You would expect this kind of talk from us “socialists” here at The Other Side…but here’s the take on our tax system from the Associate Editor at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane…
To get an idea how much the “spending burden” has declined, it was 5.9 percent of total income for the 2003-’05 budget. This is the much-ballyhooed “tough” budget shepherded through the Legislature by then-Sen. Dino Rossi. Now we’re looking at 5.18 percent. And, yes, even the “Rossi budget” spent more than the state collected.
It’s the tax code, stupid. The problem with measuring the affordability of taxes and spending against total income is that the state doesn’t have an income tax. The above calculations help explain why it should. The state is relatively rich, but it has a tax code that’s unsuited to tapping that wealth. The result is that high-income households send relatively large sums to the feds and relatively paltry amounts to the state. Conversely, the state taxes the poor at the highest levels in the nation because of the heavy reliance on our regressive sales tax.
If the state instituted an income tax and lowered the sales tax, it could begin to address its chronic budget deficits and lower the tax burden for most Washingtonians. It’s the same argument that was laid out by the Gates Commission several years ago, but lawmakers failed to act.
They better get started, because the amounts raised by the current taxes clearly do not match the needs of the state. And as Dr. Phil might ask lawmakers, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”