Anthony Teso offers his views on Initiative 645

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

Nancy Churchill calls the public investment impact disclosure on Initiative 645 a lie printed on the ballot. The strongest version of her case is worth stating plainly. The disclosure does read like advocacy. And the necessity clause the legislature attached to the millionaires’ tax did foreclose a referendum, which is a real democratic complaint that people on the left should not wave away.

Anthony Teso

Then the argument collapses.

The disclosure is not something Attorney General Nick Brown decided to write. RCW 29A.72.027 requires him to prepare one for any measure that repeals or modifies a tax when the Office of Financial Management’s fiscal impact statement shows a net change in state revenue. OFM found a reduction of roughly $11.4 billion over fiscal years 2027 through 2031. The statute then dictates the content: a description of the investments that will be affected. He described K-12, higher education, and human services. That is a 2022 law operating as written. Churchill is free to argue the law is inadequate. Calling its operation corruption is a different claim, and she has not made it. (ITEP, Washington Secretary of State)

The “not one dollar has been collected” point proves too much. Every fiscal note in this state concerns uncollected money. That is what a fiscal note is. The reason a 2026 vote governs a tax that starts on income earned in 2028 is that Let’s Go Washington wanted it that way. You cannot choose to litigate the future and then object to the state describing the future. (Ballotpedia)

What the column omits matters more than what it disputes. I-645 does not simply repeal the 9.9 percent tax. It bans income taxes altogether. It also leaves standing the sales tax exemptions, the expanded small-business B&O exemption, and the Working Families Tax Credit expansion that the same bill funded. Repeal removes the revenue and keeps the obligations. Someone pays for that later, and it will not be households earning over a million dollars. (Komo News, When in your state)

Now, the part that Churchill completely inverts. She warns the middle class that this tax will come for them. Washington has the second most regressive tax system in the country. The poorest fifth of families pay 13.8 percent of income in state and local taxes, the middle fifth 10.9 percent, and the wealthiest one percent just 4.1 percent. The middle class is not waiting to be soaked. It has been soaked for decades through a sales tax that is high precisely because there is no income tax. Churchill defends that arrangement and calls it common sense. (ITEP)

Her history runs backwards too. Washington voters approved a graduated income tax in 1932 by a large margin, and the state Supreme Court struck it down the following year. The obstacle to taxing income here has never been the electorate. It has been the courts. That is an odd fact to carry into a column about judges thwarting the people.

Finally, the sponsor. Brian Heywood is a Redmond hedge fund manager who has spent millions of dollars of his own money funding initiatives, and he sits among the roughly 20,000 wealthiest Washingtonians who would pay this tax. The column gives us ranchers, wolves, and satellite images. The beneficiary is the man signing the checks. (NPI)

I do not think that 9.9 percent on income above a million dollars is much of a reform. It leaves the sales tax structure intact, and the wealthiest Washingtonians will still pay a smaller share than the people who clean their offices. But that is not the question on the ballot. The question is whether we lock the present arrangement permanently on behalf of the man who paid to ask it.

Vote no on 645.
Anthony P. Teso
Camas

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