Education Has Been Reclassified As "Essential" After 10 Months

Or Director of the E.P.A. either!

Source: ShiftWA.org

Governor Inslee has FINALLY listened to health experts (including those at the state level) and followed the scientific data to announce that he has eliminated his arbitrary and overly restrictive state guidelines regarding teaching Washington State students in their classrooms.  The governor had been bending to the will of his multi-million dollar campaign donors at the Washington Education Association by refusing to follow science and ease state guidelines to return students to the classroom. The governor has done this despite the scientific data, which has been available for months, indicating that in-person education does not increase COVID-19 infection rates.  Since the beginning of the school year in August, parent groups concerned about the poor level of education their students have been receiving via distance learning, and about children’s mental health, have been calling on Inslee to follow the data and bring students back to the classroom.  The battle now moves to the district level, where we can fully expect teachers’ unions to vigorously fight efforts to reopen schools (as they recently did in Monroe, in Snohomish County). (Seattle Times, Washington Alliance 4 Kids, Shift Newsmaker Interview, and KING5 News)

Governor Jay Inslee announced his ongoing support today for an unconstitutional state income tax on capital gains.  An income tax of their own has long been the holy grail for Washington State Democrats, in their never-ending need for new tax streams to pay for a larger and more powerful state government.  Yet, since an income tax is unconstitutional in Washington State (and the voters have rejected the last 10 attempts to amend our constitution to change this fact), a tax on capital gains income is clearly illegal.  Jason Mercier from the Washington Policy Center has conducted excellent work on this issue, and he has found that (much to liberals’ consternation) all other 49 states and the IRS categorize a capital gains tax as an income tax.  Emails which were obtained through the Public Records Act show that Democrat leaders are assuming once they pass the tax measure that their liberal friends on the Washington State Supreme Court will either ignore the overwhelming evidence that this tax is unconstitutional. or that they will find a legal loophole to override the longstanding will of Washington State’s voters. (Seattle Times and Washington Policy Center)

 Jay Inslee’s Employment Security Department (ESD) has still not paid thousands who have been seeking financial benefits since last Spring.  Crosscut reported on the case of a Seattle woman who finally received her first payment last weekend, but only after the media sent inquiries to ESD about her case.  She was among the 27,000 Washington State residents who are victims of the ESD dysfunction and mismanagement which Jay Inslee has allowed go on without consequence, and have not received their promised benefits for over eight months.  There are thousands more who finally received their first payment more than 10 weeks after applying for benefits. In the Crosscut article, ESD Commissioner Suzi LeVine, who was appointed to the job by Governor Inslee seemingly because of her ability to raise millions of dollars for Democrat candidates, failed to take responsibility for her department’s inability to pay Washington State residents their much-needed benefits. LeVine is well-versed in avoiding responsibility, as she also blames others for allowing taxpayers to be the victim of one of the largest thefts in American history, when foreign criminals took advantage of her bad management decisions to steal hundreds of millions of dollars by scamming her department. (Crosscut)

With President-elect Joe Biden tapping North Carolina bureaucrat Michael Regan to head his Environmental Protection Agency, it appears Governor Jay Inslee has just been told his highest value to the next administration is not being in the administration.  Thus, the hundreds of thousands (over a million?) of taxpayer dollars spent on security for Inslee’s failed presidential campaign, the time the governor spent bashing the Trump Administration on a nearly daily basis in his government-sponsored news conferences, and his constant regurgitation of Biden campaign taking points has gone for naught.  Perhaps the Biden team does not agree with Inslee’s extreme environmental policies, or were dissatisfied with inability achieve any significant environmental results in two terms as governor, or they felt that Inslee’s recent baggage (being clueless about a violent takeover of a police precinct and its surrounding blocks, being responsible for allowing one of the largest thefts in American history at his Employment Security Department, etc.) would cause them too much embarrassment during the Senate confirmation process. (New York Times)