Ursula: Governor Ferguson says ‘trust me’ on the millionaires’ tax. I don’t

We may get to vote on Washington’s new millionaires’ tax this November, and now, Governor Bob Ferguson is making a promise.

He said that as long as he’s governor, he’ll veto any effort to lower the income threshold or raise the tax rate. Right now, the nearly 10% tax applies only to household income above one million dollars.

It looks like voters will get a say on whether to maintain the tax on income over $1 million that was passed earlier this year- and I look forward to the public having their say on this important policy. To be clear, this reform of our regressive tax code included expansion of…

— Bob Ferguson (@BobFergusonGov) May 27, 2026

But here’s my problem: if the governor or Democrats in Olympia wanted us to trust that promise, why didn’t they put those protections directly into the law?

They could have written guardrails preventing future legislatures from lowering the threshold for this new income tax. They didn’t. That was not an oversight. That was a choice!

And we’ve heard promises like this before.

Remember when former Governor Jay Inslee said the Climate Commitment Act would add only pennies to the cost of a gallon of gas? Today, many estimates put that impact closer to 50 or 60 cents a gallon. That’s a big difference from what we were sold.

So for me, this isn’t really about whether millionaires should pay more. That’s a separate debate.

This is about trust. Or lack thereof.

Once government becomes dependent on billions of dollars in new tax revenue, do you really believe future lawmakers won’t be tempted to expand it to more people?

I don’t!

And if supporters of this tax were confident voters trusted them, they wouldn’t have to keep assuring us that it will never go beyond millionaires.

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