Harger: Ferguson signed WA’s millionaire income tax. Before you celebrate or protest, ask what happened to the last decade of budget increases

Governor Bob Ferguson signed Washington’s new millionaire income tax into law Monday morning.

Lawsuits were announced almost immediately. A repeal effort is already in motion. The political and legal fight ahead will be long and loud. Washington voters have rejected an income tax eleven times. Proponents know the constitutional challenge is coming, which is why they branded it the “millionaire tax” and have avoided the words “income tax” at every turn.

But before we get into the legal fight, I want to talk about why this idea keeps coming back. And why it keeps working.

WA politicians are using the affordability crisis as a distraction. Here’s how

It keeps working because a lot of people are hurting. Groceries cost more than they did two years ago. Housing is out of reach for an entire generation of working Washingtonians. The job market feels shaky. The gap between the people doing well and those just trying to hang on widens every year.

Politicians see that divide. And they have figured out how to use it.

They hold up the little guy as a political prop. Then they point at the millionaires and say: We’re going to make them pay for you. They’ve got what you want. We’ll go get it.

The anger behind that message is real. The pain behind it is real. But the framing is a distraction — a nearly perfect one. As long as the guy working two jobs is furious at the millionaire, he isn’t looking at Olympia and asking, “Wait, you doubled the state budget in a decade. Where did all of it go?” As long as we’re pointing fingers at each other, the politicians get a pass.

The millionaire tax threshold will creep down. It always does

I also think a lot of people have a nagging feeling they haven’t quite put into words yet. Something like: this doesn’t stop here.

These things never do. Once the framework exists, the threshold tends to drift. It starts with the millionaires. Then the definition of a millionaire gets a little more flexible. Then it’s the small business owner who had a good year. Then it’s the dual-income family in Renton just trying to keep up with the mortgage.

I’ve seen enough budget cycles to know this tax won’t be the last ask. State spending keeps growing. They’ll take this money, and when the next gap opens up, they’ll be back at the microphone with the same argument. We just didn’t take enough.

And somewhere in all of that, you have to ask an uncomfortable question. If the state is subsidizing your rent, managing your healthcare, paying for your childcare, and handing you a check to buy groceries, you become entirely dependent on the people in power. Is the goal to actually solve the affordability problem? Or is the goal to make sure you can’t afford to challenge the people claiming to solve it? I don’t think anyone sat in a room and drew that up on a whiteboard. But I’ve watched enough of this to know you don’t have to intend an outcome to end up with it.

I’ve worked four jobs at once. Don’t tell me this tax is for people like me

I know who gets invoked when politicians sell a tax like this.

I grew up in a family that relied on food stamps at times. I’ve worked four jobs at once just to pay the bills. For more than twenty years, I held a full-time job and a part-time job simultaneously: anchoring weekends and overnights in Seattle while teaching at a community college in Auburn. For much of that stretch, I was also recording evenings for a music station down in the South Sound.

Not to get ahead. Just to stay afloat.

So when someone uses people like me, with my specific and not-uncommon life experience, as the justification for this tax, I want to ask one question: how did the last round of budget increases work out for us?

The millionaire isn’t the reason I worked four jobs. Taking his money won’t fix the reason either.

WA doubled its budget in a decade. Where did it go?

The working people whose stories get borrowed every time a new tax needs selling deserve better than to be useful once every legislative session.

Washington voters have said no 11 times. The courts will get their shot. But Olympia still owes an accounting of everything it has already taken. Nobody in power seems to be in a hurry to provide one.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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