The latter proposal would eliminate the exemption for trade-ins over $10,000 – a big hit to the car business, not to mention the markets for recreational vehicles, boats and farm machinery. Indeed, many of Inslee’s targets seem to be old favorites – proposals heard the last time Legislature considered mass repeal back in 2010, leading some wags to call it an exercise in cut-and-paste.Īmong the standbys are a proposal to eliminate a sales tax break for custom software and an attack on the state’s trade-in sales-tax exemption. Proposals to end tax exemptions – or close “tax loopholes” – never seem to get very far, because every interest group with a tax break at risk can usually make a case to the Legislature for its continuance. Told-you-so grin: Senate Republican Leader Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, says the Senate Majority Coalition will shortly release a budget proposal that shows no big tax increases are needed.Įven if Inslee’s proposal was the only idea on the table, its prospects would be politically dicey. “If I wasn’t confident, I wouldn’t be here,” he said. Senate Republican Leader Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville greeted reporters with the grin of a ballplayer who knows he has the game already won, but can’t explain how he knows. And in the Senate the Republican-leaning majority says it will release a budget proposal next week that shows no big increase is necessary. Republicans didn’t bother expressing shock – some had even joked before the session started that they were taking bets on the day Inslee would release his tax-hike plan. His spending proposal is roughly $4 billion bigger. The state has an additional $2 billion to spend in its 2013-15 budget, but few believed Inslee would be able to make the books balance with that money alone. When we give these tax breaks a hard look, they just don’t measure up to the urgent need for better funding for our schools and our children.”Īll semantics aside, Inslee’s not-so-modest proposal finally cleared up one of the biggest mysteries that has hung over this year’s legislative session. “And to make good on our constitutional and moral duty to pay for quality schools for our children. “To govern is to choose, and today I choose, and I believe we all should choose, education over tax breaks,” he said. Apparently it’s all how you look at it: Raising taxes is one thing, the governor said, but eliminating tax breaks and reimposing taxes that are due to expire are entirely different matters. And he insisted that there is no contradiction with the no-tax-increase promise he made on the campaign trail last fall. Jay Inslee laid out a $34.4 billion spending plan Thursday that artfully attempted to cover his campaign pledge not to propose a tax increase – while proposing $1.2 billion in tax increases.īy raising taxes on everything from beer to software to automobile trade-ins, the Democratic governor said he can find enough money to finance a Supreme Court ruling that requires big new spending for the state’s K-12 schools. Jay Inslee rolls out his spending plan, replete with $1.2 billion in new revenue.
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