Guest Commentary
Those of us who live east of the Cascades seldom pay a lot of attention to local politics in the suburbs of Seattle. However, the implications of the 2017 senate race in the 45th state legislative district extend to our doorstep.
The seat is now in the hands of the Democrats, giving them control of both houses of the state Legislature as well as the governorship. For the past several years, the state senate has been the only buffer between us and the free-spending liberals west of the mountains. Gov. Jay Inslee has announced that he now feels free to pursue his agenda including a carbon tax and revision of Washington voting rights.
He hasn’t given us any specifics about his proposed changes to the voting rights, but I can only assume that it concerns giving the vote to some of those who have heretofore been denied. Inslee has championed the plight of illegals and has proposed that Washington become a sanctuary state, effectively granting state citizenship to non-documented immigrants.
His policy to pass out driver’s licenses without proof of residence is the reason your driver’s license is no longer accepted by airport security. Rumors have circulated for the past few years that the governor wants to allow non-U.S. citizens to vote in state elections. I certainly hope these rumors are not true.
The governor’s carbon tax is simply a camouflaged increase in the gas tax. It is advertised as a way to tax carbon emissions that foul the atmosphere, garnering support from environmentalists.
Natural gas, coal, liquid petroleum and gasoline would be taxed, but wind and solar power would not. The environmental objective could be achieved by making non-carbon fuels tax exempt, but any decrease in state revenue is unacceptable.
The carbon tax supporters claim that the new tax would be devoted exclusively to environmental cleanup. This is pure political hogwash.
I recall the governor’s promise that the estate tax would go 100 percent into the Education Trust Fund. What wasn’t said was that other funding for the fund would be reduced by the same amount such that the actual amount for education was unchanged. A carbon tax would go into the budget and disappear.
Those who drafted our state constitution realized the temptation of politicians to buy votes with public money, so they added a provision requiring the state to have a balanced budget. Thus, whenever legislators want to enact a giveaway program, they must find a way to fund it. They can either cut another program, which might cost them votes, or they can add more taxes.
I have never heard of a state program being cut, but proposals for new taxes are a recurring theme. The most noted is a state income tax.
The city of Seattle has already tried, only to have the court remind them that they were in violation of state law. A state income tax requires approval of the voters. The Seattle proposal was, however, only applicable to corporations and rich Americans.
If we sock it to the rich, the rich take their job-producing companies and move. Boeing, the mainstay of Seattle, moved their headquarters to Chicago. As Boeing’s plant in Seattle declines, their plant in Wichita grows. How did we benefit from socking it to Boeing?
Without the Republican senate to protect us from Olympia, we can surely expect the state budget to grow along with innovative ways to market new taxes. I have serious concerns about the near future of our state.
Frank Watson is a retired Air Force colonel and long-term resident of Eastern Washington. He has been a freelance columnist for over 18 years, with columns published in the Davenport Times, the Newport Miner and the Whitman County Gazette.
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