SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Got an oil furnace? Durkan will tax you for that

Aug 9, 2019, 12:35 PM

ice seattle Durkan, oil furnace...

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan. (File photo, Karen Ducey/Getty Images)

(File photo, Karen Ducey/Getty Images)

When I was a kid, we had an oil furnace. I remember how the oil tanker trunk would come every few months. I remember the metal cap in the yard where it would be refilled.

We would often run out of oil and not have a working furnace for weeks at a time because my mom didn’t have the money to get more heating oil.

A lot of the people who have an oil furnace live in an older house and cannot afford to make the conversion to gas — I’m talking about older people on a fixed income or the working poor. There are 18,000 homes in Seattle with those old oil furnaces, those Craftsman-style homes that were built in the 1920s through 1950s.

Well now Jenny Durkan wants to impose an oil tax on those homes of 24 cents per gallon, as she announced in a press release this week. The reason? She wants to essentially punish people for having oil furnaces. She wants to get people to switch to renewable sources of heat.

Jay Inslee exploits low-income residents for his own selfish aspirations

This is a tax that is mainly going to be on older people and on those who cannot afford the conversion.

Here’s where it gets especially hypocritical — she says they’re going to use the tax revenue to fund programs that will help the poor switch to electric heat. An older person on a fixed income may not qualify for these government-funded programs, but that person does qualify to provide that money.

It’s just another example of how government is micro-managing our lives. It’s social engineering in the name of the climate scam.

Seattle loves to tax the poorest people, minorities, and the elderly. Think of the soda tax. Think of the congestion pricing they’re pushing. Now we have this oil tax. The politicians do all this talking about the groups that they care about, and then those very groups are the ones that get slammed with every new tax that they impose.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

Associated Press

DOJ says it’s investigating whether White House TV pool’s coverage halt violated antitrust law

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating whether the decision of the White House television press pool to halt coverage of President Donald Trump last month violated antitrust law, an agency spokesperson said Saturday. Emily Covington, a spokesperson for the department, said group boycotts among business competitors might violate U.S. law. “The […]

4 hours ago

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as he arrives on Air Force One, Saturday, Oct. 10, 202...

Associated Press

Trump urges Sen. John Fetterman to switch parties and become a Republican

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (AP) — President Donald Trump openly encouraged Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania to switch parties and become a Republican just weeks before the midterm elections could reshape control of Congress. “I’d love to see him as a Republican,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Saturday as he returned […]

4 hours ago

Associated Press

4 family members and shooter dead in rural Georgia shooting

Four victims and the shooter have died following a potential murder-suicide in a rural Georgia home late Friday night. Officials say those involved were adult family members of the shooter, who died by suicide, and was found in the family’s home on the outskirts of Douglas, a small city roughly 200 miles southeast of Atlanta. […]

4 hours ago

NBA player Karl-Anthony Towns of the New York Knicks sits for a discussion with Rich Kleiman at the...

Associated Press

Knicks champion Karl-Anthony Towns opens up about grief for World Mental Health Day

NEW YORK (AP) — Karl-Anthony Towns has been traded from Minnesota, lost the conference finals and won the NBA title for his childhood team — and still feels he is in the period of grief that began six years ago. Just 10 days before the New York Knicks’ banner-raising celebration, the All-Star big man marked […]

7 hours ago

Associated Press

Philadelphia police officer killed, another injured after responding to reports of man with a gun

A Philadelphia police officer was shot and killed and another officer was injured Saturday after responding to a report of a man with a gun, police said. Shane Seiber, 40, was killed early Saturday morning in west Philadelphia, according to Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel. Seiber, a 10-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department, and the […]

10 hours ago

The East Potomac Park Golf Course is seen from the Washington Monument, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, in...

Associated Press

Park service could remove more than 500 trees at historic golf course Trump wants to redesign

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Park Service has begun a new round of tree-cutting at a historic golf course near the National Mall as the Trump administration proceeds with a plan to renovate the East Potomac Golf Links into a championship-level course. More than 500 trees “that do not contribute to the historic landscape will […]

10 hours ago

Dori: Got an oil furnace? Durkan will tax you for that