Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result – Albert Einstein
It is so true that I am classifying the Washington State Legislative Democrats (and their sycophants) as Officially Insane.
Senate Democrats are toying with putting an income tax on the ballot, knowing such a levy likely would end up in the state Supreme Court if voters approved the measure.
Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said no decision has been made, but she’s looking at “an income tax on very high-income individuals: millionaires or half-millionaires. And that would mean that 19 out of 20 people in Washington state would not be affected at all.”
The move would be politically risky for Democrats, who control both the state House and Senate. Voters have rejected income-tax proposals several times, most recently in 1973. That proposal failed by a 3-to-1 ratio.
Talk of an income tax has emerged as the Legislature looks for ways to cut nearly $4 billion in spending to balance the state’s next two-year budget. Both the state House and Senate have proposed deep spending reductions, but Democrats also are considering putting a tax increase on the ballot to mitigate some of the cuts.
The local leftosphere spent last week writing a post every time some sane person spoke out against the idea (read: several times a day).
They’d speak of vague idiocies like “fairness” and “their fair share” and “like they’re going to miss it.”
They’d write multiple paragraphs about how dumb the 1933 Washington State Supreme Court decision was with its ideas of an income tax being leveled upon all and not just “the wealthy”, as well as write on their hyper-confidence of the current crop of justices overturning that decision.
One thing that was not mentioned was the idea that this tax wouldn’t really actually do anything to relieve the current, Democratic party created, budget deficit. Thankfully, the Seattle Times was wise enough to ask the question.
Brown said she didn’t expect an income tax on the wealthy to help with current budget problems, but it would provide a new revenue stream in the future.
Ahh, so they’re not letting this crisis go to waste, I see. Rahm Emmanuel tactics localized.
The other idea that I hope the state’s fiscal conservatives (I don’t dare say “Republicans” just yet) use as a battering ram against the bill is the idea of the Camel’s nose getting under the tent with this bill.
What is to stop the government from lowering the income threshold? If it is 1% on people who make $500,000, what is to stop in the future them from making it 2% on those folks and 1% on peopl emaking $250,000?
Absolutely nothing.
Once they get their initial vote and a win in the courts, it’ll be like kids in a candy shop (or whiskey and car keys to teenage boys).
Your lesson on the state income tax is no farther than Oregon, where everybody, not just us “rich” people (my family income is under $100K) pays, and the rate is progressive, but “tops out” at 8.9% on income much over $50K, which is just about everyone with any sort of family-wage job. Now, we have no sales tax here, but all the fees, etc would gag Karl Marx.
Look one more state South, and you find Kalifornica, which levies a top rate of ten-point something, and there are local options as well, making some pay around 12+ percent, and that’s on TOP of a huge sales tax with local options.
Nope, don’t go there, unless you can put it in the WA Constitution as a DIRECT TRADE for lowering the sales tax, and it can’t be touched there without a 2/3 vote of the PEOPLE.
Strange, down here, we have defeated sales tax at the polls 9 times in the past two generations, but it takes talk of locking the rate in the OR Constitution to kill off such liberal hope. The libs, of course, run like Hell from any suggestion that would keep them from upping the ante anytime they wanted to.
I seem to recall the federal income tax being levied only on “the rich” when it was first instituted, as well.
And I don’t know how it breaks down at the state level, but I know at the federal level, “the rich” already pay well above their ‘fair share,’ since IRS stats have shown for a long time that the top 20% pays a much greater percentage of the taxes than their share of the income.
C’mon, Bill Gates owns what, a quarter of Mercer Island? Anyone ask how big his tax bill is?
Oh, and by that definition, Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et al are completely batshit crazy. All of their policies of ‘change’ have already been tried, and failed, and they still think they can make them work.
When I was a kid of eight years, the WA legislature instituted a 1% sales tax PROMISING that it would NEVER be raised. A while back the WA legisltature instituted mandator seat belt laws PROMISING they’d never be a PRIMARY offense(meanin that no one would ever be pulled over for not wearing a seat belt.)
The promises of the WA legislature are carved in ice, not granite.
When I was eight I learned that once elected, democrats turn into lying bastards. Nothing has changed now that I am eight times eight.
Gerry N.