If you want to argue the tax code is unfair that is fine but don't argue for increased spending as part of it. Where tax revenues come from has nothing to do with how much revenue is being collected and whether it is justified. They are separate issues. Every time this issue of fairness comes up it never is defined what constitutes fair nor is there ever any discussion of reducing regressive taxes like sales and property tax. It's always new revenue and new spending which is why WA voters have continually rejected instituting an income tax when its been on the ballot. It is a fact that the WA legislature created new programs with one time federal Covid dollars that they knew would need new funding to be continued. That is one of the reasons we are in this mess. It is a fact that state revenue has grown faster than both inflation and population over the last decade. It is also a fact that the state treasury warned them that revenues would slow down over the last couple of years and they deliberately ignored his advice and used a forecast that would assume higher growth to justify more spending. These are the reasons we have deficits now. If they want to justify these programs that they knowingly created with funding gaps that's fine they should make their case to the people instead of gaslighting us about "fairness" and pretending they have no idea how this happened. The truth is any tax increases they propose (and there will no doubt be some) will heavily impact middle and lower income people. They will need to own that and we'll see what voters think in 2026.

I would also add the legislature is free at any time to pass a constitutional amendment for an income tax but of course they won't because they know how unpopular it will be and will certainly result in blowback. Instead they'll just use it to gaslight us some more.

'We know that the people of Washington want these kinds of progressive taxes' - I would say some of the people probabely are, but given voting patterns in Seattle, there are probably less and less. And the reason isn't that people don't care. It's that people are fed with the lack of transparency that goes into public spending. Every tax dollar spent should be publically accounted for and the outcomes of this spending clearly described. We don't see this in Seattle. For some reason we had a ballot in February this year which had 2 questions. How much did it cost to send out this ballot? I'd like to know. I would also like to know who was responsible for this absurd waste of tax payer money. But there is no accountablity for tax spending in Seattle which is why progressives (like me who read the Stranger) are become more fed up by articles like this that presume to tell the public what they should believe.

I absolutely do not want a system "with enough mental health resources to serve all students." Oh hell no. The "system" sucks. Nothing but psychiatric medication and indoctrination. Student mental health is the responsibility of their parents.

Our states primary tax system has remain unchanged for decades because the people of Washington have said time and time and time again that they do not want an income tax. We even put it in the state Constitution for fucks sake. Stop trying to take more of our money!

The State got billions of dollars in Covid money that they appropriation a one time appropriation. Then they proceeded to create new long term programs that were dependent upon that money. That proves our lawmakers are fucking idiots.

Also, can you get it through your God damned head that the taxpayers ARE NOT INTERESTED in providing free health care and a bunch of other benefits to ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. But please bring it up in 28 so JD Vance can win another 8 years in the White House.

We all know how fucking "progressive" you idiots are. Progressing us straight toward a 13% state income tax like California. We'll, how has that worked out for them? They are a hundred billion in the whole.

The MFing leeches. They just take, take, take. Never fucking contribute anything positive to society at all.

“The legislature has been making difficult decisions with a severely limited revenue stream for years that has trickled down to barely a drop.”

This statement simply isn’t true - here’s WA Tax Revenue 2019-2023 (2024 hasn’t been released yet):

2019 $25,743,777,000
2020 $26,834,601,000
2021 $29,969,619,000
2022 $33,443,686,000
2023 $35,387,867,000

Source - https://dor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-06/Table2_2023.xlsx

I support reducing / eliminating sales tax in favor of an income tax but that never seems to be the proposal. The most expedient path to rebalancing our upside down tax collection is to replace regressive taxes with progressive taxes (simply adding an income with no offsetting reductions will not help those most burdened today).

@4 - agree completely.

I’ve been listening to progressives make the same, politically failing arguments since I moved to WA 30 years ago. It would be refreshing, if unlikely, to see this theory be tested by a vote - replace current sales and B&O taxes with a graduated income tax.

Mr Goss is exactly right. And District13refugee @#1 is exactly wrong. It certainly does matter where revenues come from. In demand driven free markets taxes on spending will decrease spending. Decreases in spending will decrease revenue. We see it time and again in this state. When we need revenue most, we have the least. When we need revenue the least, we have the most. And when we're awash in cash politicians blow it like sailors on leave. Shocker! The most progressive state with the most regressive taxation. Yes, I believe we've burdened ourselves with a government overladen with administration. But when we hear conservatives blather about wasteful spending, what they're usually talking about is rescuing people from horrible circumstances. But the real problem (Ms Gregoire vs. Mr. Simms) is that Democrats don't have the guts to address the real problem.

@6 you misread my post. The debate over whether we have enough revenue is entirely different than "fairness". The D's in this state love to conflate the two so they don't have to defend their reckless choices that got us here. If the debate was solely about whether we are bringing in enough revenue to support their programs they would have to defend the effectiveness of those programs which often times they cannot. So instead they start talking about tax fairness. If you want to change the mix of taxes from sales tax to something more progressive let's have that debate but make it revenue neutral. Then they can make the case they need additional revenue or not based on the worthiness of the programs.

Inflation adjusted per capita tax revenue is up roughly 50% since 2010, from $3400 (2024 dollars) to $5000, and is now at an all time high:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1F4xI&height=490

Its hard to see how this represents "a severely limited revenue stream for years that has trickled down to barely a drop".

Inflation is at 2.8% in February. They aren't mass deporting, just those with criminal convictions or preexisting deportation orders. And taxing "billionaires" just proves you don't realize it's quite lovely in Miami in March.

Get off the internet and go out and touch some grass.