Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wealth

"The ESD confirmed Scott’s payroll tax could be up and running by August 2027."

Source, please.

thou Shalt
gleefully observe
thy plight of the needy
and point out the utter failure
in their lacking the Morals of the truly Wealthy

who've done it all,
on their own, with ab-
solutely zero assistance
from another living Soul

not including the
Jesus, of course.

The hard truth is we're going to need this money, even if you think the current state budget is bloated. Just wait. The federal spending cuts coming down in the next decade due to 50 years of borrowing instead of taxing are going to be brutal beyond what most of us born into post-WWII affluence can imagine -- even if Democrats are in charge of making them (God forbid Republicans get to do it, but it could happen). And it's a virtual certainty they're going to fall almost entirely on social programs (Medicaid, education, housing assistance, disaster relief, SNAP, etc.) because the Pentagon, its contractors, and the donor class are just too well protected. If you don't want to deo what's necessary to preserve these programs at the state level here in WA, there are plenty of red states (and probably some light-blue ones) that will choose the alternate path of maximized misery for the masses and "freedom" from taxes and other social obligations for a fortunate few. Move there. Beat the rush.

@4

'Due to 50 years of [primarily
Republican] borrowing in-
stead of taxing.'

Democratic Prezes famously
leave with Surpluses whilst
their republican replace-
ments leave Massive
Debt for the form-
er to deal with

all in Hopes
of Undoing FDR
& LBJ's vaunted Legacies

and they're About
to get their
Wishes.

Great Comment,
as per Usual,
CKathes.

"... there are plenty of red states (and probably some light-blue ones) that will choose the alternate path of maximized misery for the masses and "freedom" from taxes and other social obligations for a fortunate few. Move there. Beat the rush."

Build tall walls
armies and
armories

maybe dig a nice
Hole, crawl
on in.

Why are Progressives opposed to rebating every dollar the proposed tax raises to the poor by reducing the sales tax by the same amount?

I thought Progressives were about ending regressive tax systems and the welfare of the poor.

Good luck, children. The people you are attacking will just move to another state.
Way to go!

People have been complaining about high sales tax and income tax for forever. This bill does not anything about the sales tax; just adds more taxes for Washington. Seems complaints about sales tax was just cover raised more taxes. An income tax should be used to reduce our extremely high sales tax.

@6 Because increasing overall revenue to protect and enhance the programs necessary for the "welfare of the poor" (and middle class) is also a progressive goal. Believe it or not, we can do both.

@9: Only the poor need the safety net. The middle class needs tax relief.

@6: Our current sales tax system already exempts many classes of products and services upon which "the poor" typically spend a greater portion of their income than the middle class/rich. So in that sense, they are already pretty progressive. And there's not much left to cut without starting to do the middle class too many favors.

Tax systems depend heavily on the middle class. The poor don't have much to tax. And the wealthy can move income, capital and purchases around to different tax jurisdictions too easily. I expect that the million dollar threshold will have to be lowered over time to capture some of this middle class money. And the more you give back now, in the form of offsets from the millionaire revenue, the sooner that line will have to be dropped. It's best to delay this date, allowing the current legislative cabal time to get out of town. And leave the problem for the new representatives.