POLICY POSITIONS: TOP FIVE PRIORITIES
This section describes my top five policy priorities for the 2021 State Legislative Session.
The state faces five crises:
This is a painful, but poignant and important moment in our history. It is imperative that theses crises are not viewed merely as problems to be fixed. Instead, these crises represent a challenge and opportunity to reconfigure societal operations in multiple realms (e.g., economic system, taxation system, health care, racial equity, housing and homelessness, transportation, energy systems, etc.). In short, these crises demand a fundamental restructuring of the state’s operations, institutions and policies. This will be mandatory in order to simultaneously meet the objectives of public health, economic growth, budgetary balance, racial equity and climate change mitigation. This challenge will require rigorous and creative thinking. Our era demands major structural change, not just incremental reform.
Here are my five priorities for the upcoming Legislative Session:
PRIORITY ONE: RESTRUCTURE SELECT STATE OPERATIONS TO ADDRESS THE PENDING BUDGET CRISIS
The wrong approach to the pending budget crisis in Olympia is mindless, across the board, spending cuts (a non-differentiated austerity approach). Instead, the state needs to consider how various endeavors can be restructured to enable them to operate effectively, be compliant with necessary health protocols and become more efficient. There are many examples:
Naturally, the implementation of programs that restructure existing modes of operation will need to be staggered – it is not feasible to restructure a wide range of endeavors simultaneously. Due to the breadth and complexity of the necessary changes, it is imperative for legislators to be working now to design restructuring plans and timing schedules. In my view, the state should already be in Special Session, with legislators divided into committees to address the myriad issues described above.
PRIORITY TWO: FOCUS SCARCE RESOURCES ON LOW-INCOME INDIVIDUALS
During these crises, it is imperative to provide support for no- and low-income individuals, who are often member of minority and immigrant communities. This will enable them to maintain housing (important during the pandemic) and enable them to remain re-hirable (important for the recovery). Thus I support extended unemployment benefits, targeted rent relief and protection from eviction (with safeguards for landlords, as noted above), and job retraining efforts. I also support the creation of a state-level Covid-19 Worker Relief Fund to provide assistance to undocumented immigrants.
The key is to focus these programs and resources on the poor. This is exactly the wrong time to be discussing Universal Basic Income (UBI), Universal Rent Relief, etc. It makes no sense to send paychecks to individuals who are employed, have healthcare, and are able to pay their rent/mortgage, at a time when available financial resources are scarce.
PRIORITY THREE: TAX REFORM
It is highly concerning that Washington State has the most regressive tax structure of any state in the country. Our 20% lowest-income citizens pay nearly six times the percentage of their income in taxes as our 1% highest-income citizens. The reason for this, of course, is that unlike the overwhelming majority of states, Washington does not have an income tax or a capital gains tax, which requires the state to overly rely on the regressive sales tax. This situation has been well-chronicled for years, and yet this challenge has not been addressed. Now, at just the time when progressive revenue is needed to address the budget crisis, it is not available.
It is essential that the state institute a new form of progressive taxation. I am somewhat flexible on which specific tax is instituted, and there are a number of options (income tax, capital gains tax, wealth tax, estate tax, inheritance tax, financial transaction tax, etc.). These have different strengths and weaknesses (e.g., a capital gains tax is problematic during a pandemic/recession crisis, as there will be a paucity of capital gains to tax). But again, the critical thing is to identify and implement a new progressive tax. A new progressive source of revenue will accomplish two things: it will provide much needed revenue to address the budget crisis (rather than addressing it primarily via an austerity approach), and it will redress the glaring regressivity problem.
I will also note that the state’s corporate tax (the B&O tax) is also regressive, as it taxes sales instead of profits, thereby penalizing startup businesses. And it is filled with an ever-increasing number of tax exemptions. This issue also needs to be addressed.
PRIORITY FOUR: ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE
The nation is learning the hard way about the catastrophic consequences of denying science -- the Covid-19 crisis has been far more severe than necessary due to an insufficient and delayed response, in part due to the denial of scientific reality. Climate change will be the next catastrophic reality attributable in part to scientific denial unless we acknowledge the magnitude of the threat. When 97% of the world’s climate scientists agree that the planet is hotter than it has been in a million years, that this warming is caused by human activity (most notably, the burning of fossil fuels), and that this represents an existential threat to humanity, it is time to act aggressively to address the challenge.
There is a dilemma inherent to dealing with climate change in the 2021 Legislative Session. On the one hand, it is critical to address climate change – this is a time-sensitive emergency. On the other hand, the focus of the session will be elsewhere ( the pandemic, the recession, the budget crisis, etc.). In light of this reality, it is important to utilize the following principle: introduce climate change bills that are high impact and low cost (and there are a number of examples). I suggest seeking passage of the following five bills:
All of these bills are high impact and relatively low-cost or no-cost to implement. The exception is the ban on the sale of new internal combustion vehicles which will be expensive to implement – but its expenses can be deferred. Versions of each of these proposals have already been introduced in Olympia.
PRIORITY FIVE: ADDRESS RACIAL EQUITY
It is imperative to see the George Floyd protests as a legitimate, important and urgent demand to address the systematic racial injustices that have always existed in our society. This is a critical opportunity to be embraced rather than a temporary problem to be fixed.
In order to meaningfully address this challenge, it is essential to understand that it must be conceived of in broad terms. One school of thought calls for reducing and restructuring police forces (e.g., banning choke holds and other procedures, more crisis intervention training, ensuring that badge numbers are visible, adopting community policing models, hiring more officers from the communities they serve, removing the police from public schools, dividing incidents into those that should be responded to by the police and those that should be handled via other means, etc.). I support these types of changes, but the scope of these reforms is too narrow. A second school of thought calls for expanded reforms to deal with the entire criminal justice system – to include eliminating racially-biased laws, the use of diversion programs, the banning of bail, prison reform, rehabilitation programs, re-entry programs, felony voting rights, etc. Again, I support these types of changes, but again, the scope is too narrow. A third school of thought (well-articulated by Michelle Alexander, Charles Blow and others) argues that to address the problems of police violence against Black Americans (and other minority communities), it is essential to begin to redress the underlying inequities at the heart of America’s political-economic system. I agree with this wholeheartedly. The median household income for White families is nearly 75% higher than that of Black families nationwide. In Seattle Public Schools (a district with amongst the largest achievement gaps in the country), the percentage of eighth graders deemed proficient in math in the 2017 Smarter Balanced Assessment was 30% for Black students and 74% for White students. Black students are ten times more likely to qualify for free and reduced price lunches than White students. And students are, of course, defacto segregated into neighborhood schools with huge socioeconomic differences.
It is essential to implement policies that address these discrepancies. I support the institution of a special tier of public school, which I refer to as Community Investment Schools. These schools would obtain significant extra per-pupil spending than standard public schools. They would be characterized by a significant compensation differential (say, a 20% premium) for the teachers and administrators that work in them. Class sizes would be lower than in standard public schools. A school would qualify to become a Community Investment School based on criteria such as a high percentage of students on free and reduced lunch, low standardized test scores, etc. The concept is intended to emphasize that “low performing schools” are most often attributable to the tremendous socio-economic challenges in the communities they serve. Thus, when society allows these socio-economic gaps to become too large, it triggers an inflow of investment into the school to ensure that students aren’t overly negatively impacted by these socio-economic differentials.
I also support two years of free community college on a means-tested basis. In addition, it is important to maintain a state minimum wage that is livable, to move toward a universal health care coverage system, to promote affordable housing, expand transit, maintain a robust social safety net, promote minority hiring and promotion, etc. Until the underlying profound inequities that exist between the races are addressed, it will be impossible to address the injustices that continually emerge in policing and other institutions.
The state faces five crises:
- Public Health -- The Pandemic.
- Economic – The Recession.
- Budgetary -- The state faces a huge budget deficit. There will be a large decline in state revenues (estimated at more than $8 billion over four years) due to a decrease in tax revenue attributable to the recession. It also will see a number of expense categories increase (e.g., public health, unemployment benefits, etc.) due to the pandemic. The combination of these factors will create a budgetary crisis in Olympia that exceeds that of the 2007--2009 Great Recession.
- Racial Justice – The country is justifiably outraged over the ongoing unwarranted police killings of Black Americans, leading to massive national (and international) protests. Appropriately, this is bringing into question the entire national legacy of slavery and racially-biased institutions and policies in America.
- Climate Change – This crisis is not disappearing and indeed needs to be addressed urgently. Despite other pressing policy demands, climate change needs to remain a top priority in the 2021 Legislative Session.
This is a painful, but poignant and important moment in our history. It is imperative that theses crises are not viewed merely as problems to be fixed. Instead, these crises represent a challenge and opportunity to reconfigure societal operations in multiple realms (e.g., economic system, taxation system, health care, racial equity, housing and homelessness, transportation, energy systems, etc.). In short, these crises demand a fundamental restructuring of the state’s operations, institutions and policies. This will be mandatory in order to simultaneously meet the objectives of public health, economic growth, budgetary balance, racial equity and climate change mitigation. This challenge will require rigorous and creative thinking. Our era demands major structural change, not just incremental reform.
Here are my five priorities for the upcoming Legislative Session:
PRIORITY ONE: RESTRUCTURE SELECT STATE OPERATIONS TO ADDRESS THE PENDING BUDGET CRISIS
The wrong approach to the pending budget crisis in Olympia is mindless, across the board, spending cuts (a non-differentiated austerity approach). Instead, the state needs to consider how various endeavors can be restructured to enable them to operate effectively, be compliant with necessary health protocols and become more efficient. There are many examples:
- Public Health: Obviously, the state needs to significantly increase its investment in testing, contact tracing and quarantine (and it is in the process of doing so). Success in these areas will undergird progress in dealing with the pandemic as well as the economic recovery.
- K-12: It may be possible to utilize a blended model that includes a part-time on-site and part-time online approach. This would decrease population densities at schools (good for dealing with the pandemic) and lower busing costs, amongst other impacts. It is critical to address key issues of equity – internet access (I support having the internet operated as a public utility), access to devices, technical support, and support for special education, ELL students and low-income and minority students. New educational models must not exacerbate existing educational inequities.
- Universities: Universities face a combination of major challenges – lower enrollment levels, the use of fewer campus services from students (e.g., dormitory rooms, meal plans and foodservice operations, gymnasium, etc.) from students who are enrolled, etc. It is imperative to maintain the 2019 Washington College Grant (guaranteeing financial aid to those in need). However, there are ways our colleges and universities can lower costs. Like K-12, a blended model of education is possible. This will require fewer classrooms, which would enable temporary closure of some buildings, leading to lower heating, maintenance and security costs. The same is true for dormitory, foodservice and recreational facilities. There may also be some opportunity for limited curriculum streamlining. In addition, online course offerings may be offered to a broader set of learners (including non-university participants), to create economies of scale and allow more revenue generation.
- Health Care: The pandemic is revealing additional problems with an employer-based health care system -- economic downturns lead to the loss of health care coverage. I support moving the state toward a single-payer health care system – to make coverage universal, to generate better health care outcomes and to lower administrative and other costs.
- Mental Health: The state is transitioning from a centralized model of health care delivery (based on Eastern and Western State Hospitals) to a community-based mental health model. This is a much-needed transition, especially during a health crisis and economic recession, when mental health problems are exacerbated. It may be possible to accelerate this transition – and in the process begin to dramatically downsize the central facilities (or perhaps even close one of them).
- Housing: It is imperative to implement programs that enable individuals to stay in their homes – including rent relief and temporary protection from eviction. This is good for public health and economic reasons, in addition to being the ethical thing to do. It is also important that these programs are targeted only at those in need (see Policy Priority Two below), and it is also important that landlords are treated fairly. For landlords who face economic consequences from these policies, I support a two-tiered approach. Landlords that are in a precarious financial situation themselves would receive immediate financial recompense from the state; landlords in a sound financial situation would receive an obligation for future compensation from the state. In both cases, landlords would be made whole.
- Homelessness: It is critical to manage the scale of the homelessness challenge during the pandemic – for both public health and economic reasons. It may be possible to deploy unused hotel capacity to address homelessness. It may also be possible to create larger, dedicated encampments (e.g., Harbor Island or other locations) that provide a more extensive range of public health and job training services. I also favor other existing models, including the use of Navigation Teams to link homeless individuals with services, as well as Microhousing, to serve as an interim step from homelessness to stable housing.
- Employment: The federal assistance programs during the pandemic have thus far been primarily “disaster relief” programs – largely devoted to helping individuals and smaller businesses stay solvent during the crisis. They have not been stereotypical Keynesian jobs programs. Eventually, as the pandemic wanes but the economic downturn endures, it will be important to implement programs that provide jobs for the unemployed. It may be possible, for example, to accelerate Sound Transit – building the same system in fewer years and thereby bringing forward job opportunities.
Naturally, the implementation of programs that restructure existing modes of operation will need to be staggered – it is not feasible to restructure a wide range of endeavors simultaneously. Due to the breadth and complexity of the necessary changes, it is imperative for legislators to be working now to design restructuring plans and timing schedules. In my view, the state should already be in Special Session, with legislators divided into committees to address the myriad issues described above.
PRIORITY TWO: FOCUS SCARCE RESOURCES ON LOW-INCOME INDIVIDUALS
During these crises, it is imperative to provide support for no- and low-income individuals, who are often member of minority and immigrant communities. This will enable them to maintain housing (important during the pandemic) and enable them to remain re-hirable (important for the recovery). Thus I support extended unemployment benefits, targeted rent relief and protection from eviction (with safeguards for landlords, as noted above), and job retraining efforts. I also support the creation of a state-level Covid-19 Worker Relief Fund to provide assistance to undocumented immigrants.
The key is to focus these programs and resources on the poor. This is exactly the wrong time to be discussing Universal Basic Income (UBI), Universal Rent Relief, etc. It makes no sense to send paychecks to individuals who are employed, have healthcare, and are able to pay their rent/mortgage, at a time when available financial resources are scarce.
PRIORITY THREE: TAX REFORM
It is highly concerning that Washington State has the most regressive tax structure of any state in the country. Our 20% lowest-income citizens pay nearly six times the percentage of their income in taxes as our 1% highest-income citizens. The reason for this, of course, is that unlike the overwhelming majority of states, Washington does not have an income tax or a capital gains tax, which requires the state to overly rely on the regressive sales tax. This situation has been well-chronicled for years, and yet this challenge has not been addressed. Now, at just the time when progressive revenue is needed to address the budget crisis, it is not available.
It is essential that the state institute a new form of progressive taxation. I am somewhat flexible on which specific tax is instituted, and there are a number of options (income tax, capital gains tax, wealth tax, estate tax, inheritance tax, financial transaction tax, etc.). These have different strengths and weaknesses (e.g., a capital gains tax is problematic during a pandemic/recession crisis, as there will be a paucity of capital gains to tax). But again, the critical thing is to identify and implement a new progressive tax. A new progressive source of revenue will accomplish two things: it will provide much needed revenue to address the budget crisis (rather than addressing it primarily via an austerity approach), and it will redress the glaring regressivity problem.
I will also note that the state’s corporate tax (the B&O tax) is also regressive, as it taxes sales instead of profits, thereby penalizing startup businesses. And it is filled with an ever-increasing number of tax exemptions. This issue also needs to be addressed.
PRIORITY FOUR: ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE
The nation is learning the hard way about the catastrophic consequences of denying science -- the Covid-19 crisis has been far more severe than necessary due to an insufficient and delayed response, in part due to the denial of scientific reality. Climate change will be the next catastrophic reality attributable in part to scientific denial unless we acknowledge the magnitude of the threat. When 97% of the world’s climate scientists agree that the planet is hotter than it has been in a million years, that this warming is caused by human activity (most notably, the burning of fossil fuels), and that this represents an existential threat to humanity, it is time to act aggressively to address the challenge.
There is a dilemma inherent to dealing with climate change in the 2021 Legislative Session. On the one hand, it is critical to address climate change – this is a time-sensitive emergency. On the other hand, the focus of the session will be elsewhere ( the pandemic, the recession, the budget crisis, etc.). In light of this reality, it is important to utilize the following principle: introduce climate change bills that are high impact and low cost (and there are a number of examples). I suggest seeking passage of the following five bills:
- Low Carbon Fuel Standard (calling for the state’s fuels to be made with lower carbon content) – this should have been passed last year).
- Heal Act (Healthy Environment for All) -- calling for protections for lower income and minority communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate change.
- Banning of the sale of new Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles Starting in 2030 (or some such future year).
- Mandatory science-based, climate change curriculum in K-12 schools statewide. (A program of this nature was just effected in New Jersey.) One of the state’s highest educational priorities must be to educate the state’s youth on the science of climate change. I work as a teacher, and have been struck by the lack of systematic teaching on climate change in our schools.
- Declaring a Climate Emergency in Washington State.
All of these bills are high impact and relatively low-cost or no-cost to implement. The exception is the ban on the sale of new internal combustion vehicles which will be expensive to implement – but its expenses can be deferred. Versions of each of these proposals have already been introduced in Olympia.
PRIORITY FIVE: ADDRESS RACIAL EQUITY
It is imperative to see the George Floyd protests as a legitimate, important and urgent demand to address the systematic racial injustices that have always existed in our society. This is a critical opportunity to be embraced rather than a temporary problem to be fixed.
In order to meaningfully address this challenge, it is essential to understand that it must be conceived of in broad terms. One school of thought calls for reducing and restructuring police forces (e.g., banning choke holds and other procedures, more crisis intervention training, ensuring that badge numbers are visible, adopting community policing models, hiring more officers from the communities they serve, removing the police from public schools, dividing incidents into those that should be responded to by the police and those that should be handled via other means, etc.). I support these types of changes, but the scope of these reforms is too narrow. A second school of thought calls for expanded reforms to deal with the entire criminal justice system – to include eliminating racially-biased laws, the use of diversion programs, the banning of bail, prison reform, rehabilitation programs, re-entry programs, felony voting rights, etc. Again, I support these types of changes, but again, the scope is too narrow. A third school of thought (well-articulated by Michelle Alexander, Charles Blow and others) argues that to address the problems of police violence against Black Americans (and other minority communities), it is essential to begin to redress the underlying inequities at the heart of America’s political-economic system. I agree with this wholeheartedly. The median household income for White families is nearly 75% higher than that of Black families nationwide. In Seattle Public Schools (a district with amongst the largest achievement gaps in the country), the percentage of eighth graders deemed proficient in math in the 2017 Smarter Balanced Assessment was 30% for Black students and 74% for White students. Black students are ten times more likely to qualify for free and reduced price lunches than White students. And students are, of course, defacto segregated into neighborhood schools with huge socioeconomic differences.
It is essential to implement policies that address these discrepancies. I support the institution of a special tier of public school, which I refer to as Community Investment Schools. These schools would obtain significant extra per-pupil spending than standard public schools. They would be characterized by a significant compensation differential (say, a 20% premium) for the teachers and administrators that work in them. Class sizes would be lower than in standard public schools. A school would qualify to become a Community Investment School based on criteria such as a high percentage of students on free and reduced lunch, low standardized test scores, etc. The concept is intended to emphasize that “low performing schools” are most often attributable to the tremendous socio-economic challenges in the communities they serve. Thus, when society allows these socio-economic gaps to become too large, it triggers an inflow of investment into the school to ensure that students aren’t overly negatively impacted by these socio-economic differentials.
I also support two years of free community college on a means-tested basis. In addition, it is important to maintain a state minimum wage that is livable, to move toward a universal health care coverage system, to promote affordable housing, expand transit, maintain a robust social safety net, promote minority hiring and promotion, etc. Until the underlying profound inequities that exist between the races are addressed, it will be impossible to address the injustices that continually emerge in policing and other institutions.