Rep. Stokesbary: ‘We could’ve funded all priorities without raising taxes’

Over the weekend, Democrats passed a number of bills that could potentially raise taxes, done so at a time when the state is experiencing record revenue. Republican state representative Drew Stokesbary joined the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH to make sense of them, the passing of which he finds egregious.

“I’d say Republicans did all we could to fight this, but the Democrats have a pretty healthy majority in both chambers and there wasn’t much left we could do,” Stokesbary said. “When we went into session we had a $2.8 billion budget surplus, which is the best starting position we’ve been in since the Great Recession, probably all century.”

“We could have easily written a budget that funded all of our priorities from mental health to salmon and natural resources to homeless issues to K-12 education and hiring. We could’ve funded all of our priorities without raising taxes.”

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The Washington State Legislature ended its 105-day session last Sunday. It passed a $52.4 billion budget, with $800 million coming from a handful of new taxes, and a hike to the B&O tax. The taxes were spread across multiple bills, and will fund things like special education, mental health, and more.

“They doubled down and raised taxes at the state level by a little over two billion dollars, and also passed a local levy bill that will raise taxes for each local school district collectively by $700 million a year across the state,” Stokesbary said.

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What’s most egregious for Stokesbary is that he believes the budget is unsustainable, and will make the state vulnerable during potential financial downturns.

“At some point we’re going to hit a recession or slow down and we’re going to be in trouble, because we’ve built up this unsustainable budget that spends an enormous amount of money,” he said. “The budget has already grown like 50 percent since I got elected just four and a half years ago.”

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