What didn’t Inslee’s $39 billion budget include?

This week, Jay Inslee revealed his budget proposal. It includes everything from smaller K-3 class sizes and state funded pre-school to state employee pay hikes to a fuel mandate and transportation projects funded by a cap-and-tax scheme. At an absurd spending increase of 15.4% from Washington’s current budget, there isn’t much Inslee does not want to place on the backs of working families.

And, how does Inslee expect to pay for his $39 billion budget? With $1.5 billion in new taxes—a tax increase of over $3 billion in the 2017-19 biennia—and a generous dipping into the state’s rainy day fund, of course.

Inslee’s ridiculous budget got us thinking, what didn’t our green governor include? Certainly, Inslee spared us some of his absurd dreams he would, left to his own devices, implement in an instant. Here are budget ideas we are reasonably sure Inslee, one, ditched at the last moment and, two, has yet to even find realize he wants to do.

1. A state income tax… to help fund a full-scale oyster rescue mission.

Inslee is a pleaser and his also really concerned that kids of the future will never have the great pleasure of seeing an oyster—though absolutely no scientific evidence exists to give credence to his concern. By implementing a state income tax, Inslee could please his party—Washington State Democrats listed an income tax as a party platform goal—and save the oysters in one simple move. An Inslee approved “two-for,” if you will.

2. A ban on cows… to save kids’ lungs.

Some day in the future, Inslee will figure out that—back in 2006—the United Nations identified the greatest threat to climate, forest and wildlife. And, on that day, there will be a reckoning… for cows. Indeed, the 400-page UN report blamed cows for quite a large number of “environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.” It found that cows are “responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.” Tisk, tisk cows. Cows are polluters and, as polluters, they must pay. After all, that’s the only way to stop them from burning kids’ lungs.