Gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp: Washington is not a business friendly state
Aug 21, 2020, 3:53 PM
Loren Culp at an election event. (Culp for Governor, Facebook)
(Culp for Governor, Facebook)
Statewide money issues have been at the forefront in recent years with the debate around $30 car tabs, which Gubernatorial Republican candidate Loren Culp doesn’t feel goes far enough.
Culp joined Seattle’s Morning News and discussed what he terms the state’s out-of-control spending.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with $20 tabs,” he joked. “Our government is out of control. Since Jay Inslee’s been in office, the state spending has doubled. It’s gone from almost $30 billion a year to almost $60 billion a year. That’s about a billion dollars every single week that the state government is spending,” Culp said.
“At the end of every fiscal year, all the departments go on a spending spree and they spend billions of dollars on things that they don’t need, things that we don’t have to have because they don’t want to miss out on the next budget cycle and getting that same budget plus an increase. That’s how the budget has grown. And that’s gonna end when I’m governor.”
Loren Culp: ‘Spineless politicians’ giving in to defund police movement
Culp says the growing budget is taking money out the pockets of Washingtonians, and needs more oversight, particularly in the case of Sound Transit.
“I think that Sound Transit is a great big money-sucking hole, and it needs to be examined and audited. And it will be when I’m governor. This out of control spending that we’re doing has got to quit because we can’t afford it. That money doesn’t come from the government creating a product and selling it, making a profit like a business does. That money comes right out of the pockets of families, of businesses, of small businesses as well, and it’s very burdensome,” Culp said.
Downtown Seattle Association CEO: Council’s Amazon Tax is ‘bad policy
“I ran my own business for over 20 years in the Olympia area. I know that this is not a business friendly state … We can’t keep sucking this amount of money out of the pockets of hardworking Washington citizens and expect them to prosper, and then pick and choose which ones can go to work on top of it.”
Listen to Seattle’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
-
Tune in to KIRO Newsradio weekdays at 5am for Dave Ross on Seattle's Morning News.
