Opinion: Governor explains why there’s no middle-class tax relief in his budget

Date: Friday, December 16, 2022

Gov. Jay Inslee says states offering middle-class tax relief are different than Washington

Jason Mercier
Washington Policy Center

The governor was interviewed this week by TVW. One of the questions he was asked was why no middle-class tax relief in his budget, yet again, like is occurring in other Democratic states. The governor replied that those states are different, they aren’t facing the same problems as Washington, and we don’t have an income tax to cut. He also said broad tax relief would benefit billionaires.

Here is a clip of that exchange HERE.

On the one hand, the governor made it very clear that he’ll unlikely ever propose broad-based tax relief since he believes the benefit the middle-class would receive is outweighed by his concern that the wealthy may also benefit.

On the other hand, based on his bragging about Washington having no income tax, notwithstanding the unconstitutional capital gains income tax, I look forward to working with the governor to pass a constitutional amendment banning any form of income tax to prevent future efforts to circumvent the voters’ consistent opposition to income taxes.

Jason Mercier is the director of the Center for Government Reform at the Washington Policy Center.