Letter: Facts, not slippery slopes

🎧 Facts vs. Fear: Debating Washington’s Millionaire Tax

Brian Kendall offers a response to Nancy Churchill’s recent column

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and may not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com

A response to Nancy Churchill’s “Income Tax Battle Round Two.”

Brian Kendall

In a recent column, Nancy Churchill argues that Washington’s new tax on income over $1 million is not really about millionaires at all, that it is a “test case” designed to usher in a statewide income tax for everyone. She warns that it’s “just a matter of time” before the threshold drops and ordinary Washingtonians are swept into a broader tax system.

That argument depends on a familiar device: the slippery slope. And slippery slopes are powerful — not because they’re true, but because they’re frightening.

Fear is a poor substitute for facts.

The new tax applies only to annual income over $1 million. That’s not a rumor or a prediction; it’s the law as written. And honestly, why would anyone oppose a tax that applies only to the wealthiest one percent of Washingtonians — many of whom pay a lower effective tax rate than teachers, firefighters, or nurses?

Reasonable people can debate whether the tax is wise, fair, or effective. But it’s hard to have an honest conversation when the starting point is the assumption that lawmakers are secretly plotting to tax everyone, regardless of what the statute actually says.

Slippery slope arguments skip over evidence and jump straight to worst case scenarios. They turn policy disagreements into existential threats. They replace civic debate with suspicion. And they make it harder for neighbors to talk to one another without assuming the worst about each other’s motives.

Washington voters deserve better than that.

We can disagree — strongly — about taxes, spending, and the role of government. Those debates matter. But disagreement doesn’t require distortion. It doesn’t require imagining intentions that aren’t in the text of the law. And it doesn’t require telling working families that a tax written for million dollar incomes is secretly aimed at them.

If the tax is flawed, let’s talk about the flaws. If the process was rushed or the emergency clause misused, let’s talk about that too. Those are real issues worthy of real discussion.

But fear-based predictions about what “will inevitably happen next” don’t strengthen our democracy. They weaken it. They turn neighbors into combatants and public policy into a battlefield where only the most alarming voices get heard.

We can have a better conversation than that — one rooted in what’s actually written in the law, not in what someone imagines might happen someday. Civic trust depends on our willingness to separate evidence from speculation and facts from fear.

Slippery slope arguments may feel satisfying in the moment because they offer a simple story: if we allow this, then that will surely follow. But public policy is rarely that simple. Laws change only when lawmakers, voters, and courts agree to change them. Nothing “just happens” automatically. Suggesting otherwise undermines the very democratic processes we all rely on.

Washington’s future will be shaped by the choices we make together — not by the fears we project onto one another. When we start with suspicion, we end up talking past each other. When we start with facts, we at least have a chance at understanding.

Brian Kendall
Republic, WA

Brian Kendall offers a response to Nancy Churchill’s recent column

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