Public Revenue and Spending | Press

Washington's tax system sorely needs a makeover

07.23.2008 | Everett Herald, Seattle Post-Intelligencer | Washington state is facing a budget deficit next year. The national economic downturn means less tax revenue, but there will be more kids in school, more young adults trying to get into college, more seniors needing long-term care and more struggling families needing assistance. And the state, like everyone else, has to deal with higher prices. We could get through this economic downturn like the last one, by cutting children's health insurance, short-changing teachers, and spending down the rainy day fund. Or we could raise taxes. The trouble is that most of our state taxes fall hardest on working families already struggling to pay the bills. | Read (Everett Herald) | Read (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Shaky finances send states into recession

04.25.2008 | Associated Press | The finances of many states have deteriorated so badly that they appear to be in a recession, regardless of whether that's true for the nation as a whole, a survey of all 50 state fiscal directors concludes. The situation looks even worse for the fiscal year that begins July 1 in most states. | Read

New poll shows Americans are more "redistributionist" than before

04.16.2008 | According to this recent Gallup poll, Americans are now more "redistributionist" than they were at the end of the Great Depression. | Read | Watch

Piecemeal tax breaks don't expand opportunity for all

03.05.2008 | Everett Herald | A tax break for groomers of cross-country ski trails, or space for three more students in community college? Forgiving sales tax on the Tacoma Narrows bridge, or full-day kindergarten for 7,200 more 5-year-olds? Lawmakers in Olympia are grappling with these questions as the House and Senate try to reconcile their competing budgets in the final days of the legislative session. | Read

The Boeing tax break argument doesn't fly

02.27.2008 | Seattle Post-Intelligencer | Back in the Dark Ages of elementary school Valentine's Day, teachers had a basic rule for maintaining order and avoiding bruised feelings: Everyone gives everybody else a card, even if it's to the kid most likely to wind up being named in a restraining order. These days the debate in Washington is whether the same theory should apply to tax breaks handed out under the guise of economic development incentives. | Read

Energy Taxes: Rocket launch

02.27.2008 | Seattle Post-Intelligencer | The economy or the environment? How about both? Congress approved Wednesday $18 billion in new oil company taxes, money that will be used to spur investment in wind, solar and alternative sources. | Read

Dos and Don’ts of Coping with State Budget Crises: California is Not Alone

02.20.2008 | California Progress Report | The budget news is grim in some states. Twenty states face a combined budget shortfall of at least $35 billion for 2009, according to analysis by the Center on Budget Policy & Priorities (see CBPP graph below). Another 8 states will likely have budget problems next year or the year after. The impulse by some state leaders is to slash state spending, but that could be disastrous for the economy if multiple states lay off state workers and cut-off help to those in need just as private spending is falling. | Read

State tax policy: First things first

02.12.2008 | Seattle P-I | Washington has a "complicated" tax structure. We'd use stronger words -- incoherent, perplexing, unfair -- but it's easier to show rather than tell. | Read

No equal-opportunity recession

02.10.2008 | Seattle Times | Atop the list of recessionary losers is government revenue as tax collections fall. Worse, this risks the competitive position of states and cities when the economy recovers, because funding for education, research and infrastructure stagnates or declines. | Read

Where's the evidence that property taxes are too high?

12.12.2007 | Everett Herald | Our kids are falling behind in global standards, and education ends for the majority at 12th grade. This is not just about the need for our children to have the skills and the brains to compete globally. Public education is the foundation for democracy. | Read

Lawmakers should repair state's entire tax system

11.28.2007 | Everett Herald | Enacting Initiative 747, recently overturned by the Washington State Supreme Court, is the focus of the upcoming special legislative session. If the Legislature votes to put Initiative 747 back into law, and the governor signs that bill, they will be parties to handicapping public services. Under Initiative 747, total current property tax resources won't even be allowed to keep up with inflation, except by a vote of the people for each minor addition to that tax. Of course, at the same time, we want to improve our schools, build better roads... | Read

1 percent state income tax could fix education system

06.13.2007 | Everett Herald | We don't invest enough, but we expect students to meet rigorous standards. It is a good thing that students are expected to become engaged learners and competent in reading, writing and math. In fact, it is necessary. But it is hard to get the students there when we starve the system of support. Washington is in the bottom third of all the states when it comes to per pupil investments. | Read

If you cherish democracy, pay your taxes with a smile

04.18.2007 | Everett Herald | On Tuesday, most of us paid off the taxes we owed and grumbled about it. It has become publicly permissible to figure out how to contribute as little as possible to our government through taxes. The conservative Tax Foundation has calculated a "tax freedom" day that purports to determine at what date people will have worked off their taxes. That's an odd way to put it - working off your taxes. We don't expect our police and firefighters to take a six-month leave from work. We don't expect the military to defend the country for just half a year. We don't expect that our public schools will shut down in June and open up in January. | Read

State lawmakers can fight big oil's raid on our wallets

02.07.2007 | Everett Herald | Aren't we supposed to give corporations a free hand and get out of the way? But what happens when those corporations suck money out of the local economy? Just in the past month, Washington businesses and citizens have handed over close to $1 billion to the oil and gas industries. It doesn't go to building our own renewable energy resources, it doesn't go to energy conservation, it doesn't go to better transit. It goes out of our state and out of our economy. | Read

Public health agencies need ample funding to protect us

01.24.2007 | Everett Herald | "What you don't see is what you get." That's a good motto for public health. When you drink tap water, go out to a restaurant or drop off your kids at school, you are assuming a level of safety and health that doesn't just happen. It is the result of public funding for public health. | Read

When we have resources, government should invest

01.10.2007 | Everett Herald | Gov. Chris Gregoire had a field day last month laying out her spending priorities for the next two-year budget. She did so with good reason - she wants to invest in education, health care and economic development. But then, with the legislative session starting, the Republicans figured out some sound bites to cast a shadow on her proposals. | Read

Break Even: Three small steps toward fixing Washington’s unfair taxes

01.03.2007 | Real Change News | Bargaining for tax breaks has become a routine part of doing business. During every legislative session, business lobbyists line the hallways of the state capitol demanding their own special tax exemptions. And they get heard. In the past three years, Washington’s Legislature passed 61 tax break packages for businesses ranging from software giants, to car dealers, to soda pop distributors, giving away nearly half a billion dollars from the state’s 2007-09 budget. | Read

Estate tax initiative pits greed against common good

10.18.2006 | Tacoma News Tribune, Everett Herald | A civil society is possible only with a government that provides the infrastructure for business, discourse and politics; that enables citizens to realize economic security; and that gives all children the foundation of education to contribute to our economy and democracy as adults. The state estate tax crystallizes the discussion of morality and taxation. | Read (Tribune) | Read (Herald)

Estate, timber tax giveaways would dig deeper fiscal holes

06.28.2006 | Tacoma News Tribune, Everett Herald | Two weeks ago I wrote about how the repeal of the state estate tax would defund public education. Now Congress has taken up the attempt to permanently kill the federal estate tax. At first, the Senate balked at a complete repeal. So the House put together a “compromise.” The congressional leadership decided to couple this “compromise” giveaway to the adult children of the already wealthy with another giveaway to the timber companies... | Read (Tribune)| Read (Herald)

Repealing state estate tax would rob public education

06.14.2006 | Tacoma News Tribune, Everett Herald | Last week we got our first inkling of the WASL scores for 10th-graders. While more than 85 percent of kids passed the reading and writing tests, 45 percent did not make the grade in math. In order to graduate from high school, each child must pass all three tests. That means that as of today, every other kid in 10th grade has the credentials to graduate, and every other kid doesn’t. | Read (Tribune) | Read (Herald)

Tax would give us share of windfall profits for oil, gas

05.31.2006 | Tacoma News Tribune, Everett Herald | So maybe rising gas prices have an up side. After all, we Americans have to get hit over the head to realize that maybe it is not such a good thing that our 20th of the world’s population consumes one quarter of its petroleum. But the galling thing about these gas prices is that they feed the appetites of the very companies that discourage energy conservation. | Read (Tribune)| Read (Herald)

Want to fix the budget? Add teachers, subtract tax breaks

05.17.2006 | Tacoma News Tribune, Everett Herald | The function of government is to provide crucial public services in our democracy. But we have a problem with giving away public money to private businesses. Over the past three years, Democrats and Republicans have joined together in digging themselves into a hole by continuing to poke holes in our tax structure. | Read (Tribune) | Read (Herald)

Desire to win friends puts gaping holes in state's budget

04.05.2006 | Tacoma News Tribune, Everett Herald | Tax exemptions, deductions, credits and miscellaneous tax breaks, endorsed by both Republicans and Democrats, threaten the state’s ability to maintain its investments in public services... | Read (Tribune)| Read (Herald)

House bill would audit results when state allows tax breaks

02.22.2006 | Tacoma News Tribune, Everett Herald | The problem is that it is a lot easier to get a special tax break in Olympia. The Legislature makes big and yet silent trade-offs with tax breaks like these. The Senate agreed to fund 5,000 additional slots for the Basic Health Plan’s subsidized sliding scale health coverage for lower-income workers. That cost about $10 million. But one in 10 Washington citizens lacks health insurance, and the number is growing. Why not take back those $46 million in tax breaks and add Basic Health coverage for 20,000 more citizens? | Read (Tribune| Read (Herald)

New state gas tax not to blame for high gas prices

09.21.2005 | Tacoma News Tribune | Each county gets money to work on transportation infrastructure, safety and mobility projects. To do this, the gas tax will rise 3 cents per gallon next year, 2 cents in 2007 and 1.5 cents in 2008. With this year’s tax contribution in place, the gas tax is 25 percent less than what we paid in the 1960s. In fact, the tax collected per vehicle mile dropped more than 10 percent between 1980 and 2004. Let’s not confuse the cost of gas with the gas tax. | Read

Schools need big investment of money, not rhetoric

09.07.2005 | Tacoma News Tribune | The Legislature needs to do more than just reinstate initiatives 728 and 732. One quality education model details the need for almost $2 billion more in funding for K-12 education if we are to open up doors for the vast majority of our children. We can’t be content with a slim majority of achievers. Public education that creates opportunity for all is the foundation of a robust democracy. | Read

Initiative 601 restrictions, levy requirements mock majority rule

04.20.2005 | Tacoma News Tribune | The minority-rule restrictions of I-601 mirror the requirements for school levies that allow a small minority to override the will of the people. In these elections, 59 percent of the vote isn’t enough. An even larger majority can be nullified if the vote totals don’t exceed 40 percent of the turnout from the preceding November. This enables a small minority to veto support for the public schools by voting “no” or not even showing up to vote. | Read

Estate tax opponents enjoy public benefits but want free ride

04.06.2005 | Tacoma News Tribune | Estate taxes are not taxes on people. They are taxes on a transfer of property from the deceased. Proponents of the estate tax realize that in our country, we are expected to earn our living, not have it handed to us. Opponents, those who have already enjoyed the privileges of wealth as the children of the wealthy, want a free ride. | Read

Report Highlights Options to Restore Washington's Estate Tax

03.28.2005 | EOI | The Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI) today released “Washington’s Estate Tax: Protecting Our State’s Resources” which evaluates several options for restoring the estate tax. Because the federal estate tax has been eliminated, the state courts have ruled that Washington’s estate tax is invalid. The loss to the state is approximately $280 million in the next biennium. | Read

Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes

04.01.1999 | University of Chicago Chronicle | Cass Sunstein, known for his research on constitutional law, recently took a step in a new direction. His newest book, The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes, co-written with Princeton’s Stephen Holmes, explores their theory that all legally enforceable rights cost money. In an interview, Sunstein, the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School, explains why this is so. | Read