Inslee, confused or lying about extreme green agenda?

Either Jay Inslee is confused about his own extreme plan to regulate carbon emissions or he has been lying about it all along. If the former is true, it wouldn’t be the first time Inslee was confused—and it most certainly won’t be the last. If the latter is true than, earlier this week, Inslee inadvertently revealed the truth… and his lie.

While touring the state to promote his extreme environmental agenda, Inslee “floated the idea that the state could get new revenue for projects like flood control by regulating carbon emissions.” Additionally, Inslee suggested that “a system like a carbon cap-and-trade program could even help fund a state Supreme Court mandate to add billions of dollars in state education spending.” Inslee stated,

“The reason that I remain optimistic that we will be able to succeed in financing our McCleary [Supreme Court] decision with carbon pollution, is more and more legislators are understanding the connection… and the way to skin two cats or three cats with the same program.”

There’s only one problem with Inslee’s optimism. According to Inslee, his various carbon schemes are revenue neutral. In fact, only last week, Crosscut reported, “When Inslee called for exploring taxes on carbon emissions, he wanted all proposals to be “revenue-neutral,” meaning ways would be found to trim a corresponding amount of taxes elsewhere.” Yet, this week, Inslee is discussing using the revenue—which, under a revenue neutral plan, should not exist—to pay for government spending on education and water projects.

SHIFT recently pointed out how the true impact of Inslee’s extreme green agenda on the state’s economy is being deliberately manipulated by his administration bureaucrats who are developing those same plans. In fact, Inslee’s own economists recently admitted that they have “no confidence” in their projections about what Inslee’s green agenda will do to the state. However, what could be stated with confidence is that revenue neutral claims are false. Especially, as SHIFT stated, when considering the fact that Inslee’s plan promises to use 35% of “the revenue is used for government programs, either in the General Fund or for the Working Families Tax Credit” and that 5% of the tax would go for “administration.”

Before Inslee starts skinning cats, he should first come clean about how much his extreme environmental agenda will costs taxpayers. One thing is increasingly clear: Inslee’s carbon plans (both tax and cap-and-trade) are not revenue neutral.