WASHINGTON STATE

Washington State House Democrats

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

Oops, we did it again

Well, it happened again. As often as our critics try to label our caucus policies as “job killers” and bad for small business, yet ANOTHER publication has given Washington some pretty good praise on the business front.

Entrepreneur.com recently ranked Seattle as the #2 startup city in America based on several factors like median tech wages, taxes, and housing costs.

Austin, Texas took the top spot while Seattle beat out large players like San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C.

oopsA non-existent income tax, housing prices, and affordable office space helped Seattle reach the #2 spot on the list.

We just finished what was a grueling session to say the least. But the hard work has just begun.

While we were able to enact a responsible budget that put over a billion dollars of new funding into K-12 education, it’ll be extremely difficult to fully meet our McCleary obligation down the road without new revenue sources.

Purging wasteful and inefficient tax exemptions from our books will likely be a part of the conversation again next session.

So next session, when we again propose to repeal exemptions like the one for fuel spillage that even the oil companies agree isn’t needed, remember that the job-killing rhetoric is nothing more than that — rhetoric.