How Microsoft's Tax Dodge Led to $4 billion K-12 and Higher Education Cuts

Jeff Reifman on the Microsoft Tax Dodge

Apple's not the only company to save billions in taxes through Nevada as The New York Times reported yesterday. Here's how Microsoft's saved $4.37 billion in tax payments to Washington State and how it's led indirectly to $4 billion in K-12 and Higher Education cuts since 2008. 18% of University of Washington freshman are now foreigners (because they pay more) up from 2% six years ago. Washington State ranks 47th nationally in 18-24 yo college enrollment and 48th in K-12 class size. This hasn't stopped the architect of the company's Nevada tax dodge from writing in The Seattle Times: 'it's [Washington] state's paramount duty to provide for the public education of all children. Unfortunately, steady declines in public resources now threaten our ability to live up to that commitment.' Yes, indeed.

Seattle City Initiative Seeks to Make Net Neutrality Law

I am lead organizer behind Seattle Initiative Measure 103 http://www.i103.org which will end corporate personhood in Seattle and elevate the rights of residents above corporate rights. 

Three things you can do right now:

1) Join the Measure 103 Facebook page or sign up for our mailing list.

2) Collect petition signatures from your friends and family

3) RSVP for our Kickoff Party March 29th in the University District

What Measure 103 will do in Seattle:

• End corporate personhood and limit corporate rights
• Ban corporate spending on elections
• Ban corporate lobbying except in public forums
• Close the revolving door of employment  between elected officials and large corporations
• Provide citizen oversight of the Seattle Police Department
• Provide constitutional rights for workers
• Provide neighborhoods the right to approve major zoning changes
• Provide rights for nature
• Provide equal access to a free and open Internet, known as network neutrality

Our efforts in Seattle are part of an emerging statewide and national movement to place peoples' rights above corporate rights. 

Learn more about Measure 103

When it comes to education in Washington State, Microsoft is the problem...

Here's my penultimate summary of how Governor Gregoire, the legislature, the courts and The Seattle Times have enabled Microsoft's hypocritical stance on education and tax dodging to damage our budget and our educational system ... new updates including audio clip of Microsoft's Brad Smith acknowledging the Nevada tax dodge:

Full story at Microsoft Tax Dodge

Register for the next Democracy School in Seattle June 17th - 18th

Democracy School teaches citizens and activists to reframe exhausting and often discouraging single issue work (such as opposing ill-advised highway projects, stadium funding and corporate tax breaks, or proposing sick leave legislation, bans on toxic chemicals and common sense drug policy, etc.) in a way that we can confront corporate control on a powerful single front: people’s constitutional rights.

Our next Seattle school will focus on activists and organizers interested in helping lead a rights-based movement in Seattle, similar to what Spokane began in 2010. Specifically, graduates of the school will be encouraged to participate in community building efforts to draft a bill of rights for a future Seattle ballot initiative.

Learn more and register at People First

Now for what really matters...

I've posted some personal thoughts on today's national elections up at Tales of Change: Now for what really matters... It's reflective in part of watching Microsoft get its way in Washington State in this last legislative session. Hope you'll take a look.

The Tragedy of CraigsList, Wired Magazine September '09

Update: The link to Why Craigslist is such a mess!

September Wired Magazine's "The Tragedy of CraigsList" (not yet online) by Gary Wolf calls the popular site "firmly stuck in 1999" saying its main failure is refusing to evolve.

Similar to a 2006 SXSW panel, Wired proposes five mostly serious alternative designs to improve the site.

I'll give a few brief excerpts but to read the article, you'll either need to buy the issue or wait for it to appear online:

Craig Newmark started a galactic garage sale with millions of users, a killer business model and revenue to match. So why is the site such a wreck?

Internet's great promise is to make the world's information universally accessible and useful. So how come when you arrive at the most popular dating site in the US you find a stream of anonymous come-ons intermixed with insults, ads for prostitutes, naked pictures, and obvious scams? In a design straight from the earliest days of the Web, miscellaneous posts compete for attention on page after page of blue links, undifferentiated by tags or ratings or even user names. Millions of people apparently believe that love awaits here, but it is well hidden. Is this really the best we can do?

...

Revenue from newspaper classified ads is off nearly 50 percent in the past decade, a drop that comes to almost $10 billion. Only a fraction of this loss is because of Newmark's company, but as the largest online classified site, craigslist is easy to blame.

Because he is the founder of a remarkable Internet company that also happens to be helping the nation's dailies go out of business, Newmark's opinion is eagerly sought, and he spends an increasing amount of time at conferences and international meetings, where he attempts to answer questions about how to best defend the public interest in an era of cheap and ubiquitous media. As we watch the birds on the patio of Reverie, Newmark tries out some of the phrases he is hoping to use in the coming months as he unfolfs the lessons of craigslist. "My big mission is to help make grassroots democracy as much a part of our government as representative democracy," he says.

I'll link to the full article when it is available online at Wired.

Thomas Linzey, Envision Spokane on Democracy Now

A neighborhood coalition in Spokane is gathering signatures to place a new community bill of rights on the November ballot. Recently, an Envision Spokane representative, Thomas Linzey, appeared on Democracy Now to talk about the effort. Read more about it and watch the video.