Dear friends and neighbors,
Two things I keep hearing about are (a) taxes and (b) the cost of living.
This e-newsletter is a chance to talk about both issues, and an opportunity to hear from you, with a quick survey at the end to share your thoughts.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and for being an active and informed constituent!
Tax fairness
Our state’s tax system hits working families the hardest, then the middle class. Millionaires and billionaires pay far less of their share of family income than most of us.
You can see it plainly on this chart: the working poor, the lowest 20 percent of families, pays 13.8 percent of their total income in taxes. The top 1 percent pays 4.1 percent.
To restore fairness, and to reduce some of the burden on everyday people, I support the Millionaire’s Tax.
The only people who’d pay this are those with an income in their paycheck of more than 1 million per year. An easy way to look at this is a tax on your second million dollars—your first million of income is tax-free.
Anything over one million in a year would be taxed at 9.9 percent. Which is fair to me, because that’s what you and I basically pay for sales tax every time we shop for groceries or clothes for the kids.
You’ve probably heard a lot of misinformation about this already.
This is NOT a tax on assets. Not a tax on your home, your pension, your retirement account, or anything else. Only on income in excess of one million per year.
The bill is still being amended in the House of Representatives—but proposals include giving tax breaks to working families and small businesses, which I support.
I support this tax reform because it’s wrong that janitors, teachers, and firefighters pay far more in taxes than millionaires and billionaires.
Housing, health care, and affordability
The federal government used to be a reliable partner that helped fund schools, health care, and transportation. They were there to help if we got hit with earthquakes or floods.
Now, we’re getting punished by deep cuts to federal funding and by nonsensical tariffs—taxes that we pay—that are estimated to cost $2 billion to our state’s economy. Add inflation on top of that and everything cost more, from housing to health care to groceries.
Those federal cuts only happened because Congress wanted to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy. I find that morally wrong.
Here’s some of what we’re doing in Washington state’s capitol to reduce the harms:
Local tax remittance for affordable housing (HB 1717/SB 5591)—Boosts affordable housing supply by authorizing cities and counties to create a local sales and use tax remittance program for developers of affordable housing units.
Financial Relief from High Energy Costs (HB 1903)—Creates a statewide program to provide financial relief to low-income residents facing escalating energy costs.
Establishing Land Banking Authorities (HB 1974/SB 6214)—Authorizes land banks to acquire and manage land for affordable housing, addressing one of the biggest barriers to building homes—the high cost of land—so communities can better meet local needs and serve low- and moderate-income families.
Preserving access to preventive services (HB 2242/SB 5967)—Ensures access to preventive health services without out-of-pocket costs for patients.
Encouraging permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, indoor emergency housing, and indoor emergency shelters (HB 2266/SB 6069)—Streamlines the permitting processes and provides consistent treatment across jurisdictions. Will lower development costs and facilitate the prompt delivery of safe, dignified, and stable housing, resulting in less visible homelessness and alleviating the state’s housing crisis.
Keeping insurance premiums manageable by combatting insurance fraud (HB 2394/SB 6031)—Insurance fraud drives up costs for everyone by increasing insurance premiums. This bill gives our state Office of the Insurance Commissioner more resources and modern tools to help catch and prosecute fraudsters and hold scammers accountable.
The Fair Pricing and Transparency Act (HB 2481/6312)—This bill protects consumers from unfair pricing by banning “surveillance-based” price setting — these are practices that use data like a person’s location, shopping history, or online behavior to quietly charge different people different prices for the same groceries. The bill also strengthens price transparency so customers can clearly see what they’re being charged at the shelf and at checkout. Read about one company’s AI-enabled pricing experiments from Consumer Reports.
Protecting Washington families from data center costs (HB 2515/SB 6171)—Requires large energy-intensive facilities like data centers to pay the full costs and risks of their electricity use rather than shifting those costs onto households and small businesses through higher utility bills.
What do you think? I’d like to hear from you
Please take a minute to share your thoughts with this quick survey.
- What are your top concerns?
- How are we doing as a state–cheers and jeers?
- And what ideas or stories would you like to share with me?
