Opinion: They’re coming for your money — and your retirement

Rep. John Ley
for Clark County Today

Rep. John Ley
18th Legislative District

Washington Democrats aren’t content with a new 9.9 percent income tax on the “rich.” They’re already fighting over how quickly and how far to drag the threshold down so it hits far more of you.

Six months after Gov. Bob Ferguson signed SB 6346, his party is openly bidding against itself. Rep. Cindy Ryu wants the tax to start at $250,000. Sen. Jesse Salomon counters with $750,000. The current $1 million “standard exemption” is already treated as temporary. The 9.9 percent income tax sits on top of the existing capital-gains tax (7 percent up to $1 million, then 9.9 percent). This is not a one-time raid. It is the opening move.

They have said the quiet part out loud.

Asked why anyone should trust that the tax would stay limited to millionaires, Rep. Larry Springer replied: “You shouldn’t.” He added that “if past history is prologue — yeah, you probably shouldn’t necessarily believe that” it will still apply only to millionaires by 2030.

Sen. Jamie Pedersen dismissed earlier promises as “a pie crust promise; easily made, easily broken.” He noted the legislature can amend the statute “any time we want to. I wouldn’t take that super-seriously.”

On the first day of session, Rep. Shaun Scott — a longtime member of the Seattle Democratic Socialists of America — introduced a 5 percent payroll tax starting at $125,000. The appetite for your money is not subtle.

This is the same majority that already extracted nearly $4 billion from the LEOFF 1 pension fund for law-enforcement and firefighters. They dumped most of it into the general fund for ongoing spending. In two years they piled on $17 billion in new taxes — the largest increase in state history.

Now they have stripped eleven longstanding protections from retirement income. Social Security, union pensions, private pensions, IRAs, and 401(k)s are all on the table. Household income is taxed, creating a marriage penalty. Nobody receives a $1 million pension. Why eliminate those protections unless the plan is to lower the threshold and collect from ordinary retirees?

Governor Ferguson once said he would not sign an income tax at all. Later he said he would not sign one that targets non-millionaires. House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon claimed lawmakers were not looking at lowering the threshold. Those assurances have already expired.

Washington voters have rejected a state income tax ten times in the past century. The tax is now law, so the only way to kill it is to vote YES on I-645 this November. That is the clean repeal.

Voters can also send a second, sharper message: elect fiscal conservatives. The final vote on SB 6346 was 51-46. Republicans spent 24.5 hours on the House floor trying to amend or defeat it. More of them are required in Olympia if the pie-crust promises are ever to stop.

Democrats have broken faith with the people of this state. They told you the tax would stay limited. They told you retirement income would be protected. They told you the pension funds were safe. None of it held.

They are coming for more of your money, and they are coming for the savings you worked a lifetime to build.