The reality of this week snuck up a bit on the Shift team, causing some shuffling with the schedule. Other priorities consumed the team’s day yesterday, and will undoubtedly impact the rest of this week/month/life for those close to Shift WA.

As we work through the new briefing schedule, enjoy Shift’s posts on Twitter/X, as well as a briefer brief than usual.

If you had mid-March in your office pool on how long it would take for the new Seattle City Council majority to finish surrendering to the City Hall establishment, you may be a winner.  That’s according to the Crosscut coverage that the “realities of combing through every line of a nearly-$8 billion budget before the city finalizes its 2025 budget this November have seemingly set in for some Councilmembers.”

That’s right, it is proving much too tough to figure out how the city is wasting money for council members to actually reduce the amount of money the city wastes, despite facing a budget deficit of “$230 million (which) is only about 3% of the total $7.9 billion city budget, but nearly 14% of the city’s $1.7B general fund, the piece of the budget the mayor and City Council have the most leeway to change.” You can see how the establishment is continually pushing its preferred solution – higher taxes – with the city’s budget director admitting the city is “not going to be able to implement the full meal deal of $230 million worth of reductions as of Jan. 1 [2025],” so taxes have to be part of their solution… Crosscut.

Conditions inside the state’s juvenile delinquent facilities have been troubling for years. But the latest news from KIRO Newsradio that an “employee at a state-run youth detention center in Chehalis is now behind bars, accused of trying to start a prison riot” takes the dysfunction to a new level.

The trouble at Green Hill School “marks the latest in a string of public incidents and allegations of criminal acts at the detention center. The 2023 year included filed charges of twelve riots, according to The Chronicle.” You can read on to see how the state senator who represents the area is demanding the Inslee administration launch an investigation, noting that in “a single week in January, four students overdosed on fentanyl”, though the story concludes that “(A)s of now, the state has not opened an investigation into the facility.” … KIRO Newsradio.

Democrats across Washington state have denied for two years that their carbon tax would cause gas prices to soar.  And once the gas prices soared, Gov. Jay Inslee led his fellow liberals in denying they were to blame, even though now the Washington State Standard is reporting Democrats want credit for sending refund checks to the farmers ripped off by the carbon tax they were never supposed to pay, as “lawmakers this session set aside $30 million for farm fuel users and haulers of agricultural goods to receive rebates.”

Even the meager rebate has been too long in coming as Democrats waited until the end of the session to give in to the “frustrations among farmers and truckers who say they are not receiving promised exemptions from the extra charges.” Read on to learn that one legislative leader believes the rebates are “certainly better than nothing, but I don’t think folks that are on the ground would say it comes anywhere close to solving the problem” here… Washington State Standard.

Democrats from Governor Jay Inslee to Attorney General Bob Ferguson to the rank-and-file have been advocating for drug legalization and reduced sentencing for criminals for years in our state.  The (Tacoma) News Tribune reports those efforts have finally paid off for the Democrats, as “Washington has the highest burglary rate of any state in the U.S., according to an analysis of FBI crime data.”

Making it easier for criminals to work seems to have surprisingly resulted in much more criminal activity, as “Washington’s burglary rate was over seven times higher than last place New Hampshire”. You can read on to see that “Washington saw 43,481 total burglaries in 2022, a 6% increase from the previous year.” …(Tacoma) News Tribune.

Bad news just keeps streaming out of Jay Inslee’s Department of Transportation, now that he has announced he won’t seek re-election.  Maybe Democrats are trying to get all the bad news out they can under the green governor’s watch, with the Seattle Times reporting that “(D)rivers on the Highway 520 floating bridge will probably pay higher tolls as a small step toward keeping pace with skyrocketing costs to finish the final mile, over Seattle’s Portage Bay.”

What is left unsaid in that lead is that upgrades to the 520 bridge would have been completed long ago had the Democrats in Seattle not insisted the bridge not carry any additional single-occupancy cars or create any new lanes in Seattle, causing delays which have now resulted (thanks to Democrat inflation) in skyrocketing costs. You can read on to see how much this might cost you here, since “estimates to replace the whole 520 corridor from Seattle to Overlake, a megaproject lasting more than two decades, have climbed from $4.6 billion in 2011 to $4.9 billion in 2022 and $5.5 billion this year.” … Seattle Times.

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