Over the weekend, the Seattle Times—whether on purpose or not—managed to expose three big hypocrisies of the left. Here they are:
- Extreme “greenies” don’t care about reducing carbon emissions – they care about putting gov’t in charge
A relatively new group called Carbon Washington is collecting signatures in an attempt to get Initiative 732 on the November ballot. I-732 would place a “tax on carbon burned in gasoline, natural gas and other fossil fuels — while cutting other taxes by an equal amount.” The group’s stated goal is to “cut greenhouse-gas emissions and encourage development of cleaner alternatives.”
That’s a goal you would assume Jay Inslee, his fellow Democrats and their extreme “green” supporters would get behind. But, you’d be wrong. Very wrong.
The Seattle Times reports that a powerful group of extreme green organizations and labor unions is trying to squash the effort. The Times,
“Leaders of the (very inaptly named) Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy have sought to discredit I-732 in recent weeks. They’ve circulated poll results that suggest it would be rejected by voters. And they’ve argued the initiative is insensitive to communities of color.
“Alliance members say they’re working on their own climate-initiative proposal for 2016, one that would divvy up tax dollars differently, include input from a more diverse crowd, and, most important, have a better chance to pass.
“So, while they appreciate I-732’s goals and enthusiasm, they’d prefer it please step aside.”
Why does Inslee & his special interest buddies want Carbon Washington to step aside? Because reducing carbon emissions isn’t really their primary goal. Carbon Washington is pushing a “revenue-neutral” plan. That means I-732 “would not fill state government coffers with cash.”
The carbon tax plan would “raise an estimated $1.7 billion a year — and cost the average family an estimated $300 a year in higher gas and energy prices.” However, it would also pump that money “back to consumers, mostly through a full percentage point cut in the state sales tax.”
Essentially, I-732 would not allow Inslee to game the system top benefit his campaign donors. That infuriates the extreme green alliance. They prefer Inslee’s cap-and-tax scheme that would raises taxes and use the revenue to benefit “green” donors and their various causes.
Whatever you might think of I-732—whether you support it or not—the extreme green alliance’s rejection of it reveals Inslee and his extreme allies astounding hypocrisy and their true objective.
- Democrats and their far left supporters don’t care about funding public education – they care about implementing a state income tax.
On Sunday, the Times ran five editorials on the topic of public education funding. Democrat State legislators were the lead writers on two of the five. And, a union official from the Washington Education Association (WEA) wrote another. In all three of those op-eds, Democrat lawmakers and the union official had a common theme – we must have a state income tax to meet the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision.
Democrat state Sen. David Frockt championed in his op-ed a “new dedicated funding source” for education. This “dedicated funding source” would be an income tax on capital gains. Frockt alleges that a “more uniform system of funding that would result in less reliance on local levies and an overall increase in funding for school districts, including a more generous educator and staff compensation program.”
Democrat House Appropriations Chairman Rep. Ross Hunter and Republican state Rep. Chad Magendanz were listed as the writers of a second op-ed. The two outline the difference between the GOP vs. the Democrat position on education funding. While Republicans prefer a no-new-taxes, revenue-neutral approach to dealing with the local school levy debate, Hunter and his fellow Democrats want—surprise, surprise—new taxes. Specifically, an income tax on capital gains.
Kim Mead, the union president, wrote the third op-ed. As could be expected, between making jabs at GOP lawmakers and demanding higher wages, Mead suggests that her union’s money-grab initiative, I-1351, could have been funded if lawmakers only implemented an income tax on capital gains.
The group think is certainly appropriate for the liberals – all three call for a state income tax. Democrats have been perfectly content to underfund education for the past 30 years. The WEA has been perfectly content to worry about its union dues first and not improving our children’s education for at least as long. Republicans proved that they are dedicated to funding education first, fighting against Jay Inslee and the Democrats to increase public school spending in each of the last two budgets after a generation of Democrats funding their special interests first. And, they proved it could be done without further burdening working families with heavier taxes.
Given their track record, the Democrats and the WEA’s call for a state income tax as a response to state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision should come as no surprise. They are, once again, refusing to put public education first. Rather, they are using the McCleary decision as a club to try and pound more tax money out of the public.
For Democrats, that means finally getting the state income tax that is a priority in their party platform. For the WEA, it means pumping more money via union dues into its coffers – to contribute to Democrat politicians who vote for higher taxes.
- The WEA does not prioritize our children’s education – the union prioritizes its own money.
If anyone needed any further persuading that the WEA was demanding new taxes in order to pump more money into its coffers, they would not have to look any further than Mead’s op-ed. The overwhelmingly dominant topic of Mead’s op-ed is not how the WEA plans to improve our children’s education if class sizes were reduced, and fully funded by a new state income tax. Rather, it’s about how teachers’ pay would increase.
Mead’s op-ed—among other delusional and deceptive claims—asserts that lawmakers funded an 11 percent raise for themselves and left teachers’ pay hikes out of the cut. Mead writes,
“Senate budget writer Andy Hill and other legislators claim they have fully funded K-12 education, but teachers and support professionals know the truth. Until the Legislature invests in smaller class sizes at every grade level, and in professional pay and benefits for school employees, the state is not meeting its paramount duty to our children.”
Notice the attack on Republican Andy Hill and the conveniently left out fact that it was Senate Democrat minority leader Sharon Nelson who petitioned a citizen-dominated commission to advocate for lawmakers to receive a raise. And, it was Senate Republican Deputy Majority Leader John Braun who petitioned against the raise in a letter to the commission. In the end, the commission (which lawmakers are not a part of) made the decision based on the reasoning that a higher salary would make the state Legislature more accessible to those not independently wealthy.
We expect this level of deception—and unwarranted attacks on the GOP—from union hacks like Mead. What is still difficult to swallow is that WEA parades around claiming to champion the cause of improving education for our children—most recently via the so-called smaller-class size initiative—while hiding the union’s own interests.
I-1351 is not about improving education for children via smaller class sizes. If it were, the WEA would applaud lawmakers for reducing class sizes in grades K-3—when studies show the policy actually works. And, the WEA would not seek to burden working families with more taxes. As Mead makes perfectly clear in her op-ed, the WEA is all about pumping more money into its coffers via union dues.
One day, one newspaper, three Democrat hypocrisies.
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