Inslee likes sports quotes – how ‘bout 3 strikes, you’re out?

To use an analogy he might understand, Jay Inslee is like a baseball player who came up to the plate with big ideas, but ended up back in the dugout after striking out on three pitches.

Inslee’s priorities: a new state income tax, on capital gains (strike 1). A new cap-and-tax plan to raise money to pay for state employee pay raises – strike 2. Jamming through a fuel mandate (and by executive order, not legislative vote) to raise the price of gasoline – strike 3.

Or, another sports reference he might get, Inslee is like a basketball player who has lost a step or two. He still thinks he can drive to the basket. But, every time he does, younger and better players reject the shot.

Yet, like every “player” who has reached that point in his life, Inslee still thinks he’s got game. So, he claims he is having an impact even when he’s obviously failing.

That’s what the budget news sounded like over the weekend. Inslee – with the bizarre help of a Seattle Times news article that read like a Democrat press release—claimed he had a positive impact on the final state budget. A closer examination of the final state budget—which passed yesterday evening—verifies Inslee’s claim is false.

The final budget looks a lot more like the one that Senator Andy Hill and his Republican colleagues passed in April, than the one that Jay Inslee proposed in December – or the one State House Democrats proposed in March. Both of them contained $1 billion-plus in new taxes, and those – thankfully for the citizens of Washington – are gone.

Rejected, as Inslee drove to the basket, by the better players you might say.