Jay Inslee’s liberal friends and mega-donors could not be happier with his $39 billion budget proposal last week, which includes a 15.4% raise in state spending and over $1.5 billion in new taxes. After all, they knew he was lying (as the Seattle Times’ Danny Westneat pointed out over the weekend) when he promised as a candidate not to raise taxes, and now they are coordinating with Inslee on a tax-raising campaign.
It was clear from the clutter in email in-boxes across the state that some of Jay’s favorite lefty groups – the teachers union, state labor council, environmental organizations, etc. – had been given advance notice of his budget-busting intentions, as they were quick to last out emails supporting his plan for growing the size and influence of the state bureaucracy. It all smacked of the type of coordinated campaign the Democrats run in partisan races.
Fuse—the far left’s secretly-funded “grassroots” organization—sent out an email lauding Inslee’s budget plans the day after it was announced. In reference to Inslee’s plan for a capital gains tax, Fuse wrote its supporters: “What if we could fund education with a progressive tax on the wealthiest 1 percent? That’s exactly what Gov. Jay Inslee proposed yesterday.”
The fact that Washington voters have consistently rejected the kind of taxes on income that the liberals want is conveniently ignored by Fuse, and Inslee. Instead, it asks supporters to send a pre-written letter urging legislators to support Inslee’s $39 billion, tax-raising budget.
And while Fuse is busy drumming up support for Inslee’s budget based on the promise of a capital gains tax, the Environmental Priorities Coalition (EPC) is working to gain support for his cap-and-tax bureaucratic boondoggle and fuel mandate scheme. Of course, for the various members of the EPC, the obstacle to be overcome on the road toward seeing Inslee’s extreme green agenda come to fruition is not the fact that his plan, are “risky” (as pointed out in the Seattle Times) but rather the big bad “oil industry and their allies.” As did Fuse, EPC asks its supporters to contact legislators and urge them to support Inslee’s $39 billion, tax-raising budget. A recent email from Environmental Priorities Coalition reads,
Governor Inslee has been building towards this moment for years … Today, he announced a detailed plan for how to enforce the limits on climate pollution already on the books… We’ve come so far – we can’t stop now. The next step is the state legislature. So please contact your legislators and tell them to support Governor Inslee’s proposal.
The Washington State Democrat Party joined in on efforts to gather support for Inslee’s $1.5 billion in new taxes. Calling Inslee’s plan a “bold new budget” – although once could ask how is it “bold” for a Democrat to propose new taxes, given that support for a state income tax is in the party’s platform – that “makes sure everybody chips in to move our state forward,” the Democrats ask email recipients to “add your name and support [Inslee’s] budget today.”
Another email from State Democrats urges support for Inslee’s budget by claiming education spending is its centerpiece – although it’s clearly not his first priority, since he wants to raise taxes to pay for it. The Democrats write,
New revenue is essential to funding education. Last year, Republicans in the legislature failed to do what was necessary to fully fund education…
We need to stand with our governor. Will you sign our petition thanking Governor Inslee for his bold vision for education?
It is the height of hypocrisy for the Democrats, who have controlled Olympia for a generation, with a Democrat governor signing every budget for the last 30 years, to try and deflect blame for their own failures on to Republicans. Democrats’ attempt to pass on the blame is still more unbelievable when one considers that it is entirely due to Republican leadership in the State Senate that last year’s budget re-prioritized education spending at a 4:1 ratio over other state spending, a complete reversal from the Democrats’ demonstrated spending ratio of two dollars to state government for every one dollar of new education over the last 30 years.
The Democrats’ email claiming education as the “centerpiece” of Inslee’s $1.5 billion in new taxes sounds an awful lot like an email Inslee sent out to his supporters following his budget announcement. In an email titled “Do it for the kids,” Inslee asks recipients to sign their names to show support for his budget plan. The email reads,
But with a plan this ambitious, you can bet there will be naysayers — opponents who will claim that it costs too much, that it can’t be done, or that it’s just not a priority for Washington voters.
I need you to help me prove them wrong, and show we have the momentum to pass this plan.
Yet another email from Inslee wraps the three objectives of his coordinated tax-raising campaign — demonize opponents of his capital gains tax plan, extol the virtues of his fuel mandate/cap-and-tax boondoggle, all while claiming that a bigger and more controlling state government bureaucracy is all for the kids— in a nice, neat bundle. Inslee’s email reads,
Help me pass a budget that reinvests in the future of Washington. Click here to declare your support.
This is bigger than just one year’s budget. This is about moving our state in a new direction, and I need your help to get there.
Inslee is right in pointing out that this budget is “bigger than just one year’s budget”—a rather rare phenomenon for him amid last week’s propaganda effort. Inslee’s $1.5 billion in tax hikes and unprecedented spending proposals (15.4% more state spending than in the last budget) are a whole lot bigger than anything ever proposed. And, Inslee’s budget will move our state in a new direction… just not a good new direction.
The Progressive Liberals of the democratic party are a bunch of bloodsuckers, draining the life out of Working Washington State citizens with their Tax & Spend policies! Paint this state Red!
I don’t know about the paint this state RED because we have so may stupid liberals in the big city area’s.
All you have to do is read the news from California and New York. Those two states have some of the highest taxes on the rich in America. California is losing population and Businesses to states with lower taxes and regulations that same statement goes for New York. When they had a legally blind Governor that tried to tax higher income citizens they moved to Florida or Texas and his tax program brought in less than 50% of his projected revenue. Those are the facts of raising taxes plus look at our Federal tax rates being the highest in the world, that is what is driving companies out of the US and into the arms of Canada and other countries with lower tax rates and regulations.
And his carbon fuel tax will be a burden on all systems in the state including the children’s parents and schools that will have to pay higher prices on gas to fuel their cars and the buses that take them to school and older districts that still have oil fired furnaces. And then the increase in the prices of food in the grocery stores because delivery costs will necessarily will go up.
These are the things that are not said by those pushing taxes to solve a problem. Remember the Tobacco Tax was supposed to help with the budget but now it brings in a lot less revenue because those smoking cessation programs they funded have reduced the revenue from that tax, LESS TOBACCO SOLD!
The Democratic Party of Washington is following the
Commander in Chief, who has done everything He can to ruin the United States.
Now it is Inslee’s turn to ruin the Great State of Washington. With Cap and
trade, gas taxes that he doesn’t know really how much it will cost, Like I-594
that NO one knows how much it will take to implement it, pretty soon Washington
and Seattle will look like Detroit and the rest of Michigan looks. Folks, are
you in favor of GOING BANKRUPT worse than we have ever seen or dreamed of? We need to be fiscally responsible, we need to
pay for things we want before we start asking for it. Is it too hard to KEEP PROMISES?
Voting for Progressive Liberal Democrats is much like voting for cancer to infect your own body. No matter what the office, these malignant politicians will coordinate with other malignant cells in the body politic to foster destruction and spread the Progressive disease. They will tax and overspend to solve problems (that never really get solved) as they funnel the money to aid and abet other malignant cells and infestations in the State. The is done to the detriment of the healthy cells who get starved out or mutated to more malignancies.
I don’t care if the office a Progressive is running for is Dog catcher. don’t believe them and don’t trust them. You might as well vote for an anarchist or Communist because the end result to a healthy economy and body politic will be ruin and destruction. The only wise course is to quarantine Progressives as far from any positions of power and influence as is humanly possible.
The lottery idea was bought into for education, where is all that going? That is a LOT of money, and education isn’t any better than any other state..
Jay Inslee promising not to raise taxes is like a baby promising not to dirty his diapers. Neither can help themselves and the end results smells the same.
Washington state wants to outdo California for being the first with the greatest??? All the eco policies, taxes for every program they can think up, and blaming the Republicans for not taking care of business. It will not change until we elliminate these people from our politics???