LEFTISTS ANGRY THAT JAY INSLEE HAS NOT GIVEN THEM ENOUGH CARBON TAX MONEY YET
IN THE FIGHT OVER EMISSIONS, WA STATE GOVERNMENT IS MOST FOCUSED ON EMITTING CARBON TAX MONEY
It certainly hasn’t taken long for the environmental extremists behind Governor Jay Inslee’s cap and trade/carbon tax to fall back on what they really do best – demanding your tax dollars for their pet projects. That’s certainly the theme of the Seattle Times feature that the “question at hand is whether Washington set aside enough money from the carbon-pricing market for the people and communities most vulnerable to climate change.”
You’ll note that nowhere in this now-public food fight is anything about the environment or emissions, which is allegedly why the carbon tax passed (with only Democrat votes) in 2021. It’s about your tax dollars and what percentage goes to which liberal interest group because using the carbon tax, “the Legislature set aside more than $2.1 billion over the next two years, and at least 35% must go toward those overburdened communities. Another 10% must go toward tribes.”
Unfortunately for the state, the reality is that since a big chunk of the first billion taken from the people is actually going to set up a massive new government bureaucracy, there are not as many lollipops to hand out to campaign donors. You can read on to see what’s not happening and how these donors must have gotten a good laugh to hear a Jay Inslee flack say, “They’re not promises and goals, they’re requirements and commitments. They’re happening” here… Seattle Times.
WA WANTS TO JOIN COOL KIDS TABLE, NOT LIKELY TO GET INVITATION
The gaslighting continues at the state’s Department of Ecology, where officials continue to pretend that other states will come to the rescue of Washington and its soaring gas prices instead of realizing that the cap and trade/carbon tax is broken. That’s the take of Center Square, which captures Ecology officials fantasizing about linking “the state’s cap-and-trade program with the joint California-Quebec market” without ever once asking why officials in those stable markets would want to tie themselves to an out-of-control one.
Now, even the praying-for-a-miracle bureaucrats must admit that “California and Quebec also have to go through their own processes of deciding whether they want to link with Washington,” which can’t happen “at least until 2025”, meaning no relief for soaring gas prices is on the horizon. You can read more depressing future predictions for the state, which isfinally admitting critics were correct to point out that Washington “may not be large enough or liquid enough to stop allowance prices from becoming prohibitively expensive” here… Center Square.
INSLEE ADMINISTRATION IN NO HURRY TO FOLLOW COURT ORDER – HE’S NOT RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION
You might think that, after more than a decade, the bureaucrats in charge of the state’s mental health system for Governor Jay Inslee would have a better answer than “don’t know” when asked about when things will improve. Yet that’s the gist of the Washington State Standard’s review of the current state of affairs where “Washington’s officials still don’t know when the backlog in mental health services will end.”
Despite multiple court orders to do better, you can read about how “the state doesn’t have an exact timeline for when it expects to be in compliance with the court order — but that the department is on an ‘amazing trajectory.’” You can read about how that “amazing trajectory” doesn’t actually mean following the law here… Washington State Standard.
THE LONG ROAD TO HOMELESS CAMPING
It doesn’t seem like it’s been five years since the so-called Martin case was handed down by a Boise court, providing government officials with a crutch to support their desire to spend more money on bigger government. Yet it has been long enough for some blowback to the decision, as this long Seattle Times piece captures that the “turn against Martin v. Boise, especially by Democratic-led cities and states, has dismayed those who had hoped the courts would spur cities toward fixing the housing crisis.”
It was nice to see the reporter admit in this piece that the hope for Democrats was that “the courts would spur cities” to do what voters did not necessarily want them to do, which was to spend more money on government services for people who do not pay for them. You can read how activists see that enforcing laws is just a way that “cities could become ‘a little more cruel’” here… Seattle Times.
MUST HAVE SLEPT THROUGH POSTING THIS ONE LAST WEEK
You can learn a new word every day if you try. And our word comes, through KUOW, from “the conclusion of a National Transportation Safety Board investigation” that ‘Microsleep’ is the reason a Washington state ferry crashed into a West Seattle dock in 2022.”
In the search for any reason not to hold an actual person accountable for his actions (he retired shortly after he woke up), the NTSB came up with “incapacitation from a microsleep, a brief period of sleep lasting a few seconds, due to fatigue.” You can read more about how others helped make sure not to wake the captain here… KUOW.
ANOTHER SEATTLE COUNCIL CANDIDATE WHO SUPPORTS REDUCING POLICE FUNDING
The Shift team knows it can be tough to keep up with which Seattle candidates are walking back their previous support for defunding the police and which ones are now claiming that illegal drugs should maybe be made illegal again. But Axios-Seattle is going straight to the candidates to sort it out, allowing readers to know that ChrisTiana ObeySumner still proudly stands for reducing police spending in District 5 and “shifting that money toward new alternative responses like teams of social service workers” and that the “city’s current practice of encampment removals ‘needs to be stopped immediately.’”
The contrast is rather stark with her opponent, Judge Cathy Moore, who wants more money for the police. You can read on how ObeySumner thinks voters should “redirect that energy” of being mad about how the homeless have taken over the streets here… Axios – Seattle
SIX INITIATIVES FROM LET’S GO WASHINGTON GIVE VOTERS THE OPPORTUNITY TO SET AGENDA FOR THE NEXT LEGISLATURE
Brian Heywood, founder of Let’s Go Washington and a beekeeper, used last week’s Newsmaker Interview to detail six key initiatives the organization aims to bring to the 2024 Washington State Legislature. Each initiative requires 324,516 valid signatures from registered voters by this December 29, though Let’s Go Washington hopes to secure more than 400,000 signatures for each one to ensure a lawful count. The initiatives cover diverse areas, including easing police pursuit restrictions, repealing the carbon tax to reduce gas prices, allowing residents to opt-out of the Long-Term Care payroll tax, repealing the Capital Gains income tax, prohibiting any income taxes by the state or local governments, and establishing parents as primary stakeholders in a child’s upbringing through a parents’ bill of rights. Read more.
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