‘You’re still living good’: Gee pushes back on pension fears in WA millionaires’ tax debate

Campaign warnings that Washington’s new millionaires’ tax could reach public pensions prompted Gee Scott to draw a distinction: What the law does now is not the same as what lawmakers might change later.

On “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio, Gee and co-host Ursula Reutin examined pension-related arguments surrounding Initiative 645, which would repeal the tax. Both acknowledged concerns about lawmakers potentially lowering the income threshold, but Gee challenged the way those possibilities are being presented to voters.

Ursula explained that public pensions are not exempt from the tax, but a household would have to bring in more than $1 million annually for it to apply. She also emphasized that the current threshold does not settle questions about future changes.

“It is also true that there are no protections or what I like to call guardrails in this law that prevent lawmakers from lowering the amount of income that would be subject to this tax,” Ursula said.

Gee agreed the possibility of a lower threshold was a fair concern. What frustrated him was treating that possibility as though it were already happening.

He cited $385,000 as the highest state pension and $33,000 as the average for a career public employee, arguing that those figures put the current million-dollar threshold into perspective.

But even in a hypothetical situation where lawmakers lowered the threshold to reach a couple earning $300,000 each, Gee argued that the household would still be financially comfortable.

“You’re still living good. That’s what I want to say. You’re still living good because some folks know what it’s like to make $300,000 a year, and know if they were missing 9%, guess what? They still living good,” Gee said.

His 9% example described a hypothetical financial trade-off, not a calculation of what a pension recipient currently owes.

Will the current $1M threshold stay?

Gee did not promise that lawmakers would leave the tax unchanged. He acknowledged that he could not guarantee the threshold would remain at $1 million over the next decade.

That uncertainty, however, did not convince him that campaign warnings about pensions fairly represented the tax’s present reach. He characterized the pension argument as a scare tactic while recognizing that future changes remained possible.

Ursula raised another question: Even if the tax collects more money from higher-income households, will people at the bottom actually pay less?

“The question also is, will they pay less with the passage of this, or is it just going to be more people who make that threshold?” Ursula said.

Gee framed his support in personal terms. He described being willing to pay more rather than accept a system in which lower-income residents devote a larger share of their income to taxes.

“Guess what? This is no brainer. I’m picking the 9%. That’s me though. I can’t choose for anybody else,” Gee said.

Frustrating ballot wording

The discussion also turned to the challenge of figuring out what a “yes” or “no” vote actually means. Voting yes on Initiative 645 repeals the income tax, while voting no keeps it.

Gee described rereading the measure while filling out his ballot to make sure his vote matched his intention.

Ursula shared that frustration, noting that even two hosts who discuss these issues every day needed time to work through the wording.

Both encouraged listeners to slow down, examine the arguments, and avoid relying solely on campaign advertising.

“But again, understand that there is a lot of stuff with the campaign ads that are extremely misleading, and you have to just be really careful. I would just suggest you give yourself a lot of time,” Ursula said.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio.