As the first full week of special session draws to an end, budget negotiations continue to move at a snail’s pace. During a media availability on Wednesday, Inslee said that both state House Democrats and state Senate Republicans have been “quite minimal in their approach,” but that both sides have exchanged their budgets.
If by “minimal” Inslee referred to Democrats’ incomplete spending package, his assessment would be correct. In any case, Democrats should count themselves lucky that Republicans have agreed to work with their ridiculous rough draft of a budget proposal.
Inslee went on to claim that he would “continue to encourage both sides to move toward each other.” That, of course, is not what Inslee has been doing. In fact, through the entirety of the budget negotiation process, Inslee has either blatantly sided with House Democrats—he went so far as to threaten to veto any budget that does not include new taxes—or pushed his own agenda. Inslee openly admitted he was in the process of doing the latter.
Inslee told reporters that he has been working with Democrat House Speaker Frank Chopp to bring his cap-and-tax scheme “back into the mix.” Inslee said he has had “some discussions on refining elements of that proposal” for the purpose of gearing it more toward job development. How Inslee proposes to gear a scheme that would lead to job losses to the tune of 56,000 toward “job development” is anyone’s guess. No doubt, whatever “solution” our green governor lands on will include false evidence and ridiculous assumptions.
Inslee just won’t give up on his extreme green agenda, even after he could not even garner enough support for his cap-and-tax scheme to pass the Democrat-controlled state House during the regular session. The reality is that Inslee is not helping the two sides “move toward each other.” Rather, he is injecting his highly partisan agenda into an already tense debate.
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