Ballmer and equity in the NW

http://www.eoionline.org/blog/ballmer-and-equity-in-the-nw

So let’s talk about Steve Ballmer. He seems a bit untethered. “I don’t work anymore so I have more geographic flexibility than I did a year…… ago.” Last week, we all watched as Ballmer plunked down $2 billion for the Los Angeles Clippers. He trumped his competition with a bid that was nearly four times the next highest previous purchase of a NBA franchise.

Let’s put $2 billion into perspective. That amount would pay the tuition for every single Washington student at the University of Washington, Washington State University, Central Washington University, Eastern Washington University, Western Washington University, Evergreen State College, and all thirty four of our public community colleges. All told, that’s 291,000 students. The annual bill: $1.9 billion.

Perhaps Steve could simply donate his income from his $20 billion in assets, which at 5 percent a year would be about $1 billion a year. This contribution alone could reduce tuition for public higher education so that it would be close to what it was when Steve was an undergraduate. That would be about $2,500 in today’s dollars at UW, $2,000 at Western Washington, and $1,000 at Everett Community College.

We shouldn’t be begging Ballmer, Bezos, Paul Allen or other Washington billionaires to pay their fair share to live and prosper in our great state. That’s what taxes are for — but in Washington we tax middle-class and working families more than we do multi-millionaires. Because our tax system is heavily dependent on purchases by middle class and low-income families, we can’t generate the revenue for investing in higher education, not to mention caring for the developmentally disabled, or fully funding K-12 education. With a tax system tilted away from the wealthy, we leave a lot of money on the table for folks like Mr. Ballmer, and jeopardize our kids’ education.