Rep. Cindy Ryu and Sen. Jesse Salomon, who are running against each other for the 32nd District Senate seat, were recently featured on a KUOW’s Soundside debate, where they discussed Washington’s new income tax. Both made clear the intention has always been to expand the tax.
The Plan Was Always to Go Lower
Speaking to Rep. Ryu, moderator Libby Denkmann noted that Governor Ferguson has said he won’t support new taxes next session, and pointed out that polling shows lowering the threshold significantly reduces public support. She then asked Ryu what household income level should be taxed, and what her pitch is to voters who worry about being squeezed by more taxes.
Rep Cindy Ryu: Let’s look at $250,000. Can we live well on $250,000 a year of net income? Let’s look at how well most of us can live… pretty well at $250,000, especially if we can bring that rate down from 9.9 percent.
To be clear, what Rep. Ryu is proposing is that a household with two earners making $125,000 a year each, for example, would be pulled into this income tax. Sen. Salomon immediately followed this by floating his own desire to see the income tax lowered.
Sen. Jesse Salomon: If we had shown that we could do a short term revenue reduction for a long term change, revolutionary change in the tax code, then they might have said, what do you have next for us? I’m interested. And what’s next would have been lowering it to $750,000 as a threshold.
Sen Salomon and Rep. Ryu may disagree on how far to lower the threshold, but one thing they do share is a determination to expand it to more Washingtonians.
This Is What Olympia Has Been Building Toward
Lowering the threshold was always the plan. Lawmakers voted numerous times against locking the threshold into law, preserving their ability to lower it whenever they choose. They doubled down on that intent by removing nearly 80 years of protections for public pensions, and by leaving Social Security unprotected. Teachers, firefighters, and other public workers are not making one million dollars. If the threshold was never going to move, why remove those protections?
Bottom Line: Don’t trust what they say. Trust what they’ve done. Vote YES on I-645.
Any “law” that blatantly disregards one of the Constitutions (fed / state) - should automatically be null and void.