Now that state tax revenues are skyrocketing ($8 million more than projected), Democrats refuse to commit to a tax break for Washington residents.
Newsmaker Interview
This week’s special Newsmaker Interview is with our good friend, former Congressman Rod Chandler. Rod earned a reputation as a highly respected television journalist (on KOMO TV) and state legislator before becoming the first representative from Washington State’s 8th Congressional District (1983 – 1993). After his public service, Rod worked as a lobbyist and then a schoolteacher and baseball coach. Rod and his wife Joyce have lived in Nevada, Colorado, and Oregon before moving back to Washington State last year. His love of nature comes through in his amazing photography. (Rod’s pictures are featured every Monday in Shift’s Daily Briefing.) In his interview, Rod provides an update on his life, gives advice to those interested in photography, describes how politics and journalism have changed in the past decade, why he joined with many former and current Republican officials to oppose President Trump’s re-election, and who he would like to see lead the Republican Party in 2024. Rod also provides a history lesson by sharing the interesting story on how Seattle’s Convention Center is connected to Washington State’s apple maggot quarantine laws. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)
State
Democrat legislators appear reluctant to provide a tax break to Washington residents despite official forecasts showing a revenue increase of more than $8 billion over previous projections. While Republican legislators view the latest state forecasts as an opportunity to help Washington families, liberal lawmakers are licking their chops and figuring out how to spend the extra money to increase the size and power of state government. Many states across the country, even in the liberal strongholds of California and Oregon, have returned some of their surplus revenues back to the taxpayers
Yet, here in Washington State, Democrats offer nothing for our residents, while at the same time continuing to fight the legal challenges to the unconstitutional state income tax they passed during the 2021 legislative session. Jason Mercier of the Washington Policy Center makes a good point when he states the “revenue forecast provides lawmakers an opportunity to…finally provide some broad-based tax relief. If they were only to just do a portion of that in sales tax relief, you would still be able to have a significant amount in reserves while signaling to Washingtonians there is a direction for taxes in Washington that always doesn’t go up. If not now, when?” Unfortunately, while Democrats are in control, the needs of state residents will always come second behind the wishes of state government. (Lens)
Governor Inslee sees no reason to remove his indoor restrictions at restaurants and bars to help people survive the heat that is coming this weekend. Despite the Biden White House congratulating Washington State for reaching the 70% vaccination threshold almost three weeks ago, the governor continues his death grip on power, relying on state vaccination data even his own officials admit is less accurate (for it does not include the hundreds of thousands of vaccines the feds have administered to members of the military). Thus, state residents will not be able to escape the record temperatures this weekend by visiting the air conditioned dining rooms of struggling establishments, only because Governor Inslee wants to keep his unnecessary restrictions (and the unchallenged powers they represent) for a few more days. (WPC Center for Government Reform Facebook post, White House Twitter, and Washington State Department of Health media release)
Breaking Item: This afternoon the governor lifted capacity restrictions to cooling centers operated government entities or non-profits but not in restaurants and bars. This is the latest example of Governor Inslee using bizarre and unscientific methods for determining activities. Apparently COVID only spreads in restaurants but not in the exact same conditions in government and non-profit operated locations. (Inslee media release)
Small landlords are upset that Governor Inslee has once again broken promises when he extended the state’s eviction moratorium. Seattle landlord Marilyn Yim said, “The date that the legislature passed, the governor signed, stakeholders came together on was June 30th.” But the governor broke that commitment to extend the moratorium for an additional month. This will result in more financial problems for landlords and will likely result in even fewer units available for renters in the future. Yim continued, “It feels like the rest of our state is going to be beyond the pandemic while [landlords are] still living in it.” As Governor Inslee’s recent legislative vetoes have demonstrated, keeping promises is not a priority for him, especially when breaking promises helps to achieve his selfish political goals. (KING5 News and Native News Online)
A second Nigerian citizen has been detained for his involvement in one of the largest thefts in American history, when more than $600 million was stolen from the Washington State Employment Security Department (ESD) in 2020. A 38-year-old IT specialist was detained by Nigerian officials in Lagos and may soon be extradited to the U.S. Last month another Nigerian citizen was arrested for his involvement in the ESD heist, as he was boarding a Nigerian-bound flight in New York. Yet those responsible for the lapse security at ESD have all kept their state government jobs and their boss, Suzi LeVine, has used her “privilege” as a fundraiser for Democrat campaigns to obtain a cushy high-paying government job in the Biden Administration. (Seattle Times)
Western Washington
The impact of the Seattle City Council’s hasty actions to placate the violent riots by liberal activists last year is becoming clearer, as five people have been murdered so far in June and nearly a dozen more have been shot. As nearly every sane and logical person predicted, the council’s poor public safety decision to slash the Seattle Police Department’s funding and give the money to liberal special interest groups with little or no history of effective crime prevention or law enforcement, has resulted in a dramatic spike in violent crime in Seattle. Nearly all of the recent shootings have occurred in neighborhoods which have large minority populations. (MyNorthwest)
Because of the lawlessness that is occurring in Seattle, state taxpayers must fund extra air patrols, video surveillance, and ground units to catch the criminals who are endangering the lives of those traveling on I-5 in Seattle. The Washington State Patrol is having to make these expenditures to catch those responsible for 80 incidents of rocks and debris being thrown onto vehicles traveling though the city near the I-90 interchange. The News Tribune appropriately likened the current situation in Seattle to the 2002 Beltway Sniper spree in Washington, D.C. as both are violent acts being perpetrated on randomly chosen victims. (News Tribune and Crime Museum)
Eastern Washington
Spokane area nurse is the latest Washington State resident to win $250,000 in Governor Inslee’s wasteful $2 million vaccine lottery, which he falsely claims is encouraging people to become immunized. Since “Marissa P.” is a nursing student, chances are she has been vaccinated for months and the vaccination lottery had absolutely no influence in her receiving her shots. The vacci
Spokane area restaurants are facing inflated costs for food and a shortage of workers as government actions continue to negatively impact the hospitality industry. Inflated costs are occurring mostly due to the federal government’s multiple large COVID-related bailouts, and are with potential employees are not rushing back to the workplace due to government programs which pay them to not work. The result is higher menu prices and lower profits for establishments which have suffered the most due to Governor Inslee’s 15 months of random and unscientific shutdowns of restaurant operations. (KXLY)
Overheard on the Internets
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