As if the Democrats’ debacle on its Long-Term Care payroll tax wasn’t confusing enough for employers and workers, a message sent today by the Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM) to many state workers is causing even more turmoil.  Governor Inslee and Democrat legislative leaders released a statement last Friday stating the controversial payroll tax will be delayed until at least April 2022, to allow Democrat legislators to cover their backsides while pretending to fix the multitude of problems with the “WA Cares” program.  This led nearly all employers to believe they did not need to collect the payroll tax when it was previously scheduled to commence on January 1, 2022.  But, noooo.  Today OFM sent a reminder to state employees that while the “program has been delayed, the underlying law hasn’t changed” and they will still collect the tax from employee paychecks. OFM stated that if the law is changed by the 2022 legislature with a later start date for collecting taxes, the state will reimburse employees for the amount taken from their paychecks.

This rases several thoughts.  First, due to the inflation caused by the Democrats’ uncontrolled spending at the federal and state level, this amounts to a slight pay decrease for state workers. It’s math even an economics major like Jay Inslee can understand: thanks to Democrat inflation, money taken from a paycheck in January will be worth less in April, if/when the unfair tax is returned to the employee.

But more importantly, this announcement by OFM causes more confusion for private sector employers.  Will the employer still be responsible for paying the tax even though Governor Inslee says it is being delayed? Will businesses have accounting problems due to being forced to withhold money from employee paychecks and then being forced to return that money should the legislature alter the law’s starting date?    The problems and confusion with the Long-Term Care tax just keep multiplying, making the Republican stance on the issue (repeal the entire program and tax) even more appealing.  (Olympia Watch Twitter, Governor Inslee media release, and House Republican Caucus media release)

A bi-partisan bill was proposed to eliminate some of the deadline delay tactics the Democrats used as the Washington State Redistricting Commission worked to complete its tasks.  Brady Walkinshaw, the commissioner appointed by the Democrat Senate caucus, used delay tactics as he attempted to remove the public and Republicans from the redistricting process by having the commission miss its deadline.  Walkinshaw’s strategy, one used by far-Left Democrats across the country this year, was to hand redistricting decisions to the nine liberal judges of the Washington State Supreme Court. Unfortunately for Walkinshaw and the Democrats, the members of the court displayed some restraint by ruling that the maps approved by the commissioners after the deadline will stand.

Senator Jamie Pederson (D – Seattle) and Senator Jeff Wilson (R – Longview) sponsored a bill (SB 5560) which would force the commission to make its “redistricting plan publicly available at least 72 hours before voting to approve the plan” and that “at least 24 hours must pass after any amendments are adopted before the commission may vote on final approval of the plan.” (Washington Legislature Bill Summary, Shift, and Washington State Supreme Court order)

Brandi Kruse had hard-hitting criticism for Governor Jay Inslee’s proposal for spending $800 million of other people’s money on the homeless crisis.  Kruse was first critical of the governor’s assertion that the lack of affordable housing was the primary cause for the growing homeless problem.  Kruse pointed out that “we have a mental health crisis and a drug crisis, and no amount of affordable housing will fix that.”  She also pointed out that, under Inslee’s alleged “leadership”, the state’s largest mental facility (Western State Hospital) lost its federal certification due to poor administration by Inslee’s team.  Kruse also revealed that it is “baffling” that only $46.8 million of the $800 the governor proposed to solve the crisis is designated for behavioral services.

After the governor boasted about the significant increase in state funding he has spent on the homeless issue, Kruse responded, “Not sure who told the governor it was a good idea to brag about spending more and more on a crisis that’s gotten worse and worse.”  As Shift has repeatedly pointed out, on issues such as carbon reduction, housing, drug addiction, public safety, and homelessness, it appears the Democrats’ strategy is to use the problem to throw as much money as possible into increasing the size and cost of government, without actually ever solving the problem.  As the governor once again demonstrated, an unsolved problem allows liberals to keep increasing taxes and increasing the size and cost of government. ([un]Divided Facebook video and Seattle Times)

It only took thousands of citizen complaints and hundreds of media stories, but the City of Seattle has finally begun removing the encampments, garbage, and broken-down vehicles which have made Green Lake and Woodland Park unusable for Seattle residents for over a year.  Yet, while liberal government officials have used the homeless crisis to significantly expand their public housing programs (in part by purchasing hotels to house some homeless individuals), many of those who have been residing in Green Lake encampments have packed up some of their non-garbage belongings and simply moved their problem to other locations.  Thus the liberals have reached a nirvana where they have successfully used the pain caused by crisis (both by those who are homeless and those whose neighborhoods were negatively impacted by the encampments) to permanently increase the size and cost of government, while not actually reducing the problem. (Seattle Times)

Two separate government entities are refusing to investigate a person paid to lead the effort to remove residents from the Bitter Lake homeless encampment, on Seattle Public School (SPS) property next to Broadview-Thomsen K-8 School, who shared drugs with a female resident and threatened retribution if she exposed his activities.  SPS hired Mike Mathias to coordinate the effort to help remove homeless individuals, without investigating his background.  He was provided with housing vouchers by the King County Regional Housing Authority (KCRHA) to give to residents.  Mathias then admitted he convinced a woman to give him meth and she stated that he threatened her if she informed anyone of his illegal actions.  Now neither the SPS nor KCRHA is interested in investigating the matter, to determine if more illegal activity took place and to install safeguards to make sure something similar doesn’t occur in the future.  Just another great example of government accountability brought to us by the leaders of the liberal establishment. (MyNorthwest)

A poll of 1200 Idaho, Oregon, and Washington residents revealed that, by a 60% – 17% margin,  they believe the four Snake River dams and the clean energy they provide should remain in place.  Wealthy Seattle and Portland-area environmental groups have ignored and misrepresented scientific evidence to target the Snake River’s hydroelectric dams for destruction. One of their latest ploys is stating incorrectly that dam destruction will improve conditions for Orca whales by increasing salmon runs in Puget Sound.

The latest poll was conducted by Northwest RiverPartners, whose executive director stated, “Today’s survey results ultimately demonstrate that Pacific Northwest residents understand the integral role hydropower plays in supporting our clean energy grid and fish recovery and our policy leaders should take note.” (Tri-City Herald)

The Washington State Democrat Party used a strange collection of incumbent liberals they want to protect in their latest attempt to fill their coffers before the end of the year.  In a fundraising email they state, “Senator Patty Murray, our new Democratic Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, (and) Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal” will “all be fighting for reelection next year.”  We can agree that both Senator Murray and Secretary Hobbs are very vulnerable, but why did the state Democrats include Representative Jayapal as someone who is “fighting for reelection?”

Representative Jayapal is one of the safest members of congress in the country. The central core of her Seattle-based district just two weeks ago refused to recall a Socialist city councilmember who knowingly broke the law on multiple occasions and is a vocal proponent of the rapid decay of the city.  In 2020, Representative Jayapal won 83% of the vote against a Republican challenger and she currently has nearly $2.5 million sitting in her campaign bank account.  

But most of all, the local media is apparently afraid to report anything critical about the Congresswoman, and refuses to mention that she was featured in a national news story where an unprecedented 18 current and former staffers went to the media to complain about her abusive behavior and that she ran a very dysfunctional office with incredibly high staff turnover. (Washington State Democrat Party fundraising email, Recall Sawant election results, Secretary of State 2020 election results, Federal Election Commission Jayapal financial summary, and Buzzfeed)

Governor Jay Inslee said it was “asinine” for anyone to ask him about the repetitive failure of his previous climate policies.  It is worth remembering (even if he doesn’t think so) that the governor’s earlier environmental efforts were failing so poorly that the state scrubbed them from his “Results Washington” webpage prior to the launch of his failed five-month presidential campaign.  Ironically, the governor now uses his past failures as the main reason why the state should spend even more money and give him even more regulatory control, so that he can fail even more spectacularly. (Click to read full Shift article)

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