How much will Inslee’s gas tax scheme cost you next July 4th?

If you’ve been watching closely – as we have at Shift – you can see the beginnings of another Jay Inslee campaign to raise your taxes. To see just how much this might cost you, take a look at our “gas tax calculator” to see how much extra you will get to pay Jay to take your July 4^th weekend trip in 2015.

Inslee had been relatively quiet about his secret scheme – first uncovered two months ago by Shift after obtaining some of his staff’s internal emails – to raise gas taxes next year. Perhaps he was embarrassed a bit after he was mocked for asking everyone to “just calm down” on a radio show where he attacked Shift for exposing his secret scheme.

Evidently he has gotten over that embarrassment, as he launched his tax-raising offensive last week, organizing the usual suspects to coordinate getting the word out to his liberal base that he wasn’t giving up on his extreme environmental agenda just because it had become public before this year’s elections. Consider the timeline of Jay’s latest campaign:

June 24 – It is leaked that one of Jay’s favorite reporters (read “willing to write a press release for Jay”) will be breathlessly producing a major story: Inslee “expects to unveil a preliminary idea on how to tackle carbon emissions in Washington soon.” Of course, by “soon” the reporter means more than a month away, but time is relative when one gets such a “scoop.”

June 25 – Now that gas tax scheme plan is back in the media, Jay follows up with an appearance on KCTS 9’s “Ask the Governor,” where he lets everyone know he is just being a reasonable guy, going slow, taking his time – but he won’t be raising gas prices by too much: “We are not going to be jacking up anyone’s gas prices by a dollar a gallon…we are looking at right now, in a very reasonable fashion… taking our time, ways to have caps on carbon…”

June 28 – The story is out, but now Jay needs to avoid getting blamed for wanting to raise gas prices. What better way than to go on the attack? So he sends out a campaign email, and starts the attack on anyone who would dare question the “preliminary idea” he will release “soon,” suggesting any dissent is the work of “climate-denying billionaires” that only want “to elect politicians who protect the big-time polluters.”

June 30 – Not content with one attack email, Inslee sends out a second one, telling his campaign supporters they can “show the climate deniers — people that are committed to spending millions to stop climate action – that you’re not backing down.” And how can they show that – by giving him money of course!

June 30 – And now that Jay has prepared the ground for his tax-raising campaign, his “amen corner” of environmental extremists (the pleasantly-named Environmental Priorities Coalition”) take up the singing, with an email asking people to sign a petition supporting Jay’s “low carbon fuel standard” to raise gas prices in our state. Evidently you, too, can “Declare you independence from Big Oil – Support a Clean Fuels Standard today!”

To keep the campaign going, the petition that people are duped into signing – according to the extremists Jay’s gas tax scheme “will reduce costs, stimulate growth in the local economy” by increasing gas prices and slowing down the economy – is hosted by the liberal online attack group fusewashington.org, so they can expect plenty of emails in the coming months attacking anyone who dares oppose the Inslee Increase.