My New Year's mailing for 2025-2026.

Washington State budget jigsaw puzzle.

Balancing the state budget isn't an easy task. It looks like Governor Ferguson is thinking of taking money away from dedicated climate commitment funds to fill a hole in the budget to fund a tax credit for low income working families. This means less money from Cap and Trade for things like public transit, bike lanes and other climate resilience things.

It's less easy to take funds away from K-12 education which is a large chunk of money. State constitution mandates K-12 to be the paramount duty of the state.

Still, if one thinks more wholistically, climate resilience can also be seen as education; for instance children under 18 can now ride transit for free. Maybe that's being too generous for kids even from higher income families, but there is an educational logic to the free fares as well. Supposedly people, who learn the ropes of alternative transit early in life, are more likely to be dedicated low carbon consumers for life. Who knows for sure as often people, who enter adult working and family raising years, feel the economic pressure to adopt more mainstream ways such as feeling the necessity of having a car.

Ferguson is also proposing a wealth tax which could provide more revenue. Still a difficult lift and that proposal wouldn't go into effect till 2029, due to expected opposition and court challenges.

Like a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces of the budget are bigger than the revenue box. I seems to never all fit.

Transportation takes lots of money also, including the state ferries. Car ferries are expensive compared to smaller passenger / bike only ferries. Could some money be saved there? This would also be a hard lift as people are addicted to their cars. Getting from islands to the mainland is important though San Juan County, which relies on ferries, is near the top for per capita income of state counties. Taking dedicated gas tax money away from cars wouldn't be easy either.

Give and take does take lots of patience and it seems like just about everything in the budget is crucially important.

Maybe Ferguson could draft two budget rough drafts. One with the wealth tax and another that would have cuts assuming no wealth tax. Float both scenarios with clear explanations and see how it plays in public opinion.

We certainly can't have it all when there are so many needs and the puzzle pieces are larger than the box.

In spite of fears that the DOJ would redact all the stuff that put their "leader" in bad light, they did show some transparency.

Looks like the Justice Department has released some of the files that put Trump in a bad light. Many of us have feared that this Trump Administration dominated Justice Department would delete things that put their leader in a bad light, but they have released some things, under pressure from Congress. Still they are claiming these findings are not valid accusations and concerns, I guess.

We'll see how this all plays out.

The few times I have been in an airplane.

For a while when I was in college, I saw a therapist at WWU's Counselling Center. I remember one session where I talked about almost being afraid to ride my bike at times. The following week, a pilot, living in the dorm, took a few of us up in his plane. It was the first I've been in a plane. The following week when I saw the therapist, she remarked, "Wow, you are making fast progress." "Last week you were almost afraid to ride a bike, this week you've gone up in a plane."

I answered that I was just a passenger. I would be afraid to be the pilot. I lack the confidence that it would take to pilot a fast moving vehicle. Cars going at highway speeds can be very dangerous. More dangerous than planes. One reason why I don't drive. I still see the car as a big responsibility. The tamer pace of a bicycle is more my speed if I am at the wheel.

As for being a passenger, I'm okay with speed, but I haven't had many occasions to fly. To this day, I've never been on a jet plane. I'm not the type of person to jet across the country for a weekend wedding, or a Christmas dinner, and then be back to work by Monday. My travel tends to be more about the trip and what I see along the way, versus the destination.

Years ago, I've taken a few commercial flights between Seattle and my hometown of Pullman. Back then it was propeller planes to Pullman. Since then, the Pullman / Moscow Regional Airport has a new runway so it has jet service. In recent years, I have bicycled to Pullman mostly for the things I see along the way. That takes about a week where as the trip by air takes a bit over an hour.

Pullman Moscow regional airport (Moscow, Idaho 8 miles east of Pullman) has had 3 terminals that I remember. The first one for many years from my childhood to the 1980s was very small. Like the little building seen on the right. The main terminal, in this picture was later. I took this picture passing by on my bicycle in summer of 2022. Now there is a bigger terminal, built more recently.

My very first flight was from Bellingham to fly around Mount Baker and back. Since it was a small plane, it did a few sharp turns. Taking off seemed normal until we turned east and flew over the freeway. In that sharp turn the bottom of the plane still felt like it was down, but when I looked out the window, the freeway looked like it was turning on its side.

Sort of what I-5 looked like tipping on its side from the plane.

It was different, but I was okay. The rest of that little flight was beautiful till we got to Mt. Baker and the pilot realized it was clouded in. He did another sharp turn over the glacier and headed safely back to Bellingham. I realized that I was probably safer in that plane than in a car or even on my bike, but it was a bit of an adventure.

Mount Baker seen in early 1990s from a bicycle trip on Glacier Creek Road.

A few times after that, I flew to Pullman. Before leaving on one trip, I remember asking someone what it was like to fly above the clouds. His answer was, "it's very interesting - for 5 minutes." Then, I guess it can get boring.

On one of my plane trips to Pullman, it was a totally clear day. The snowcap mountains were visible all the way from Canada down into Oregon. Every seat was a window seat with an aisle down the center. I happened to be sitting across the aisle from the President of Washington State University back then; Glen Terrill. It was a chance to converse with the president.

On another flight, it was cloudy with thunderstorms over eastern Washington. The plane was a bit larger, a turboprop with engines made by Rolls Royce. The flight was pretty turbulent, but my stomach was okay. When we landed at Pullman / Moscow, my family was waiting by that little runway. They said, "we're glad you are okay. The light are out at the airport. They were able to land the plane okay, but the little terminal was dark.

At Christmas time when I was around 5 years old, the family drove out to the airport to pick up my oldest sister who was flying in from Seattle. I wasn't one to believe in Santa Clause due to my scientific mind, I guess. My dad being a scientist. Still I remember seeing a red glow in the sky so I thought, maybe there is a Santa and that's the glow of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Just then, my brother commented that he could see the glow of the red runway lights off the clouds. So much for believing in Santa.

Worry about declining birthrates while there is an oversupply of refugees around the world doesn't make sense.

With an oversupply of people around the world seeking better countries to live in, it doesn't make sense that folks are worried about declining birthrates. I tend to avoid thinking about racism as a motivation for people's thinking, but there is a logic to blaming this situation on racism and or nationalism. Folks prefer growth from their own kind, rather than from other populations.

Growth, itself, whether from immigration or local births, does create it's own problems such as shortage of housing, increased traffic and environmental limits.

Still, lack of population growth effects the economy. Less young workers paying into Social Security, for instance.

We need to figure out how to have a sustainable economy that doesn't require constant increase in consumption while at the same time we are facing a huge amount of people wishing to migrate to better lands. Our tendencies toward tribalism, racism and nationalism, versus seeing the world as a global village, stands in the way.

Environmentalists need to help us reduce demand for fossil fuels. Just restricting supply can raise fuel prices and just lead to right wing populism.

I've heard of supply side economics as well as demand side economics. I got to thinking, is there supply and demand side environmentalism? Yes. I looked up on Google.

I believe that the emphasis on supply side environmentalism has been a mistake, for the most part. That is trying to reduce climate change by restricting oil drilling, for instance, thus restricting supply. It leads to populist rebellion against higher fuel prices. Leads to the rise of politicians like Donald Trump.

Demand side environmentalism works better. That is figuring out how to reduce the need for fossil fuels in people's lives and in the economy. Things like public transit, for instance and encouraging use of rooftop solar energy. Heat pumps, electrification, lifestyles and cultures of less consumption and so forth are dealing with the demand side.

Taxes on supply, such as carbon taxes or Washington State's Cap and Trade rules are somewhat hybrid, supply and demand side restrictions. I tend to support these, but raising taxes and or restricting supply can run the risk of political pushback.

In our liberal state (Washington) our cap and trade law did survive a repeal attempt in 2024 in spite of people complaining about this state's higher gas prices than in other states.

I'm glad that law survived. Washington tends to be a more liberal state than most. Still, it seems like working on the demand side is a safer way to go. Restricting supply, while people are still dependent on a product, is politically dangerous.

The law of unintended consequences and populism.

Looks like the current regime of Trump, voted in by populist and tax cut sentiment, continues to benefit the wealthy. This Christmas shopping season is mostly fueled by the top; the K shaped economy. The wealthy and billionaires are the main beneficiaries of current policy. The stock market goes up as well. Most stock owned by the wealthy.

As the political pendulum swings, the Trump regime is loosing popularity. Popular opinion does tend to flounder back and forth, but it is changing again.