Who is responsible for Washington’s financial swamp? Ask the possum
by John Burbank
Jan 25, 2012

Back in the 1960’s there was a comic strip named Pogo. One of the most insightful strips was a distilled discussion of human foibles, in which Pogo Possum announced, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” When it comes to the national debate over the 99 percent vs. 1 percent, we may not like the growing chasm between corporate elites and the rest of us, but we’ve sure made it easy for them to keep it that way.

Take our own state. Our state will become $25 billion wealthier over the next two years. That’s how much our economy will grow. And yet for some reason, we can’t seem to find enough funding to keep up with public priorities. So we will likely see tuition at Everett Community College break the $4,000 mark, and the University of Washington will probably charge over $12,000. Class sizes in elementary schools will top 30 kids or more. More people will be kicked off of Basic Health, right at the time when even more low-wage working people need health insurance.

Because of our over-reliance on the sales tax, we are hurting the vast majority of middle class and low-income families, and we are leaving a lot of money on the already overflowing table of the wealthy.  Read more.