Opinion: TAKE ACTION and stop Washington from hammering nails in its own coffin

David Boze
Washington Policy Center

When you tell someone they're hammering a nail in their own coffin, you're warning them that whatever it is they're doing is self-destructive. They're diminishing their own health and opportunity. Such is the case with Washington state. As WPC's Report Card for Washington's Future shared, the trends over the last dozen years have not been good for our state. Education scores are down while spending is way up. The state's own metrics for environmental success showed mass policy failure. Taxes continue to layer one after the other creating an increasing burden on business which means fewer jobs, fewer businesses created, fewer dreams pursued.

David Boze

When WPC's Budget and Tax Policy Director, Ryan Frost wrote his blog on the six charts that showed Washington's spending problem I thought, "Well there's six nails in the state's coffin" -- ways in which we're diminishing our own opportunity to grow, to be affordable, to retain our iconic status as a start-up destination.

It's not hard to find the root cause. Two former Democratic governors are speaking out about it. Spending is out of control and unchecked. We are habitually spending far more than we take in even when we take in a lot. And then the legislature scrambles to find new ways to pay for that spending. Even Governor Ferguson alluded to this as a problem in his inaugural address and declared that era over, but those promising words soon collapsed into actions reflecting a continuation of the status-quo. The Inslee era ended. Long live the Inslee era.

On the positive side, the fact that high-profile Democrat leaders and industry leaders are increasingly open to talking about the problem suggests a change will come.

So how do you explain Washington's spending problem and how are we nailing our own coffin? We put together a little interactive display that will inform you and can inform those you know too. Click here to see the interactive coffin, hammer the nails to learn more, and then support WPC's effort to generate support for a spending cap for Washington.

David Boze is the director of Communications and Strategy at the Washington Policy Center.