377,000 Hopeful Lottery Winners Can't Be Wrong

Out here on the West Coast, if you find that government has done you wrong, you can do something about it: propose a ballot initiative. California, for a long time, has been the king of this kind of democracy, but it's been ramped up here in Washington state for the past decade or so, largely due to the antics of former wristwatch salesman (and overall doofus) Tim Eyman (here's a middle-of-the-road bio of the man from Wikipedia).

But I'm not here to complain about Eyman (just yet). A couple weeks back, I was walking into Target and had to make my way through a throng gathered around a gentleman with clipboards full of petitions. I stopped for a second to see which ballot initiative he was hawking, and found out it was for the repeal of the Washington state estate tax. I looked at the gathered group, enthralled in the man's oratory about the sins of the government grabbing their hard-earned money after they had passed on to a better tomorrow, and wondered if it might be time for me to start selling snake oil down at the other corner.

Not to belittle these folks, but the Washington state estate tax is most likely the furthest thing they'll ever have to worry about in their lifetime. I mean, these were your typical discount retail shoppers--decidedly middle class and trying to stretch their spending dollar (I, myself, just can't stay away from their cheap contact solution). Why were they so concerned about repealing a tax that, barring a lucky lottery ticket, they would never face? Here are the figures from the Seattle P-I:

The tax applies this year only to an estimated 210 of Washington's wealthiest estates, those of $2 million or more in value, and exempts farms and timberland if they constitute at least half of an estate's value. Overall, the state Department of Revenue estimates that the average estate tax is $40,000 in the lowest taxable range, those estates valued at between $2 million and $3 million. The department estimates the average tax would be $7.86 million in the highest taxable range, which would apply to estates valued at $20 million or more.

And yet, this ballot initiative got enough signatures (over 377,000) to get on this November's ballot as Initiative 920 (after verification by the Secretary of State). Today's Seattle Times, in a story on the four initiatives likely to make the ballot, notes that the PAC that was central to this petition campaign was The Committee to Abolish Washington State Estate Tax. And it raised more than $800,000 to use paid signature gatherers. Where did the money come from?

About $632,000 of that came from Martin Selig, a Seattle developer. [Ed. note: and one of the main culprits who helped doom the Seattle monorail project, though it should be said that the budget put forth by the monorail group certainly didn't help--yes, I'm still bitter] Large contributions also include $50,000 from John N. Nordstrom, of the department-store family.

And what will the repeal of this tax mean? Back to the P-I article:

Estate tax revenue goes to the Education Legacy Trust Fund, which pays for adding 7,900 higher-education enrollment slots; financial aid for college and university students; and reducing class sizes from kindergarten to 12th grade.

"The No. 1 priority of Washington's business community, as we hear over and over again, is a skilled work force," Christian Sinderman, a spokesman for the opponents and a veteran Democratic campaign operative, said. "We're not going to have a skilled work force unless we invest in our public schools and universities."

Well, I guess there's always that lottery win coming down the pike to afford private schooling...