Given how much Jay Inslee talks about climate change – and boy, he loves to talk about climate change – it’s sometimes hard to remember that there are other parts of his job besides climate change.
Like the state budget.
Our “green” governor actually did some talking about that on TVW over the weekend, an interview notable for the way that Inslee totally ignored the fact that he has included tax increases in each of the three budgets he has proposed so far. And, he concluded the last session by saying there was no question we needed “more revenue”, his code phrase for higher taxes.
He actually told reporter Austin Jenkins at TVW that he’d backed off his income tax proposal for capital gains this year when revenue forecasters told him during the session that the economy was improving.
“And when we didn’t need it, we didn’t use it,” Inslee said. “If you don’t need it, you shouldn’t put it on the books.”
Seriously, the same guy who had proposed “arguably the largest — friends say boldest — tax-and-spend proposal of any governor in state history” prior to the 2015 session, including an income tax and a cap-and-tax plan – which even the Democrat State House wouldn’t vote on – said “If you don’t need it, you shouldn’t put it on the books.”
The same guy who proposed a so-called low-carbon fuel standard, which could have raised gas prices anywhere from a dime to more than $1 or more a gallon (depending on which consultant you believe), said “If you don’t need it, you shouldn’t put it on the books.”
That’s right the same guy who in 2014 proposed a tax on recycled fuel and a tax on bottle water previously rejected by voters, among a variety of other tax increases, said “If you don’t need it, you shouldn’t put it on the books.”
And remember, in his first session back in 2013, he wanted to raise taxes on small businesses, by making permanent a “temporary” tax the legislature had imposed during the last recession. Now he says that “If you don’t need it, you shouldn’t put it on the books.”
Of course, Jenkins noted that Inslee he was singing a different tune when he was actually campaigning for office back in 2012, that’s when he said “I would veto anything that heads the wrong direction and the wrong direction is new taxes.”
Given how hard Inslee is trying to spin now about his never-ending effort to raise taxes, perhaps he has forgotten which direction he’s going.
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