King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn is Shift’s Newsmaker Interview as we complete our series of speaking with the three Republican candidates challenging two-term incumbent Democrat U.S. Representative Kim Schrier in the 8^th Congressional District.  Dunn is a former federal prosecutor and was just elected to his fifth term serving on the King County Council.  He is the son of former Washington State Party Chair and six-term U.S. Representative Jennifer Dunn.   Councilmember Dunn blames the current inflation on “out-of-control spending in Washington D.C.” and states that voters need “to elect fiscally responsible leaders to Congress,” in order to recover from this economic crisis.  (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

“Repeal the Capital Gains Income Tax” barely beat out “Reduce Criminal Coddling” in our Holiday Madness Match-up contest.  After thousands of Shift readers participated in our contest/survey, those who believe the Democrats’ unconstitutional state income tax on capital gains should be repealed barely edged out the liberals’ coddling of criminals for being the action by the majority party Shift readers believe should be reversed.  Thank you to all who participated, and decided the outcome by just one percentage point, 50.5% to 49.5%. With the start of the 2022 legislative session just a few weeks away, we are certain more expensive and ineffective liberal policies will rise up, and Shift will be there to keep you informed.  (Holiday Madness Match-up Contest)

Republican state lawmakers expressed their disappointment in Governor Jay Inslee’s divisive actions of using some of the state’s $8.8 BILLION DOLLAR revenue surplus to provide pay raises (the third in two years) to state employees, while refusing to provide any tax relief to Washington State residents.  The governor released his record-breaking supplemental budget proposal on Thursday, and he failed to include any type of tax reductions.  Even a small sales tax reduction, which would have benefited low-income workers and those on fixed incomes the most, was beneath Inslee’s consideration. The governor is just fine with even more Washingtonians falling behind due to the rampant inflation caused by the liberals’ out-of-control spending measures from the federal government on down.

Representative Drew Stokesbary (R – Auburn), the Ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, said, “(I)t is disappointing, though not surprising, to see that the governor’s budget proposal does not include any tax relief for the families who have struggled through the pandemic and who are now experiencing the highest rate of inflation since 1982. Instead, the governor wants to spend our entire surplus on growing state government even more.” (Washington House Republican Caucus media release)

While Governor Inslee refused to provide tax relief which to help low-income households and fixed-income individuals the most, he did support spending millions more of the surplus revenue on projects to benefit his wealthy contributors in extreme environmental groups.  Jason Mercier of the Washington Policy Center lists many of these political payback projects which are included in the governor’s supplemental budget.  Among them are $350,000 to complete an “analysis” of options to replace the benefits of the four lower Snake River dams, $852,000 for the Attorney General’s Office to prosecute environmental crimes, and $200,000 to hire someone within the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to integrate climate change indoctrination content into the Washington State learning standards across subject areas and grade levels.

It is doubtful the many of the partisan hires Governor Inslee wants to make with the surplus revenue will last for just the remaining year of this budget cycle.  Instead, each one will permanently increase the size and cost of the state budget into the future, which is how Governor Inslee and his major campaign donors like to roll. (WPC Center for Government Reform Facebook page)

Governor Inslee and Democrat legislative leaders released a statement Friday morning admitting that their Long-Term Care insurance payroll tax is a colossal failure and have “delayed” collection of the tax until legislators have “the opportunity to make refinements” to the poorly crafted measure, which has already caused headaches for hundreds of thousands of Washington workers.  After the governor held numerous highly publicized media events this week to announce his various expensive and ineffective climate, homeless, and supplemental budget proposals, State Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig (Spokane), House Speaker Laurie Jinkins (Tacoma), and Inslee hid behind an emailed statement (released on a Friday before the holidays) to admit their expensive new government entitlement program is a bust.

More than 442,000 Washington workers have sought an exemption from the tax by purchasing hard-to-obtain private insurance coverage.  Hundreds of thousands more attempted to do the same.  Meanwhile workers within 10 years of retirement, those who plan to retire in other states, and those who reside in neighboring states but work for Washington companies, were frustrated they were being forced to pay for another entitlement program which they would not ever be legible to receive themselves.  Lawsuits and an initiative campaign have been filed to repeal the tax, and reports of the program already being insolvent have also plagued the program.  To say it simply needs “refinement” might be the political understatement of the year.  Republican legislative leaders have called for the tax to be totally repealed.  (Governor Inslee media release, Olympia watch Twitter, Forbes, Initiative 1436, and Shift)

The Seattle Public Schools (SPS) has by far the least efficient bus service of any school district in Washington State, despite it serving the most densely populated community.  This is yet another example of the significant waste of taxpayer dollars by those in liberal-run government entities.  According to data collected by the Seattle Times, from the Office of Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Seattle district spent $3,306.80 per rider, while the next closest district (Edmonds) spent $1,940.70. That is an amazing 70.4% greater cost!

The Evergreen School District (Clark County) transport just 500 fewer students than the SPS in a far less densely populated community for just $1,459.58 per student, which is far less than half of what Seattle pays.  While bureaucrats at all levels of government are paid to conduct various meaningless studies, the region’s liberal education establishment has decided not to conduct an “efficiency review” of SPS’ transportation spending.  One state bureaucrat was either ignorant or bold when she claimed “SPS is considered 100% efficient, they’re an outlier, there are no other districts to compare them to.” (Seattle Times)

Five months after Governor Inslee claimed he “won the Super Bowl” against COVID, the threat of more outbreaks has caused several area schools to close.  When asked in early July why he undemocratically continued to deny legislators and local officials appropriate input on COVID-related measures, Governor Inslee bragged, “Not sure why you would want to reform, when you have won the Super Bowl.” Yet this week Seattle’s Franklin and Cleveland High Schools and suburban Bothell High School have all suddenly closed due to outbreaks.

Remember it was over a year ago when the governor kept telling us that the “science” he said guided him required obtaining 70% immunization of all state residents over 18 for us to put the pandemic behind us. Yet, as of last weekend, 81.7% of state residents older than 12 have received at least one shot and 75.3% are fully vaccinated. Thus the science the governor was using was clearly wrong.  Maybe if the governor allowed other, less partisan voices into the discussion, better science could be used, and thus better decisions could be made. But then Inslee might have to give back his Super Bowl ring. (Seattle Times and Washington State Department of Health Immunization Dashboard)

Law enforcement and elected officials from South King County met to discuss the recent dramatic increase in crime in their region since the passage of the Democrats’ anti-police measures during the 2021 legislative session. Many of the jurisdictions are reporting record-breaking crime figures.  Law enforcement is having to spend more money on gang-related activities to combat their exploitation of the severe restrictions liberal lawmakers placed on police officers.  These problems will not be easily or quickly solved.  Des Moines Police Chief Ken Thomas stated it’s going to take at least one or two years to start making a lasting sustainable impact on the damage the legislation has done. (FOX13 News)

A vulgar political statement made by a subcontractor employee at a Moses Lake construction site for a new high school has caused a flurry of apologetic statements and investigations.  A banner which read “FJB” (which is considered an acronym for F**k Joe Biden) was raised on a steel beam placed at the top of the construction site. The banner was immediately taken down, but that did not end the controversy.  The contractor and Moses Lake School District immediately issued apologies and stated they would fully investigate the matter. (iFIBER One)

A new Shift Newsmaker Interview with John Yoo, one of the featured speakers at the 2022 Roanoke Conference.  Yoo is a Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also a Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.   He has written 10 books and more than 100 articles on a broad array of subjects, and his most recent book, “Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power,” states that President Trump was aggressive in defending executive power, but well within the precedents established by previous administrations. The 13^th Annual Roanoke Conference will be held January 28-30, 2022, at the Ocean Shores Convention Center. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

BABYLONBEE FRIDAY!

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