(This column was originally published in Washington Policy Center Magazine, Winter 2024 issue.)  

 

The 2024 “Trump Wave” stunned Democrats across the nation and led to a Republican trifecta of federal control. Washington state, however, was a Progressive harbor in the MAGA storm where election results were entirely unmoved by the national trends.  As of this writing, President-elect Trump’s share of Washington votes is 5 one hundredths of a percent higher (at 38.82 percent) than it was in 2020 and in the gubernatorial race, moderate former Republican Congressman Dave Reichert looks to have attained just over 44 percent, about one percent higher than 2020’s longshot GOP candidate, Loren Culp. And in the Legislature, Democrats gained on their goal of attaining supermajorities, the holy grail of state political power. And most surprising of all, Progressives successfully defeated three initiatives that would have repealed or made voluntary certain state taxes.

There’s no denying Progressives got the results they said they wanted, but those results had me wondering if Progressives really got the results that would affirm what they value. 

Let’s start with I-2124, which would have made the state’s Long Term Care Act, WACares, voluntary. Advocates of WACares consistently point to a desire for a long-term care social safety net serving those in need. Commercials against I-2124 warned that the measure threatened the program’s viability.  But WACares, unlike Medicaid is not set up as a social safety net.  Some low-income workers will assuredly be seeing their paychecks reduced to benefit people of considerably greater wealth.

Is transferring wealth from low- and middle-income workers to wealthy people so that they will not have to pay for their long-term care, a victory for Progressive values? 

Let’s move to I-2117, which offered voters the chance to repeal the Climate Commitment Act. The claim to Progressive values here is that the act affirms environmental responsibility. But does it?

Washington’s Climate Tax is twice the cost of California’s Cap and Trade system.  In other words, Washington is paying twice the price as California for the same basic benefit.

Grossly overpaying for something would not be celebrated anywhere outside the distorted world of politics. Imagine if the issue were the preservation of land and the government insisted on paying twice as much per acre as necessary – no one would call that a wise approach to victory for environmental land preservation.  But with the Climate Commitment Act (CCA), we do. Even carbon reduction grants funded by the CCA prioritize political constituencies and interests instead of actual carbon reduction. 

This begs the question as to whether overspending for a lesser result at the expense of working families shouldering the double burdens of sharp rises in fuel and energy costs is a Progressive achievement.Now let’s turn to the income tax on capital gains. The last time Washington voters opted to keep an income tax was in 1932, but it was short-lived.  The state supreme court ruled it unconstitutional because it was a graduated tax on income and our state constitution requires taxes on any property be uniform (and under 1 percent).  Since 1932, voters had rejected ten straight income tax proposals.

This time, income tax advocates had the advantage of political camouflage granted by the Legislature and confirmed by the state supreme court that allowed the capital gains tax to be labeled as something other than an income tax. Despite the IRS and the revenue departments of all 49 other states treating capital gains taxes as income taxes, Washington’s supreme court deferred to legislative advocates and ruled it constitutional as an excise tax.  It didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t now.  But it worked as an end-run around a long-time obstacle to state income taxes.value. But the impact of this tax is where things get cloudy. In the immediate aftermath of Washington’s new capital gains tax, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos moved to Florida and saved hundreds of millions in potential tax liability. What does his new Florida home mean to us? Well, his parents gave the largest single gift ever to cancer research at Fred Hutch.  What other philanthropic causes will Bezos and those close to him now give in a state other than Washington?

Furthermore, even the former Progressive Governor of California, Jerry Brown, warned that reliance on capital gains taxes was causing budget havoc during economic swings because of the volatile nature of the tax.  Add to that, the fact that Washington state funding and revenue are at all time highs, and one could reasonably ask if the “win” of getting the tax outweighs the risks.

Some may dismiss my arguments here with, “Well, he’s not a Progressive anyway, so who cares?”

That’s fair enough, but I know what I’ve heard. And what I’ve heard Progressives say they value will differ substantially from the impacts we are likely to see.

In other words, both sides lost. The question is whether some Progressives will be willing to see it.

 

This column was originally published in Washington Policy Center Magazine, Winter 2024 issue.