Inflation/ Economy

No doubt we are in big trouble right now.

Today the interest rates were raised ¾ of a point. That was the first time we have had such a large raise in around 40 years.

We have supply chain issues, and we have record inflation.

The state’s tax revenues are higher than they have ever been with hundreds of millions of excess dollars in the state coffers. But I wouldn’t count on this governor and Democrat legislators to help you one tiny bit.

They didn’t give you any tax relief through the entire pandemic and the Governor announced recently he would not consider any tax relief at this time either. It’s disappointing to me that with everything negative going on in our economy Washington State is one of only 2 states that feel current conditions do not deserve any tax breaks to its citizens, in fact, they want to raise more taxes!

The Cato institute, who rates governors around the country for various subjects including fiscal management, rated our governor as the absolute worst fiscal manager in the entire country for the second year in a row. We are number 50 out of 50. Keep in mind that the governors can’t pass these reckless budgets without the backing of current legislators.

How our Legislators react to economic situations severely effects our lives. Its important we look at our governors’ report card to see how our state takes care of its citizens during good and difficult times.

Instead of wasteful spending and proposing new taxes we should be assisting small businesses that just squeaked through a pandemic and are now entering a recession desperately in need of a tax break.

Our governor and legislators should be at suspending our nearly 50 cents a gallon gas tax to help ease our suffering.

All that we are getting from our governor and our Democrat controlled legislation on the economy is…….. silence

We need to elect Legislators who care about the everyday working people and respond to their needs.

The following is the Cato Institute report and report card giving our governor an “F” grade

Article

Governors play a key role in state fiscal policy. They propose budgets, recommend tax changes, and sign or veto tax and spending bills. When the economy is growing, governors can use rising revenues to expand programs, or they can return extra revenues to citizens through tax cuts. When the economy is stagnant, governors can raise taxes to close budget gaps, or they can trim spending.

Washington

Jay Inslee, Democrat

Legislature: Democratic

Grade: F

Took office: January 2013

Jay Inslee received an F on Cato fiscal reports in 2014, 2016, and 2018, and did so again in this 2020 report. His appetite for spending increases is insatiable and paying for all the increases has driven him to push nonstop for tax hikes.

Under Inslee, state general fund spending rose 16 percent in the 2018–2019 biennium.²¹³ He proposed a 17 percent increase for the 2020–2021 biennium and the final increase was even higher.²¹⁴ This year, with revenues lower than projected because of the recession, Inslee and lawmakers are resisting spending reductions and considering more tax increases.²¹⁵

When Inslee originally ran for the governor’s office, he promised not to raise taxes, but then in his first budget he proposed more than $1 billion in hikes.²¹⁶ Since then he has proposed or approved myriad new and increased taxes on energy, capital gains, tobacco, businesses, real estate transactions, and online sales.

A ballot initiative to impose a carbon tax in 2016 was rejected by a 59–41 margin, but that failure did not slow Inslee down. In 2018, he proposed a new carbon tax plan to raise about $780 million a year.²¹⁷ Washington voters defeated that tax at the ballot box in 2018 (Initiative 1631) by a 57–43 margin.

In 2018, Inslee proposed enacting a capital gains tax with a 9 percent rate. The tax would have raised more than $900 million a year, but it did not pass the legislature. In 2019, Inslee signed legislation creating a new payroll tax. The 0.58 percent tax on wages is expected to raise about $1 billion a year and fund a long‐​term care program.²¹⁸

There were more tax increases in 2019. Inslee signed into law a $170 million a year increase in the state’s real estate excise tax, which is a tax on the sale of property.²¹⁹

Then Inslee signed into law a surcharge on the state’s gross receipts tax (the “business and occupation” tax) to raise about $360 million a year. Higher rates were imposed for banks and 43 other industries including “software development, engineering, investment‐​related services, and independent medical practices. The legislation applies even higher surcharges to some advanced computing businesses.”²²⁰ Most states want to attract high‐​tech businesses, not scare them away, so imposing these punitive taxes seems bizarre.

In 2020, state lawmakers became concerned that the high‐​tech business surcharges would be too difficult to administer, so they passed a new bill to simplify the surcharges—and those changes raised yet another $117 million a year.²²¹