Today’s Daily Briefing will be our last one until after the start of the new year, as the Shift Team celebrates our Christmas holidays with family and friends.  If something noteworthy occurs during the next couple of weeks, we will certainly provide coverage (keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter feeds), but for the most part we plan to do a little traveling, some shopping, watching football (Go Dawgs! and Go Cougs!) and being with our families.

We wish all of you a very happy holiday season!  We also thank all of you for your continued support as the Daily Briefing continues to be the largest daily political newsletter in the Pacific Northwest.  We look forward to returning in January 2023, and providing you with the inside story behind our state’s political news. Cheers to all of you!

Shift’s Newsmaker Interview is with Senator Curtis King (R – Yakima), who discusses the Republican’s “Power Washington” package to meet our state’s future energy needs in a more comprehensive way than the reckless and very expensive piecemeal ideas the Democrats have put forth.  Leading legislative Democrats admit they don’t know how they are going to provide enough clean energy for the state while meeting emission goals that were passed without any funding for achieving them. One of the Democrats’ “leaders” on energy issues, Senator Marko Liias (D – Edmonds), recently made the embarrassing admission about the Democrats’ energy strategy: “As often in public life, we’re building an airplane while we’re flying it.”

Republicans have taken a more organized and less ideological “all-of-the-above” approach to our state’s energy challenges. Senator King outlines the key elements of the Power Washington package and how it is more practical and reliable than the Democrats’ plans.  He discusses the Republicans’ firm commitment to the reliable and clean energy of hydroelectric power and the need to keep making improvements to sustain the growing salmon populations in the Columbia and Snake River basin.  The Republican’s Transportation Committee leader describes how the GOP energy plan will ease the financial burden the Democrats have unfairly placed on lower-income households.  Senator King criticizes Governor Inslee and Democrat legislators for removing local control over the placement of large solar and wind farms which will destroy habitat for threatened species and further reduce our farmlands.  The senator also outlines how the state will need to increase its reliability on nuclear energy and continue to lead the country in the development of hydrogen power. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

On Wednesday afternoon Governor Jay Inslee released his 2023 – 2025 biennial state budget proposal, which revealed his (usual) big-spending priorities for the legislative session (and your tax dollars).  And to no one’s surprise, the governor’s top priority is to continue to increase the size and cost of state government. The $70.4 billion budget is an incredible 125% larger than the state budget was in 2013, when Inslee first came into office, and even 12% larger than last year.  By not proposing any tax relief in his budget proposal, the governor again showed he had little concern for the economic anxiety lower-income households are currently facing due to liberal inflationary policies and the governor’s expensive energy policies.  While the state’s construction industry was pleased the governor has finally realized the state’s housing supply has reached a crisis level, they provide many suggestions as to how the state can better meet its housing needs. (Please click to read full Shift article)

Governor Inslee explained that the primary reason why he failed to include any tax breaks that would benefit lower- and middle- income households in his just released budget proposal is because some wealthy state resident might pay slightly lower taxes as well.  Republicans have offered several tax relief measures aimed to help those on either a fixed or lower incomes.  These have included measures to use the billions in surplus state tax revenue to reduce or suspend the state’s sales and gas taxes.  Cutting these taxes would benefit far more those workers on a lower income, since they will spend a greater percentage of their income on those necessities.  Yet Governor Inslee and Democrat lawmakers have repeatedly rejected these tax relief measures, as well as others.  They have even rejected the idea to eliminate the sales tax on diapers (evidently the governor didn’t want all those ultra-wealthy single moms to receive a tax break).

The ironic thing is that the state budget continues to provide many benefits to one wealthy Washington State resident – Governor Jay Inslee. The governor is currently the 6^th-highest paid state executive in the country, pulling down over $190,000 a year.  He is also drawing a six-figure pension from his 14 years in Congress. Taxpayers have funded his luxurious trips abroad with his wife, where they fly first class, rent expensive villas, and are chauffeured around in rented sedans as they hobnob with other wealthy people at exclusive receptions.  He also forced Washington State taxpayers to fund the unnecessary security for his failed 2020 presidential campaign. So if the governor is concerned about state actions benefiting a wealthy person, shouldn’t he refund all of the expenditures which benefit him – a wealthy person?

The reality that the governor’s campaign continues to beg donors for more money and it could well afford to pay back the state for his expensive travel and security, but instead the governor’s campaign uses the money to pay the high monthly retainer fees of his political consultants while stashing hundreds of thousands pf dollars into “surplus accounts.”

Also, the governor has benefited personally from the rapid growth of state government funded by the state taxpayers. As the government increases the number of state employees, the government employee union bosses are able to take more dues from state workers’ paychecks.  The unions then fund Democrat campaigns, like those of the governor and Democrat state legislators.  Thus, when the governor chose to use the state’s surplus tax funds to increase the number of state employees and give them their fifth pay raise in four years, instead of providing tax relief to lower-income families, he was selfishly doing this so that government unions could send more money to help elect Democrats like him.  (Washington Policy Center/TVW, The Center Square, Seattle Times and Shift)

Evidently some Democrat lawmakers don’t believe the state has gone far enough to make our state comfortable for criminals, as they are now proposing legislation to eliminate police officers from pulling over drivers for certain violations.  Local officials and police departments across the state agree that the Democrats placing severe restrictions on police pursuits and detaining suspects has created conditions which have embolden criminal activity.  Car thefts have nearly doubled, with an average of 123 vehicles being stolen every day in Washington State

Extremely liberal Senator Joe Nguyen (D – West Seattle) is actually floating an idea to eliminate police from pulling over those drivers breaking the law with expired tabs, broken tail or headlights, and other seemingly minor violations. Evidently the senator is unconcerned about having thousands of unsafe cars with broken lights or bald tires on our streets, putting other drivers (and their passengers) in danger.  And while he and his Democrat colleagues continue to raise the price of car tabs, Senator Nguyen (the newly selected chair of the Senate’s Energy Committee)  only believes responsible members of our state should pay them, while thousands of irresponsible residents are allowed to drive carefree without them being at risked of being stopped by police. (MyNorthwest/News Tribune and YouTube/Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office)

The Inslee Administration is keeping secret the findings of three taxpayer-funded reports on the state’s embattled prison system.  Crosscut has sought the reports through public records requests, but what they have received is pages that are nearly all blacked out due to redactions. The three reports Crosscut is seeking to obtain (on the use of emergency restraints, poor health care, and disciplinary programs) are among the seven reports the Inslee Administration has shelved and not allowed the public or members of the media to see. (Crosscut)

A Vancouver police officers who is focused on helping people get off drugs blames the Democrats’ efforts to essentially decriminalize possession of lethal drugs as the primary reason why fentanyl use has increased and is now responsible for the steep increase in overdose deaths. Office Tyler Chavers said that SB 5476 (the Democrats’ 2021 law which charges those who possess such dangerous drugs as fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamines with a meaningless misdemeanor only after the first two times they are caught) for the increases fentanyl overdose deaths. “Decriminalization has just made it so that they’re not afraid of any kind of criminal charge,” said Officer Chavers. “So I literally have had people smoking in front of me.” Officer Chavers adds that the legislature needs to make possession of these harmful drugs a felony, so officers and the courts have the leverage of drug treatment as an option for offenders. (Vancouver Columbian and Washington Legislature Bill Summary)

The City of Yakima is asking officials at the Washington State Department of Transportation if expanding the Yakima airport couldn’t be part of the solution to relieve congestion at SeaTac airport.  The state’s Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission recently recommended that both SeaTac and Paine Field (Everett) expand their capabilities and that a third airport is needed to accommodate the projected increased number of air passengers in the coming decades.  Proposals for sites in Pierce and Thurston counties have been met with protests, which led to Yakima officials exploring the option of expanding their airport, since it has plenty of open space nearby to expand on.  City Manager Bob Harrison said that the sites on the western side of the state appear less viable then originally believed and “The Yakima airport layout and land near the layout would provide an opportunity to expand the runway that would allow for any class of airplane to land and take off.” (Yakima Herald)

Chelan County Commissioners urged the federal government to abandon plans to release grizzly bears in the North Cascades. In a letter to the National Park Service, the three local commissioners wrote that they oppose the reintroduction proposal because of “the likely negative impacts to public safety, economic development, recreation opportunities and the overall livelihood of our rural communities.”  The Trump Administration had scrapped plans to reintroduce the bears into the mountain range, but wealthy urban environmental groups have convinced the Biden Administration to move forward on the plan. (NCW Life Channel)

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