DAILY NEWS
No more shutdowns! ● Fixing the fix ● About your taxes…
Monday, February 11, 2019
NO MORE SHUTDOWNS!
► From Politico — Shutdown talks take a turn for the worse — Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) acknowledged on Sunday that negotiations had stalled, and he put the odds of getting a deal at 50-50.
► In today’s Washington Post — Top lawmakers to meet to revive stalled border talks with shutdown days away — Key lawmakers plan to meet Monday afternoon in a late-stage bid to avert a government shutdown, trying to revive talks that derailed over the weekend amid a dispute on immigration enforcement rules.
► From Common Dreams — Gearing up for possibility of another Trump shutdown, airport workers ready mass protests in 80 cities
LOCAL
► In the Seattle Times — Breaking point? King County jails corrections officers worked more than 188,000 hours of overtime last year — Staffing King County’s adult and juvenile jails is a 24-hour-a-day job. The officers who do it say they’re being required to work so much overtime that safety’s at risk. They want more hiring. County administrators say it’s not that simple.
► In the Columbian — Tide rising for Vigor in Vancouver — Here’s the deal, the Vigor representatives said to city officials in late November. They had a contract for about $1 billion with the U.S. Army to build a next-generation landing craft and several other marine projects. They envisioned the manufacturing facility would employ about 130 workers to start and likely ramp to 400 after three years or so. These would be family-wage jobs, both union and nonunion. Could the city help?
THIS WASHINGTON
► In the Spokesman-Review — Legislature looking for ways to fix the ‘McCleary fix’ –There are things about public schools the McCleary fix didn’t fix. Changes it made have school officials facing millions of dollars in unexpected costs that could mean a choice between cutting programs or asking for higher taxes. They’re seeking help from the Legislature, but lawmakers already face a new bill the state must shoulder, some $900 million over the next two years to cover the health insurance and other benefits for school employees throughout Washington who provide what the state considers basic education.
► In the Olympian —‘We’re just asking for fairness.’ Democrats push affordable housing reforms at Legislature — House Democrats on Thursday discussed a set of bills they hope to pass this session that would target the homelessness crisis and high eviction rates.
► From Willamette Week — New study finds raising income taxes on millionaires didn’t hurt Oregon economy — “Seven of the eight states had per capita income growth as least as good as their neighbors after enacting a millionaires’ tax,” the study finds.
TAXES
EDITOR’S NOTE — Don’t be shocked when you do your taxes and find out you’re paying more this year — so corporations and the rich can pay less. Even worse, that tax giveaway — which was supported by Washington’s GOP Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler, Dan Newhouse, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers — and its resulting deficits are being used as an excuse to cut Social Security and Medicare, just as labor warned it would.
► From Labor 411 — Netflix made $845 million in profits and paid $0 in taxes under new GOP tax law — The video streaming service posted its largest-ever U.S. profit in 2018 — $845 million — on which it didn’t pay a dime in federal or state income taxes. In fact, the company reported a $22 million federal tax rebate.
THAT WASHINGTON
► In today’s Washington Post — Trump’s State of the Union address didn’t mention fixing Social Security. That’s a problem. (by Michelle Singletary) — “How could President Trump not mention the words ‘Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid’ in his state of the union speech when he promised over and over again that he would not cut these programs,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a response to Trump’s address. “Could it be because his budget proposed massive cuts to these programs in direct violation of his campaign pledge?”
NATIONAL
► From Reuters — Denver teachers to walk out of classrooms in strike over wages — Several thousand Denver public school teachers were expected to walk off the job on Monday in the first strike in Colorado’s largest school district in 25 years. Negotiations between the teachers’ union and the school district broke down over the weekend over whether to prioritize general wage increases or incentives for teachers working in high-poverty areas and challenging classrooms.
► In the Washington Post — Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders N.Y. headquarters site, two officials say — Amazon.com is reconsidering its plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a new campus in New York City, according to two people familiar with the company’s thinking, following a wave of political and community opposition.
► In the NY Times — Landmark Broadway deal gives actors a piece of the profits — The deal, reached between Actors’ Equity, a union representing 51,000 performers and stage managers, and the Broadway League, a trade organization for producers, is a milestone, marking the first time that the industry’s financiers have tacitly agreed to acknowledge that performers are contributing ideas, not just labor, to shaping new musicals and plays.
TODAY’S MUST-SEE
► From Bloomberg — Trump wrong to scapegoat immigrants, AFL-CIO president says (video)
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.