For such a “green” governor, one might think that Jay Inslee would avoid some energy sources. But based on what Washington taxpayers found in their stockings – “hung by the chimney with care” – on Christmas morning, such is not the case.
So this week, Shift will put its spotlight on just how Inslee – re-elected after a campaign in which he never talked about raising taxes – is ignoring the voters who regretfully put him back in office. And how the lamest duck in the state – since he is thankfully never expected to run for public office again – decided to put lumps of coal in the stockings of all taxpayers in the state, so he could reward his big campaign donors in the state budget he proposed December 13.
The biggest “lump of coal” was the tax-raising budget itself which Inslee introduced. Today we pick up on a story which the Seattle Times ran on Christmas, under the online headline “Inslee seeks biggest business-tax increase in decades to fund schools.”
It’s unfortunate that the Times reporters – and editorial writers who sort of praised Inslee’s “bold” budget” – didn’t actually point out the basic truth about Inslee’s tax-raising plans. They would have done their readers a service had they published that, since public schools are the state’s “paramount duty” under the constitution, the state has plenty of money to fund public schools.
The reality is that the state budget revenue is growing – over $2 billion dollars for the next budget. If Inslee simply put the new and growing revenue towards public schools – and funded education first in the budget, as it should be – taxes would not be needed.
However, if Jay did that, he could not really reward the special interests – public employees, the WEA, and environmental groups, to name a few – who have put millions of dollars into his campaigns.
So, instead he proposed a “jumbo two-year budget wish list” which even the Times admits “would boost taxes on tens of thousands of service-industry businesses, affecting everything from law firms and bookkeepers to beauty shops, janitors, musical groups and funeral parlors.”
In the coming days we will look at Inslee’s specific tax proposals – all of which have been rejected by voters at the polls in recent years.
But, for today, just remember that the tax-increase lump of coal that Jay Inslee gave you was completely unnecessary.
The reality which even the Times wants to ignore is that the state has money it needs to fully fund public schools. Inslee needs tax increases to cover big pay raises to public employees, giving state money to environmental groups he likes, and growing the size of state government.
And for that, just following the Democrat Party tradition of promising not to raise taxes and then proposing new taxes after an election, some at the Times consider him “bold”.
Others might consider him dishonest.
Pat says
Same stuff. It doesn’t matter how much money is in the state budget, the politicians are going to ignore the ‘paramount duty of state government’ as demanded in our state constitution: fully fund education. And, the very liberal state supreme court has endorsed that responsibility with the McCleary decision. There is plenty of money without new taxes, but, the democrats (led by our tax lover in chief) under Jay Inslee just want more and more tax money. Some old stuff-nothing new and certainly no leadership from our guv!!!
stephen e. hansen qualys says
inslee sounds like a perfect fit for silicon valley, or should i say shitcan valley, where i was fired for being too republican.