Republicans provide a no-new-tax budget option

Democrats ignore our fiscally sound approach

It’s official. The Senate Republican operating budget proposal known as $ave Washington is now an official bill and could easily be adopted by the Legislature.

Senate Bill 5810 does not rely on ANY new or higher taxes. It also does not make ANY cuts to services. While Democrats warn against catastrophic cuts if they don’t get to raise BILLIONS in new taxes, Senate Republicans have shown that neither approach is necessary.

We don’t need higher property taxes. We don’t need higher taxes on small businesses. And we don’t need a higher sales tax, real estate tax, storage unit tax, tax on Teslas, or a tax on our paychecks.

We also don’t need to make any of the cuts that House Democrats used to try to scare people. As Sen. Chris Gildon, R-Puyallup said, “If I wanted to write a budget to make people beg me to raise taxes, this all-cuts budget would be it.”

Don’t be fooled. The Democrats could pass our budget today, if they wanted to do right by Washington.

Video clips from the tax rally:

• Sen. John Braun, Centralia
• Sen. Chris Gildon, Puyallup
• Sen. Nikki Torres, Pasco
• Sen. Keith Wagoner, Sedro Woolley

SPOTLIGHT: A Tesla Tax

WATCH THE VIDEO

High on the list of ridiculous and hypocritical taxes this year is a bill to tax certain makers of zero-emission vehicles. It is written in such a way that the only car manufacturer it applies to is Tesla.

Senate Bill 5811 would tax Tesla $280 million over four years. Around $200 million of that money would go to the state’s general fund, while the other $80 million would go to an account that funds incentives to encourage people to buy electric vehicles.

If you want to stop someone from doing something, you tax it. That was the justification Democrats used several years ago for adding an extra tax onto soda pop.

It’s hypocritical, then, to try to encourage carmakers to build more electric vehicles and consumers to buy them while also targeting the makers with a special tax that will make those cars more expensive.

Making them more expensive will price them even further out of reach for the average consumer, which would increase the need for incentives. The funding for those incentives would come from the very tax that contributed to making the car unaffordable in the first place.

If you know the story “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” you know how this goes — round and round.

Check out this short video of some of
the testimony against SB 5811.

(After this week’s hearings, it would appear that the version of this bill sponsored by the House of Representatives is the one that will move forward.)

Which taxes are likely to be in the final budget?

Legislators spent long hours this week in committee listening to testimony on a handful of last-minute new tax bills. The following bills are moving forward.

We strongly oppose new taxes of any kind and will be voting no.

The Senate will vote on several of the bills Saturday morning:

• SB 5794: Eliminates seven tax preferences. ($600 million over four years.)
• SB 5813: Expands the income tax on capital gains tax and the death tax. Washington will end up the fifth highest income tax on capital gains. ($1 billion to $1.5 billion over four years.)
• SB 5797: Taxes your profits on investments like stocks and bonds BEFORE you actually cash in on the profit. ($100 million over four years — a modified version of the original $12 billion tax intended as a test case for the courts.)
• SB 5814: Increases the sales tax on certain professional services, driving up prices for consumers. ($4.6 billion over four years in state taxes, and another $2.7 billion in local sales taxes.)

The House will vote on the following tax bills:

• HB 2049: TRIPLES the annual allowable growth rate by which state and local governments can increase your property taxes WITHOUT a vote of the people. Government can already increase your property taxes each year more than 1%, but the MUST have voter approval to do it. ($800 million in state property tax and another $1 billion in local property tax over four years.)
• HB 2081: Levies additional taxes on consumers. Some businesses will end up paying their entire profit or more in taxes. ($6 billion over four years.)
• HB 2077: Creates a tax on automakers who produce zero-emission vehicles. It’s written in such a way that the only company who will be subject to this tax is Tesla. ($280 million over four years.)

House Democrat leadership’s FAIL on juvenile justice

Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, has fought for several years against complacency on the part of the former governor and the Democrat majority that has enabled dangerous overcrowding in our juvenile-justice facilities. Sen. Braun sponsored Senate Bill 5278 to alleviate that overcrowding and provide the Department of Children, Youth and Families the tools they need to move some of the inmates over age 18 into the custody of the Department of Corrections.

The bill passed unanimously in the Senate, which means it had strong bipartisan support.

Unfortunately, House Democrat leadership’s political game playing killed the bill, leaving staff and residents at facilities such as The Green Hill School in a perilous situation. Their failure to act will enable riots, assaults, overdoses and sexual assaults to continue. Staff will not be able to provide the therapy and training the state has an obligation to provide to the inmates.

For a better understanding of what this means, read my full statement on this development.