The Inslee Administration begins its $1.6 million taxpayer-funded public relations disinformation campaign to improve the disastrous image of the “WA Cares” program and its mandatory payroll tax.  Recall that in January one of the first bills passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature was the postponement, until after the 2022 midterm elections, of this expensive entitlement program. This was due to the massive confusion this poorly written (by current Democrat House Speaker Laurie Jinkins) plan brought to the insurance marketplace and to Washington State workers, who desperately sought to purchase difficult to obtain private long-term care insurance policies to acquire a one-time lifetime exemption from this government-run program.  Insurance carriers were forced to pull their long-term care policy offerings out of the WA market due to the disruption brought on by this sure-to-fail government program.  The Democrat plan’s defining feature was forcing hundreds of thousands of Washington workers, who were ineligible to ever receive benefits, to pay for future benefits for others through having taxes taken directly from their paychecks.

This new entitlement program was originally passed by the Democrats during the 2019 legislative session for the benefit of one group – the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) which takes dues money from homecare workers’ paychecks. Like most government programs, it was designed to start small but expand rapidly into a very large bureaucracy full of more government employees who will be forced to pay dues to union bosses, who in turn shell out large contributions to Democrat candidates.

Shift wrote in April about this questionable use of taxpayer money for this PR disinformation effort, for it appears to be an attempt to improve the extremely negative response the plan has received from specific members of the (voting) public.  Democrat legislators are facing outrage from their constituents/voters and this advertising blitz appears designed to target groups (suburban women and those between the ages of 55 – 65) who will determine this year’s elections. This is clearly a taxpayer-funded campaign donation to Democrat legislators who are having a very difficult time defending their many disastrous decisions over the past few years.  It is yet another example (remember how Governor Inslee forced WA taxpayers to fund his 2020 failed presidential campaign) of how Democrats make taxpayers pay for things that that only benefit Democrat politicians.  Have we had enough yet?  (WA Cares Facebook ad, KING5 News, Shift, and KOMO News)

Washington State gas stations are preparing for $10 a gallon gasoline. Union 76 stations in Western Washington confirmed that many of their pumps have been reprogrammed to be able to display double digits in preparations for future price increases due to the Democrats’ national energy policies and Governor Inslee’s expensive and ineffective climate measures (Cap and Trade and Low Carbon Fuel Standards) which were passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature in 2021. The price impact of the governor’s climate measures will begin to hit Washington State gas pumps later this summer. (Postmillennial, KIRO7 News, and Seattle Times)

Governor Inslee made obviously false economic statements in a direct rebuke of Washington State families growing increasingly concerned about the cost of fuel and its impact on their household budgets. The governor was asked about the Republican proposal (originally introduced by new State Senator Simon Sefzik) to temporarily suspend the state’s 49.4 cent per gallon gas tax (second highest in the country) to help low- and moderate income workers who are facing financial insecurity due to the increasing cost of gas and the out-of-control inflation caused by failed Democrat economic policies. The governor responded that he does not support reducing the state’s gas tax because “if we simply eliminate the gas tax… the oil companies just increase their price up to the same pain point.”

Obviously the governor slept through his Econ 101 class in college, for it is a blatantly misinformed and false statement.  If Governor Inslee’s statement was true, why haven’t Washington State consumers been paying $5 for a gallon of gas for the past 20 years?   Why haven’t the oil companies raised their price of gas in states with lower gas taxes to the same level as Washington’s price?  Sadly, most members of the state’s media once again failed to challenge Governor Inslee on just another clearly false and partisan statement. (Jason Rantz Twitter of Governor Inslee’s comments and Shift Newsmaker Interview)

Liberal policies have allowed the homeless problem to grow to the point where Democrat officials can justify permanently increasing the size and cost of government by purchasing hotels, motels, and apartment buildings to provide housing and provide services to homeless individuals.  King County Executive Dow Constantine has purchased 10 hotels around the county to house homeless individuals. Yesterday, Governor Jay Inslee said state government will now do the same thing.  Similar to the out-of-control cost of higher education, liberal policies have created a problem which liberal politicians then use to justify increasing the size of government. (Northwest NewsRadio and Q13 Fox News)

Nearly all Western Washington food banks are seeing an increase in demand as Democrat policies have caused massive price increases for essential goods, which is devastating to the household budgets of fixed- and lower- income households. In a survey of food banks, 77 said they are experiencing an increase in demand since last year, eight saw a reduction, and four stated it was about the same. It was these households that Republican lawmakers sought to help during the recent legislative session by proposing to use the record-breaking state revenue surplus to make cuts in the state’s sales and gas taxes.  Democrat lawmakers chose to ignore the financial concerns of these individuals and families and instead used nearly all of the surplus funding to permanently increase the size and cost of state government.

We will use this opportunity to encourage our readers to either donate to or volunteer with your local food banks. As they seek to help a growing number of our neighbors, their costs are also impacted by inflation and increased transportation costs. (Crosscut)

The Edmonds City Council voted on Tuesday to ban camping on public property in order to avoid having the city’s homeless problem reach the tragic level it has in Seattle. The ordinance, which passed by a 5-to-2 vote requires the city to first offer available shelter within 35 miles of the city and it must provide 72-hour notice before confiscating any property. If the person refuses to go to the shelter, they will be subject to a misdemeanor charge which is punishable with a fine of up to $1,000 or 90 days in jail. City Councilmember Neil Tibbott said, “I’m very familiar with the encampments that I saw personally at Green Lake and Woodland Park. It just grew and grew and grew until Seattle decided to clear that out.” (MyNorthwest)

Nearly 20 months after Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best announced her resignation, Mayor Bruce Harrell announced that he has finally formed a search committee to hire someone to lead the depleted department. Some 14 individuals are on the committee which will be tasked with narrowing the applicants down to five finalists. It will be interesting to see if any qualified candidates from outside of Seattle would be interested in a job where the bosses (city council members) constantly put up roadblocks for law enforcement to protect citizens.  Applications for the position must be in by July 5^th. We should note that the City of Bellevue took seven months to hire a new permanent replacement for its police chief, while the City of Seattle has already taken over three times as long to even announce a committee to find its replacement chief.

We will note that the city is seeking input from citizens on the search for a new police chief and on public safety in general.  We encourage our readers to take the survey and let city leaders know the dissatisfaction you might have with the city’s failed public safety policies.  (Seattle Times, KING5 News, and Seattle Chief of Police Survey

It isn’t just in big cities where car thieves are fleeing police due to the failure of Democrat legislators to fix their pro-criminal anti-pursuit legislation.  The latest incident occurred in the Central Washington town of Royal City, which has population of approximately 1,800 and is about 15 miles southwest of Moses Lake.  Police Chief Rey Rodriguez responded to a report of suspicious behavior by a pickup truck driver.  Chief Rodriguez said the driver had no identification and when he was checking with radio dispatch the name the driver gave him, the driver sped off.  Because of the Democrats refusal to fix the anti-pursuit legislation during the 2022 legislative session, the police chief could not follow the truck, which was identified as being stolen. (NCW Life)

Washington State Democrat lawmakers stand alone with some of their far-Left actions, even among Democrats in other states.  1) The IRS and 49 other states categorize a capital gains tax as a tax on income. Yet, because an income tax is unconstitutional in Washington State, Washington Democrats are all alone in the country in mislabeling it an “excise” tax.  2) State legislatures across the country (even those controlled by Democrats) have placed time limits on the use of emergency powers – or ended them – yet Democrats in the Washington legislature could barely introduce a fake reform bill (which they even failed to pass) as Governor Inslee is now on Day 809 of abusing his “emergency” authority. 3)  Nearly all other states which generated a tax revenue surplus during the past year decided to provide some tax relief for their citizens. Yet when Democrats in Washington were given the chance to help lower- and middle- income households with a tax break during these inflationary times – when the state was running a record-breaking tax revenue surplus – they greedily decided to spend nearly all of the $15 billion surplus to make Washington State government permanently larger and more expensive. Washington Democrats are not only out of step with Washington residents, but they are also proving far more extreme than their Democrat counterparts in other states. (Click to read full Shift article

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