Harger: Before Washington passes its first income tax, it’s worth asking what the last hundred billion actually bought

In 1994, I paid $540 a month for a one-bedroom apartment off Greenwood Avenue in Seattle. It had a view of the Sound. Parking was included. People said rent was getting too expensive back then.

Since then, the state budget has more than doubled. Services have expanded in every direction. Taxes have gone up repeatedly, and more are on the way. That same apartment would cost around $1,200 today if rent had just kept pace with inflation. I just checked. It’s now $2,200.

This week, Olympia is expected to pass a new income tax on millionaires—more revenue for more programs. And I find myself wanting to ask a simple question before we write that check.

What did we get for the last hundred billion or so in spending?

I’ve lived here nearly my entire life. I’ve seen the pattern.

I’ve been on the air in this region for around 30 years. Long enough to see how this works.

A problem gets identified. A program gets created. Taxes go up to pay for it. When the problem doesn’t get better, the answer is never to ask whether the program is working. The answer is always that we didn’t spend enough. And if you’re the person asking about results, you’re not a concerned taxpayer. You’re MAGA. You’re heartless. You want people to suffer.

It’s a very effective way to end a conversation without ever having it.

So let’s have it.

The ten-year plan to end homelessness in King County is now 20 years old.

In 2005, King County launched a Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness. The goal was to have it solved by 2015. We are now twenty years into the ten-year plan. Still working on it. We do camp cleanups that move people six blocks down the road and call it progress.

Washington doubled education spending. Fourth-grade math rankings dropped from 10th to 27th.

We doubled what we spend on public schools. In 2013, Washington fourth graders ranked 10th in the nation in math. By 2024, they ranked 27th.

When those numbers came out, the state superintendent didn’t change the approach. He changed the definition of proficiency. The kids didn’t get smarter. The bar got lower. The webpage tracking the old targets quietly disappeared.

DSHS spending tripled. Children in state care are dying at a higher rate every year.

We tripled spending on the Department of Social and Health Services. The number of children dying in the state’s care has gone up three years in a row.

That’s the track record the new income tax is being asked to build on.

WA voters treat every election as Trump or not Trump. Local results don’t break through.

Washington voters treat every election as a binary choice. Between a Republican and a Democrat around here, the translation becomes: Trump or not Trump. And when that’s the frame, voters around here feel as if there’s not much of a choice.

It doesn’t matter that the ten-year plan is twenty years old. It doesn’t matter that the test scores went down while the bar got lower. It doesn’t matter that the children are still dying. Because enough voters are convinced the other option is MAGA. And for a lot of people, that’s enough.

I understand it. I just think it’s costing us.

The middle is getting squeezed from both directions.

Here’s what makes it particularly exhausting. It’s not just the national Republican Party that’s abandoned the center. Our own state and local leaders have drifted about as far left as you can go without falling off the map. Olympia passes income taxes and blocks child welfare votes in the same month. Seattle spent years debating whether to let police do their jobs.

Washington DC has gone hard right. Olympia and Seattle have gone hard left. And the rest of us are standing in the gap, wondering when someone is going to govern from where most people actually live.

We are told every single day that we have to pick a team. We are told the middle is dead.

Most people here want the same thing. The money to actually work.

I do believe most people here feel the same way I do. They want results. They want the money to actually work. They want a ten-year plan that ends in ten years. They want test scores that go up when spending goes up. They want fewer children dying, not more.

That’s not a fringe position. That’s most of us.

We just haven’t figured out how to make it the loudest voice in the room yet.

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