Senator Ericksen: Even with influx of money, still seeing big tax increases in budget

Washington state Democrats just passed a $59 billion state budget, which includes tax increases on gas and capital gains. Sen. Doug Ericksen is not a fan, and joined the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH to discuss the increases in spending and Democrats feeling like they have no control mechanism.

“So this budget the Senate Democrats passed is about a 13% increase in spending. That puts us up to about a 50% increase in the size of government over the past five years,” he said.

It’s the timing of the tax increase amidst the influx of money coming into the state that bothers Ericksen most.

“I think the most troubling part, though, is even though we’re seeing massive increases in the amount of dollars being sent in by the taxpayers of Washington state, even though we had all of the Biden bucks, with the $1.9 trillion stimulus of borrowing from China and that one time influx of money — even with all those things that we’re seeing, the Democrats still are looking to use big tax increases to balance their budget, income tax, energy tax, property tax, cell phone tax. And that’s just the start of the list,” he said.

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Ericksen believes that Democrats are moving forward under the assumption that the capital gains tax will be ruled constitutional, which he says is indicative of their belief that they have free reign power-wise in Washington state.

“The Democrats right now have one-party control in Olympia, they do not feel like they have any control mechanism in Washington state, that they are free reign, that they can do whatever they want and get reelected. That’s where we’re at. They believe that the court has been stacked enough,” he said.

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“I’m not sure if it’s six or seven members of the current state Supreme Court originally got on the court by being appointed by either Jay Inslee or Chris Gregoire, and they’re counting on this court to say that it’s constitutional have income tax. That is what they’re banking on.”

Jason asked if Democrats are wrong to assume that they have that kind of control.

“Only the next election will tell how far they can push this. There’s a saying that I can’t use on the radio, but it definitely involves how much stuff you can put in a hot dog. But we’ll find out in the next election if the people are fed up with this, and that’s what it’s going to come down to,” Ericksen responded.

“Will the people push back, or has the population said that we really want to live in a socialist state?”

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3 – 6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here.