It turns out that it is possible to balance the state’s budget without raising taxes, and two weeks after the Washington State Senate Republicans proposed a budget that does just that (without including an unconstitutional state income tax on capital gains), the Seattle Times finally decided to do a story about it.  Of course, the story was primarily focused on the Democrats’ plan for an unconstitutional state income tax, not why such a tax is unnecessary when state tax revenues are going up.  Nor did the story’s author consider the Democrats’ dubious inclusion of a so-called “emergency clause” in the tax legislation, to prevent voters from overturning the law with a referendum.  The “emergency” the Democrats are falsely claiming is that the revenue is needed for COVID-19 relief, despite the fact that the earliest any revenue would be collected from SB 5096 is 2023.  This significant restriction on voter involvement chosen by the Democrats was not included in the Times story. While the author did state an initiative could still occur, there is a significant difference between a referendum and an initiative in terms of the number of signatures needed to place the issue before state voters, which is why Democrats don’t want the people to be able to file a referendum.  Referendums (which the emergency clause prohibits) only require signatures from 4% of those who voted in the previous election (162,258 signatures) to be placed on the ballot, while initiatives require twice that (8%) many (324,516).   (Seattle Times, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, Washington Policy Center, Washington Secretary of State 2020 Election Results, and Ballotpedia)

And speaking of “emergency clauses” to prohibit citizens repealing bad legislative actions through referendums – now Democrat legislators are now routinely including the restriction in their unpopular measures to raise other taxes.   As we previously mentioned, the Democrats have included it in their state income tax bill, despite being unwilling to define what constitutes an “emergency?”  A 2019 Washington Policy Center report provides good background on this question, and also suggested that “emergency clauses” need to receive 2/3 support from both legislative chambers (a “supermajority”) before being approved.  Republican senators in 2013 proposed legislation (SB 8026) to require a supermajority to pass “emergency” bills, but the Democrats (who hate any obstacles to increase taxes) never allowed the bill to reach the floor.  (Washington Policy Center and Washington Legislature Bill Summary)

There is growing anxiety among Washington State seniors regarding state officials discussing the next stage of their immunization plan, even as most seniors who are already eligible for shots are still unable to obtain appointments to be vaccinated.  According to a Washington State Department of Health (DOH) spokesperson, the state is still “well below” vaccinating 50% of eligible seniors.  Of course, DOH can’t really provide a more precise count on how badly the state is failing, because counting really isn’t a skill set at use by the Inslee Administration. (KING5 News)

Because of crime, homelessness, and liberal activists’ on-going riots, downtown Seattle has suffered far more than the downtown areas of Bellevue and Tacoma during the COVID-19 pandemic, and will definitely face more challenges to return back to normal.  Some 163 street-level businesses have closed in downtown during the past 10 months, and many more will likely close in the coming weeks.  The city’s political leaders have provided extraordinarily little direction in how the downtown core (which accounts for 50% of the city’s jobs and tax revenue) will rebuild.  The city has promised that it will “address the root cause of homelessness.”  Really? So more than five years after former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine joined together to declare an emergency on the homeless issue, and after billions of tax dollars have been flushed down the Homelessness Industrial Complex, now the politicians are finally going to “address” the root cause of homelessness?  (Seattle Times and City of Seattle)

The former Superintendent of the Vancouver Public Schools will be paid nearly a half million dollars that he will not earn, after the school board decided to spend other people’s money to “part ways.”  As part of the agreement, neither the publicly elected board nor former public employee Superintendent Steve Webb are allowed to publicly discuss the reasons why his publicly funded contract was terminated.  Webb is scheduled to receive two payments of $227,000 over the next year, in yet another example of a local government paying off public officials with large sums of taxpayer money to go away.  The Daily Briefing reported on February 9^th that the former Bothell city manager was paid more than $130,000 to retire and not speak of the reasons for her dismissal.  This is a disturbing trend, where conflicts with employees are settled using a substantial amount of taxpayer funds to keep information away from the public. Shouldn’t there be transparency for the public to know why large payouts have been made? The only people secrecy protects are incompetent public employees and/or the incompetent officials who hire them. (Vancouver Columbian and Shift/Everett Herald)

The City of Seattle is using taxpayer funds to purchase heroin pipes to hand out to addicts in homeless camps.  No, this is not a satirical item from BabylonBee.com; this is actually the latest unbelievable revelation from the radical liberals who lead the decaying City of Seattle.  The leaders of the encampment claim that they are passing out pipes to homeless camp residents to decrease the use of needles to inject heroin. Officials with Seattle’s Human Services Department refused to comment about the use of public funds to buy heroin pipes.  (MyNorthwest)

The Yakima Herald blasted Governor Jay Inslee for his continued refusal to consult with local health officials before making decisions which impact millions of lives.  Specifically, the Herald criticized the governor, and his administration, for announcing changes in the state’s “Roadmap to Recovery” phases, but failing to provide advance notification to health officials across the six South Central Region counties that they had failed to meet the criteria to move forward to Phase 2. If the state had spent just a few minutes doing this basic advance work, local officials could have quickly pointed out the obvious error in the data the state was using.  As the Herald states, by working with local officials, Inslee’s administration “could save unnecessary anger and embarrassment.” (Yakima Herald)

Seems like a trend – the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin condemn Governor Inslee and the Democrats for attempting to impose an unconstitutional income tax on Washington residents by calling their capital gains measure an “excise tax”.  In an editorial, the paper criticizes the Democrats’ tactics and write, “If the Democratic majority truly believes an income tax (including taxing capital gains specifically) is necessary and would be embraced by the people, then have an honest debate on taxing income and attempt to change the state Constitution.” (Walla Walla Union-Bulletin)

The Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) is warning poultry farmers of a new avian influenza outbreak.  Apparently, conditions are similar to those in 2014 – 2015, when millions of birds were killed across the country by a bird flu.  The WSDA will be holding a webinar on Tuesday evening to provide tips to farmers on how to protect their birds. (Pacific Northwest AG Network and Washington State Department of Agriculture)

Last Friday’s highly informative Newsmaker Interview was with Senator Lynda Wilson (Vancouver), the ranking Republican on the Washington State Senate’s Ways & Means Committee and the budget leader for the GOP caucus.  The Senate Republicans released their 2021 – 2023 budget, and it contained no more taxes, incentives for school districts to reopen, and assistance for those who have been most impacted by Governor Jay Inslee’s random and unscientific “emergency” orders.  When asked why the Senate Republicans released their budget so early in the process, Senator Wilson replied that she wanted to provide transparency, so the public had time to examine their proposal, and because Democrats “keep claiming there is a massive deficit, to justify their own call for more taxes.  But that is false.  Just look at the four-year budget outlook from the governor’s own budget office.” (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview and Senate Republicans 2021 – 2023 Budget Proposal)

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