Legislative Commentary

I am glad to be sharing legislative updates with you again. From July to December, I and other senators who were seeking re-election had to follow limits set by the Legislature on sending information to constituents.

Now that the election is far enough past us, I am allowed to comment on what the results mean, and what is on the agenda for 2017.

If there was any doubt left that Governor Jay Inslee is a typical tax-and-spend, big-government liberal, he did away with that earlier this month by proposing the largest tax increase in state history, including a tax on income from investments.

Please keep reading for more, because for Inslee to do that – just weeks after being elected to a second term – suggests that the upcoming legislative session could be the most challenging of my 24 years as a legislator.

I am grateful to be serving as our legislative district’s state senator for another four-year term. I am also proud that our district and Adams County, where I have lived and worked my whole life, will continue to be the home of the Senate majority leader. Rest assured that while being majority leader requires me to handle many additional responsibilities, my Ninth District values will always guide the decisions I make at the Capitol.

The 2017 legislative session begins Jan. 9.

Our most important task is to adopt a trio of new budgets to cover the next two years – operating, capital and transportation – and agree on major reforms to the state’s education-funding system. My goal is to make sure those budgets and reforms and the other policies we make will protect Washington’s future, and I do not intend to fail.

This first post-election commentary also will be my last for 2016. I wish you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Another two years for our Senate majority


Our bipartisan coalition, the Senate Majority Coalition Caucus, will continue to lead the Senate for the next two years. We hold 25 of the 49 Senate seats, while Democrats will continue holding 50 seats in the 98-member House.

When the MCC formed four years ago this month I expected we would serve at least as a counterbalance to our Democratic governor and the Democratic majority in the House; in hindsight, as our record of accomplishments shows, we have done so much more. Washington’s students, families and employers have had no better friend in Olympia these past four years.

The MCC’s role will be at least as important in our fifth year, because Democrats still occupy the governor’s office and control the House. Someone has to stand up to Governor Inslee’s enormous tax-increase proposal, for example, and work to make sure new education dollars are spent where they will do the most good for Washington’s children.

Going forward, the MCC’s priorities will remain true to our founding principles.

Those include providing for a world-class education system; creating a job-rich, employer-friendly economy; serving Washington’s most vulnerable residents while being mindful of the needs of middle-income families; and an approach to budgeting that lives within the means provided by taxpayers.

Again, it’s about protecting Washington’s future.

Tax on income, energy tax, higher taxes on employers: will Inslee ever stop?


Every time Governor Inslee proposed tax increases during the past four years (and it became a regular occurrence) many of us pointed out how he was going against the no-new-taxes pledge he made as a candidate in 2012.

As far as I know, Inslee avoided making a similar pledge during his 2016 campaign. He also failed to inform the public that if re-elected, he would call for a new tax on certain investment income, and an energy tax on some of the state’s major industries, and higher taxes on service providers – totaling a whopping $8.7 billion in additional taxes every two years. It would be the largest tax increase in state history, surpassing the package of tax increases adopted in 2010 when Democrats controlled the entire legislative process.

Inslee’s push for new taxes is part of the budget he has proposed for 2017-19. He would have Washington taxpayers think the new taxes are unavoidable, if lawmakers are to address the series of orders issued by the state Supreme Court in the McCleary education-funding case.

In fact, less than half of the resulting revenue would go to basic education.

Our Senate majority continues to believe that tax increases should be the last resort, not the first choice, when it comes to balancing the state budget.

Also, providing for basic education is the state government’s number-one responsibility (our “paramount duty” under the constitution).

So why on earth would new taxes be needed for education, if schools can be properly funded out of the billions of dollars that already are being collected under current tax rates?

It gets worse:

Inslee would rob the state rainy-day fund every year for the next four years, because the tax increases he wants still aren’t enough to offset all the new spending he proposes. Draining cash reserves leaves Washington unprotected against downturns
.

His plan isn’t sustainable because it would leave the state $648 million in the red by 2019-21. There are only three things the Legislature can do to erase a deficit: raise more taxes, cut programs to cover the shortfall, or a combination of both. 


Inslee’s plan would mean suspending the state’s four-year balanced-budget law. We created the four-year balanced-budget requirement in 2012 to ensure that legislators looked at what their spending decisions would mean across four years, not just two. It protects taxpayers from the rollercoaster effect we used to see when Democrats had full control of Olympia and did not give enough consideration to the long-term effects of their budgets. 


The tax plan slams the brakes on business growth with a devastating two-thirds increase in the B&O service tax rate. It imposes a punishing carbon tax on Washington manufacturers. And it creates a new income tax on capital gains – the first step toward imposing a general income tax, opposed by Washington voters for more than 80 years. 


An income tax on capital gains would eliminate one of the biggest competitive advantages for the Washington tech industry and undercut the prosperity of the greater Puget Sound area. Besides, such a tax would be unstable because people tend to hang onto assets during an economic downturn. If taxing the income from capital gains doesn’t generate enough dollars to offset spending increases, someone is sure to propose extending the tax to other forms of income. 


Inslee would actually give education less priority for new spending – investing $2 in schools for every $1 spent on a non-education program or service isn’t nearly as good as the ratio of $3 for every $1 achieved by the MCC since 2013. Here we just reversed the spending trend so it favors schools, and the governor wants to go backwards. 


His plan would ignore property-poor school districts that need local-levy relief the most because they don’t have the manufacturing or retail tax-base advantage of districts where property valuations are higher.

The Legislature is not required to adopt any part of the governor’s budget proposal. However, the Democrat-controlled House may reflect the governor’s position when it puts its own budget proposals on the table for the Senate to consider in 2017 – I’ve seen his influence on past budget negotiations.

If Inslee thinks families and employers should send $8.7 billion more to state government than they already are, can we expect the House to show more restraint?