Excess Revenue, Maintain Shutdown & Student Do-Overs

Are you kidding me?  Give up control?

Source: ShiftWA.org

As predicted, the Democrats in the Washington State Senate used a rare Saturday session to pass their unnecessary and unconstitutional state income tax on capital gains legislation, and the Seattle Times buried the story on page A8, while the News Tribune did not cover it at all in their Sunday print edition.  Despite the state being flush with cash after a record-breaking 20% revenue increase the past two years, and at least 7% more projected during the next two years, and another $4.2 billion more on its way from the federal bailouts, the greedy Democrats in Olympia voted to take control of even more of your money to fund the their strong desire to increase the size, power, and reach of state government.  One of the reasons for the quick actions by the Senate on a state income tax bill is because the upcoming March 17^th state revenue forecast is expected to show the state will be projected to receive even more tax revenue than previously estimated (see our next news item below).

A state income tax revenue stream (which future Democrats will certainly expand to include more and more taxpayers) will primarily benefit the Democrats’ major source of campaign funds — government employee unions (which in turn will benefit Democrat politicians, since the union bosses will have more dues money to send their way).

It was interesting that the media has chosen to use the Democrat’s factually incorrect political spin about the new tax, and call it an “excise tax” instead of an “income tax,” which is how the IRS and 49 other states label a capital gains tax.  Since an income tax is unconstitutional in Washington State, Democrat legislators are the only public officials in America to not use the term “income tax” to accurately describe their legislation.  The region’s media not only fails to call them on out on this deception, they happily follow along with the “excise tax” scheme.

We should also note that while Democrats have disingenuously argued that this new unconstitutional state income tax is necessary to make Washington taxes “more equitable,” they have not proposed to reduce taxes elsewhere.  In fact, many of their other Democrat proposed new taxes are very regressive, like an 18-cent-a-gallon gas tax and a tax on sugary drinks, and would impact lower-income households the most. (Seattle Times, Washington Policy Center, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, and News Tribune)

 

Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council officials informed legislators last week that next week’s revenue forecast will likely show at least an additional $600 million windfall over its already glowing November 2020 forecast (and that was even before the latest gusher of federal bailout money). This is the reason why Democrat senators rushed their state income tax on capital gains legislation through the Senate Rules Committee and onto the floor for an unusual Saturday vote. The official revenue forecast report is expected March 17^th. (Columbia Basin Herald/WNPA Services)

 

Republican legislators are listening to health officials from across the state, and continue to push to safely reopen to 50% capacity for retail stores and restaurants, and return students to in-person instruction.  Meanwhile Governor Inslee continues to ignore the advice, concerns, and ideas from local health officials, and has yet to provide criteria for moving the state to something called “Phase 3,” or what will be allowed to occur once the state, or regions, or counties meet the criteria.  The governor's only response is to blurt out his latest hyper-partisan straw-man argument, that the state is not following Texas to immediately reopen to 100%.  Apparently the governor failed to know that no one is proposing that, and that something far more reasonable had come over from Washington Republican legislators. (KING5 News and Yakima Herald)

 

Due to the state education system being unable to transition to providing quality distance learning to enough of the state’s public school students, and the refusal of teachers’ unions in the largest districts to respect scientific data and health officials’ advice to re-open schools, a bill has been introduced which would allow high school juniors and seniors to do this past year over.   If passed, SB 5265 would allow the student to replace the grades they have received this year and allow them to participate in sports in the hope of attracting scholarship offers. (Q13 News and Washington Legislature Bill Summary)