by Rep. Tami Green
Some myths never die.
Unlike urban legends about what happens when you put a Twinkie in a microwave, myths about government and taxes actually do real damage to real people.
There’s a good post here (The $2 billion budget myth) that’s worth reading to understand what the fight about the budget is about.
It’s misleading to say that everything is fine because state revenues are up $2 billion. Revenues are only up from the depths of a global depression – and since our population went up, there are more kids in public schools and seniors who need health care.
A similar myth says Washington state has high taxes.
Year after year, we hear this drumbeat that (1) taxes are too high and it’s (2) removing money from the economy and killing jobs, therefore to jump-start the economy (3) taxes must be cut for millionaires and billionaires because they are the “job-creators.”
Each part of that sentence is a myth.
Here are the facts:
1) Taxes are low and getting lower.
Even if you go by the same conservative think tanks that say “taxes are too high,” Washington state is average to low when it comes to taxes. The trend is for lower taxes, not higher.
- Taxes in Washington state are actually low compared to the rest of the nation. But you’d never know that from all the shouting. Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
While local pressure groups and lobbyists will tell you the tax burden in Washington state is a job-killing Godzilla, laying waste to the countryside, national business groups and conservative think tanks that rate all 50 states tell you a different story.
The truth is that Washington state relies on the sales tax, which spares the top 1 percent and puts most of the tax burden on average middle-class people like you and me.
2) State spending creates jobs.
I don’t mean theoretically. You could make a case that federal taxes go all the way to D.C. and sort of disappear, if we don’t get 100 percent of our money back in federal spending.
But you can’t make that argument about Washington state’s budget. Your money doesn’t go poof. It doesn’t get shipped to D.C. and then some military base in Afghanistan – it gets put to work in Bellingham and Tacoma, Aberdeen and Walla Walla.
The state hires teachers and state troopers, university professors and park rangers, all to give services to our citizens.
Many of those jobs are in the private sector. When a highway gets fixed or you see men and women in hard hats pouring concrete at a community college, those are private contractors.
Related post: Main Street businesses: Close tax loopholes, invest in future
3) Investing in our kids creates jobs.
How do you create jobs? Business leaders and economists will tell you that smart investments – such as good schools and universities – pay off for decades.
When you invest in our kids and grandkids, those young students have the tools to create and innovate and continue to lead the world.
As the governor would say, education is the smart way to create jobs. And that’s no myth.
Related post: HDC reactions to Governor Inslee’s budget proposal — it’s all about the kids