5 questions to ask our “green” governor

Jay Inslee will appear on KCTS 9’s “Ask the Governor” 7 p.m. tomorrow. The station is taking the public question via an online form that can be accessed here. Viewers can also tweet a question during the live interview by using #askthegov and @KCTS9. Or, you can go to the KCTS9 Facebook page and add a question in the comments for the Ask The Governor post.

In preparation for the interview, Shift decided to come up with a handful of questions based on Jay Inslee’s “performance” as governor. Here are our top five questions we want to hear Inslee answer – maybe someone will ask them:

1. Will you, once again next year, break your campaign promise to not raise taxes, by proposing tax hikes like you have for the last three legislative sessions?

Inslee ended the 2015 legislative session just as he began it –with a demand for new taxes. That’s why it would come as no surprise if our green governor—once again—broke his 2012 campaign promise not to raise taxes during the 2016 legislative session. Inslee obsession with new taxes illustrates just how far our green governor has come from promising to not raise taxes as a gubernatorial candidate. Just as a reminder, here are just a couple of promises Inslee made as a candidate:

• “Under my plan, it should not be necessary to address that issue because on my plan we’re not going to request additional taxes.”

• “I would veto anything that heads the wrong direction and the wrong direction is new taxes in the state of Washington.”

“And I don’t believe that tax increases are the right, uh, route forward for our state

2. How much has your “lean management” scheme saved the state, and how much smaller has state government gotten during your term thanks to such efficiencies?

Another promise Inslee appears bent on breaking has to do with government efficiency. Candidate Inslee campaigned on a reform agenda that would renew taxpayers’ faith in government by enforcing “lean management” practices—a laughable campaign promise in hindsight of what has happened during the Inslee administration. Earlier this year, Inslee released a LEAN report via his Results Washington initiative. The report claimed that Inslee’s program resulted in $5.92 million in savings, $27.4 million in costs avoided and $3.16 million in additional revenue.

Yet, when David Schumacher, director of the state Office of Financial Management (OFM) and Jay Inslee’s budget director, testified before state House Appropriations Committee, he admitted that all those savings are not attributable to LEAN and that some are likely from other efficiencies. Schumacher said that it could not be said that the $40 million in savings is the result of LEAN. Rather, he said, “The actual LEAN savings are quite a bit smaller than that.” So much for Inslee’s LEAN claims.

3. Can you give an update on your 75-point jobs plan, how many of the goals have been achieved?

If it hasn’t become clear already, Inslee likes to make-up numbers to fit his talking points. During the 2012 campaign, he did just that when he bragged about a “75-point jobs plan” that never quite added up to 75 points. As the Washington Wire put it at the time, our green governor’s goals were “grander than specifics, and it may never be possible to offer a precise definition of Inslee’s proposal because much of it appears to be an endorsement of efforts already under way in the Legislature.” Inslee admitted didn’t have any guesses yet on how many jobs his program would create. Based on a quick assessment so far, it’s safe to wager that our green governor’s “program” has not created a single job.

4. What really are the ingredients of your “secret sauce”?

When asked how he would address the $1 billion down payment needed to address the state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision, then gubernatorial candidate Inslee said, “We do have a secret sauce here, and that is innovation.” Besides the ridiculous nature of his answer, our green governor appeared to imply he would solve the problem through innovation, i.e. helping the private economy grow rather than raising taxes. That’s not what happened. Instead, Inslee did what all Democrats do. He presented tax increases as the go-to solution. So, what’s in Inslee’s “secret sauce”? It appears nothing but same-old, grossly unimaginative tax hikes.

5. During your campaign you claimed you would be “focused like a laser beam” on job creation, how is that working out?

Over and over again during his campaign, Inslee said he would be “focused like a laser beam” on private sector job creation. As recent events reveal, Inslee is not focused on job creation. But, he is “focused like a laser beam” on his extreme “green” agenda.

Alcoa– the world’s third largest producer of aluminum—recently reminded the public of the real-world consequences of Inslee’s “green” obsession when the company announced it would close the last two aluminum smelters in the state. The company’s decision will result in hundreds of lost jobs in Ferndale and Wenatchee.