Former Microsoft Managers Now In Charge of Washington State's Budget

reifman writes "The Seattle Times reports, 'For the first time in state history, the Washington state budget is being written by Microsofties,' Representative Ross Hunter has 'tamed his Microsoft-style head-butting with a politician's trust-building.' Senator Andy Hill is 'the first Senate budget chair ever to request Excel files instead of paper spreadsheets.' 'The two must find $1 billion in new money for the state's K-12 system.' Unfortunately, The Times neglects to mention that Hunter and Microsoft are among those behind the deficit and cutbacks in the first place. Hunter helped pass the amnesty bill for Microsoft's $1.5 billion Nevada tax dodge ($4.37 billion if you include impacts from its lobbying to reduce tax rates) that contributed to $4 billion in cuts to K-12 and higher education since 2008. The state has resorted to using Yelp to tax dancing to try to make up the shortfall (for real)."

Comments

Ob

[Hognoxious]

Just hope they aren't using excel to do the budget.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23448-how-to-stop-excel-errors-driving-austerity-economics.html

Also, frist poot.

First it was Nokia, now Washington state

[Taco Cowboy]

When the M$ mole infested Nokia, Nokia tanked

Sales tanked, share price tanked, everything tanked

Will Washington state be next ?

Re:First it was Nokia, now Washington state

[jamstar7]

Yes, but it's not MS that caused Nokia to tank and it's not MS that is causing USA to tank either. Pretty bad timing though, I would not have taken that job unless I was given a green light to cut all government spending close to 0.

If Microsoft isn't paying its fair share of taxes, how is this not causing Washington state and the US as a whole not to tank? If they're playing the money shuffle game to keep from paying billions, and lawyering the government to death to keep from paying fines, how is this not affecting everyone through loss of revenue and wasted government spending in failed attempts to collect fines levied against them by the courts?

Proprietary

[puddingebola]

The budget will be proprietary, only render correctly in Internet Explorer, and include Microsft Bob to help explain the loss of state revenue.

Charity begins at home

[seven of five]

Open up that checkbook, Bill.

Re:I understand I'm never going to win this argume

[PopeRatzo]

But isn't there something just a little wrong with the idea that there are morally no limits to what the State can extract from a for-profit corporation?

You have that exactly backwards.

Re:I understand I'm never going to win this argume

[Anonymous Coward]

Limited liability corporations are an artificial creation of the state. The shareholders have been granted a massive privilege: the opportunity to make money with no liability for wrongdoing, however egregious. There is absolutely no problem with the state taxing the recipients of that massive privilege. If they don't like it, they can put aside the liability protections and work as, for example, a partnership.

Re:First ever to request files instead of paper?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they should. And they should be publicly viewable with no option to restrict sharing.

Re:I like pork and beans

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft wont move to California or Texas or New York because those starts are big enough that even Microsoft cannot push them around.

Also, you are an idiot. The issue here is that the government taxes the shit out of individuals and gives the money to giant companies like Microsoft. (you can bet your ass the mom and pop shops get no breaks at all)

But go ahead and keep believing that the big bad government is stealing all of Microsoft's hard earned money. As long as you have your guns and your religion, right?

Microsoft is nt responsible for the state deficit

[mschuyler]

It's ludicrous to claim that because of Microsoft "tax breaks" the state of Washington faces cuts. Washington does not have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem. From 1999 to 2009 the state budget increased 80%. Inflation and population growth combined was 39%. I don't know anyone who can even point to an increase in services provided by the state today compared to 1999. If they had been prudent in their spending they could have accounted for inflation and population growth with half the increase they did.

How did this happen? Lots of special interests, of course, but the basic fuel was sales taxes, which people don't really notice. When people were buying new cars the money rolled in and the state spent it. When the recession hit people cut back spending and suddenly the gravy train of sales taxes slowed to a trickle.

Now the state wants to tax everything because it's "for the children." They're looking for scapegoats and Microsoft is a nice big one to blame. It already has one of the highest sales taxes and gas taxes in the nation. It's a liberal tax and spend state.

But hey. If you want to move where the welfare payments are pretty good, move to Washington, a place where "undocumented aliens" get in-state tuition and help. With policies like Washington it won't be long before this place looks like Detroit.