1. More side effects of the state senate GOP budget proposal: The city of Seattle stands to lose about $3 million a year, city staffers say, thanks to legislation---passed as part of the Republicans' budget coup on Friday night---that would redirect state liquor tax proceeds that currently go to cities and counties into the state's general fund.

Currently, about a quarter of all sales taxes from liquor sales go to cities and counties. Overall, city staffers say, eliminating the liquor tax distributions would cost cities about $28 million.

The "GOP Budget Summary" PDF provided by Sen. Joe Zarelli (R-18, Ridgefield), the ranking Republican on the senate ways and means committee, bullet points it:

Permanently Redirects Liquor Revenue to General Fund ($71 M)
o    Liquor Profit Sharing -- $42 M of new liquor profits under I-1183, above and beyond $10 M guaranteed in initiative, is redirected from local governments to the state general fund.
o    Liquor Excise Taxes – Permanently redirects portion of liquor excise taxes going to local governments to the general fund ($29 M).

The now-defunct Democratic proposal made the same move, but only for the 2011-13 biennium. Zarelli's proposal makes the shift permanent.

2. In more state budget news: It will come as no surprise that the senate budget (the Republican-plus-three-conservative-Democrats'-budget) slams human services and the environment with millions more in cuts than the competing house budget (a Democratic budget).[pullquote]On higher education the Republican budget cuts $20 million less than the house Democrats.[/pullquote].

In human services, for example, the Republicans wipe out $304 million in programs while house ways and means chair Rep. Ross Hunter's (D-48, Medina) budget makes $231 million in cuts.

(The defunct Democratic budget in the senate, by the way, now an Al Gore "What If?" for local liberals, cut the least of all: $171 million.)

However, on higher education the Republican budget cuts $20 million less than the house Democrats.

On K-12, the house cuts more as well, $400 million vs. $39 million. However, most of the house cuts come from a budgeting trick that pushes local school district payments into the next biennium by 24 hours—which actually doesn't decrease funding for schools this biennium.

3. Perhaps proving, once again, that he just can't win, Mayor Mike McGinn has received more than four times as many letters about his "self-financed" SoDo arena proposal than his counterpart at King County, King County Executive Dow Constantine, who stood beside McGinn at the arena announcement last month .

So far, McGinn's office says, he has received more than 180 letters to Constantine's 40 or so. The upshot: The public associates the plan with McGinn. If the arena deal goes down in flames, McGinn, not Constantine, will be the public official who takes the blame.

If it actually succeeds ... ?

4. In the run-up to Seattle City Council member Mike O'Brien's 2013 campaign kickoff party last night in Pioneer Square, we noted the high bar he'd set for himself—he's not accepting any donations more than $10 until 1,000 people donate $10.

How'd it go last night? O'Brien sent out a press release this morning titled "Over 200 People Already On Board of Mike O'Brien's 10 x 1,000 Challenge" saying that more than 200 people have "pledged their support."

We have a message in to get a tally of what that means.

In his statement, O'Brien says simply:

"I remember the kick-off party for my first campaign in 2009. It was also a great event and I remember asking at the end of the night 'how much money did we make?' Last night, my first question was 'how many people did we get?' It is amazing how changing the metric for success makes you start asking different questions and changing the way you think about campaigning."