most of the time, people's "common sense" and guts are worth precisely shit.  Not to mention, if they'd used the newer schedule from the beginning, they just would have raised the tax rate to get the same amount of money!

Fourth, switching to the newer, KBB-like system actually penalizes people with older cars.  That's right!  Remember up above where I said that the "crossover" point was around 10 years?  I actually meant that literally: For cars younger than 10 years, the old system is more expensive.  For cars older than 10 years, the new system is more expensive!  So everyone clamoring to go to the new system is actually arguing to give tax breaks to people with newer, more expensive cars, and levy higher taxes on people who either can't afford newer cars or are doing the responsible thing by continuing to drive older cars.  How exactly is that result "fair"?  Please, I beg you, explain this to me.  It's sure as shit regressive, no question there.

So yeah.  The "fairness" argument here is bullshit on a whole bunch of levels.

Fortunately (for an extremely fucking loose definition of "fortunate"), the latest "solution" (yeah, that's a fucking loose definition, too) is to give people refunds to cover the difference between the two systems.  How much money will that cost Sound Transit?  We don't actually know for sure, because the Legislature didn't bother to do an assessment before passing this through the House!  How goddamn responsible of them.  The best estimate, at any rate, is a hit of $780 million dollars immediately, for a long-term cost of somewhere around $2 billion, due to the need to issue more bonds now, rather than having that cash.

And by the way, don't be deceived by the $54 billion total figure at the top; that's in year-of-expenditure dollars, which accounts for expected inflation.  In other words, money now is way more valuable than money at the end of the 35-year lifespan of the project.  In  other other words, because people are either disingenuous assholes or fucking clueless idiots, Sound Transit loses a non-negligible portion of the funds for ST3.

The Democrats are on board because they're fucking spineless cowards who can't articulate and stand up for a principle to save their goddamn miserable lives, and they're afraid of taking an electoral hit from a selfish, short-sighted, clueless populace that probably would refuse to be educated on this issue even if the Democrats would fucking try, because ERMAHGERHD TERXERS!  And the Republicans are leveraging this because they're vindictive, myopic, amoral, ignorant motherfuckers with their heads up their asses, and they aren't afraid to cynically use this issue to go after Democrats even though the Puget Sound region desperately needs all the transit it can get.  Not to mention, why the fuck do Republicans who don't even live in the Puget Sound area give a damn?  Why in motherfucking hell do we have to get approval from fucking Curtis King, say, to just hold a goddamn vote to see whether or not we want to tax ourselves?

See, here's the thing.  The Seattle area is currently adding roughly 1,000 people a WEEK.  If you assume that half of them have cars, that's 500 cars per week, or 26,000 cars per year.  For a comparison, in 2007, there were 126,000 daily trips on I-5 through SODO.  I suspect that's only increased.  Even if only a fraction of the newcomers actually travel through that corridor, that's still an significant increase in the number of trips.  And the freeway's already at a standstill half the time.

Bottom line: it is not possible to build your way out of congestion, especially in something as geographically limited as Seattle.  Even if you could keep up with new cars, you still have induced demand.  And where the fuck are you going to put all the lanes, exactly?

For a metro area the size of Seattle's, you have to have an effective transit system.  There's just no other way to move people around effectively.  But we Americans are so goddamned attached to our fucking cars, and so goddamned good at living (or forcing people to live, thanks to selfish, destructive, short-sighted land-use policies) stupid-ass places where we absolutely need them, that we cling desperately to the roads we have.  For fuck's sake, the roads package that was passed at the same time didn't have to get voter approval.  Where are all the people bitching about the 12 cent gas tax increase?  (And let's not even get into the shenanigans that stole money from ST3 to pay for making parts of the roads package tax-exempt.)

And no, a transit system can't go everywhere, even if it's well designed (and you can certainly question whether the spine is really the best design for the light rail system, but this sort of half-assed design is what happens when you let fucking city politicians have the biggest say in how your system develops).  For some people, it simply won't be possible to serve them with transit.

But you know what?  THEY STILL BENEFIT FROM THE FUCKING TRANSIT SYSTEM.  Want to drive somewhere?  Gee, it's a whole lot easier when a decent transit system has removed an assload of cars from the road, isn't it?  People get so goddamn wrapped up in the simple, direct effects they can see that they forget to consider the system effects.

So when you have politicians constantly sabotaging our efforts at actually being able to move people around the fucking area, for no other reason than sheer bloody-mindedness, and to the goddamn motherfucking detriment of the goddamn people they're supposed to be serving, half the time with the encouragement of those same goddamn people who apparently like punching themselves in the fucking face, it's hard not to get a little frustrated.

So shut up, pay your goddamn taxes like a member of a goddamn society that solidly voted for them, and let us build the fucking transit system we should have started 40 years ago.

Negligent Sexism

This story has to do with Twitter.

But probably not the way you immediately thought, given the title. 

(Not that Twitter the platform doesn’t have a massive problem with sexism, of course, but that’s really a far more active and aggressive version.  “Negligent” could really only be applicable to the way Twitter the company handles issues on Twitter the platform.  Anyways…)

I’ve noted that journalists have gradually been using Twitter more and more, and I figured that keeping tabs on a few of them would be a good way to see articles I might not otherwise, keep up on breaking news, etc.