The decision by Washington state Democrats to unilaterally impose a 9.9% income tax flies in the face of longstanding opposition to income taxes by the people of Washington. Perhaps that’s why lawmakers inserted a “necessity clause” that guarantees the People will not have the right to vote on their unpopular new tax.
Just two years ago, voters collected enough signatures to put an initiative on the ballot banning income taxes on both the state and local level. Legislators begrudgingly passed that bill ahead of the vote to avoid collateral damage to their reelection prospects in November:
“Neither the state nor any county, city, or other local jurisdiction in the state of Washington may tax any individual person on any form of personal income.”
Voters now understand this was nothing but a farce. The new 9.9% income tax bill – supported by most of the same lawmakers who voted for Initiative 2111 – even includes a section that explicitly denies citizens their constitutional right to challenge the tax via referendum.
Why would lawmakers ensure voters cannot have a say? Because the People already rejected an income tax on TEN separate occasions.
Democrats have been trying for a century to circumvent Washington’s clear constitutional prohibition on any income tax that is 1) above one percent, and 2) non-uniform – applying different rates to different groups of people. The first vote, in the throes of the Great Depression in 1932, was successful, but thrown out by the state Supreme Court as unconstitutional. Rightly so, as it was non-uniform and above one percent.
But on every other occasion since (1934, 1936, 1938, 1942, 1944, 1970, 1973, 1975, 1982, and most recently in 2010) the people have overwhelmingly rejected any and all income taxes. Ten times, the legislature asked the people for an income tax. Ten times, the people said “hell no,” with more than 2/3 voting against in nearly every vote. See for yourself below.
Voters should hold progressives in the Washington legislature accountable for removing their ability to just say no – for the eleventh time – to an unconstitutional income tax this November.
