The far-left activists over at Fuse Washington thought it would be pretty funny to pull a publicity stunt meant to attack state Senate Republicans—and more specifically continue their attacks on Sen. Andy Hill—for actually producing a balanced budget. Fuse’s topic of humor was, rather distastefully, marijuana.
Last week, Fuse held a “Half-Baked Sale” at the Capitol in Olympia. Fuse recently boasted, “Since Hill made it our paramount duty to smoke pot, we offered Doritos, Oreos, Mt. Dew, and other pot-friendly munchies to support Washingtonians who want to do their part for schools.” The reference is to Republicans prioritizing tax revenue from recreational marijuana sales for education.
Fuse accuses Republicans’ budget of relying on “risky pot money” to fund education. It calls the GOP budget “pretty laughable.”
Oh, if only Fuse could see the irony of it all. They describe Republicans’ budget as “half-baked.” Yet, Republicans passed a complete and balanced budget. Democrats, on the other hand, passed a truly half-baked budget. Since they refuse to pass the tax bills needed to pay for their spending, Democrats’ budget is not a real budget… it’s merely a spending package.
Moreover, Democrats’ half-baked budget relies heavily on a volatile capital gains income tax—the ultimate risky tax that they have yet to even vote for—to fund their spending. It’s not too long ago that Fuse praised House Democrats for making a capital gains income tax the “centerpiece” of their budget.
As Shift previously pointed out, the history of the state capital gains income tax in other states proves its volatility. California’s Legislative Budget Office (LAO) advised that the best way for the state to limit exposure to “to the kind of extreme revenue volatility experienced in the past decade would be to reduce its dependence on the source of income that produced the greatest portion of this revenue volatility—namely, capital gains…” Standard & Poor’s warned that state tax revenue trends have become “volatile as progressive tax states have come to rely more heavily on capital gains from top earners.”
Volatility is not the only characteristic of the “centerpiece” of Democrats’ budget that makes it unreliable. A state capital gains income tax is just another form of a state income tax. If classified as an income tax (and not an excise tax, as Democrats claim), the proposed state capital gains income tax is unconstitutional. Democrats may well be basing their budget on a tax that will, in the future, be ruled unconstitutional.
Fuse sent its supporters a picture their “Half-Baked Sale” asking them to share in order to spread the word. Well, we’ve decided to share it… but only to revel in the true humor of it all: the irony. You can check out the picture—which feature Rep. Reuven Carlyle no less—below.
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