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Washington Democrats are barreling toward a policy that would upend a century of tax fairness and economic common sense, and Governor Bob Ferguson just made it clear he’s on board. This week Ferguson publicly endorsed a so-called “millionaires’ tax,” signaling he will push to make residents who earn more than $1 million a year pay a steep new levy that supporters promise will “rebalance” the system.
The proposal being floated would hit adjusted income over $1 million with rates as high as 9.9% and proponents brag it could raise roughly $3 billion a year — revenue that wouldn’t start flowing for years and that Democrats insist will be mailed back to working families in the form of credits and program spending. Those numbers and timelines sound tidy in a press release, but real-world economics and job creation don’t obey political talking points.
Anyone with a functioning memory should remember that Washington’s constitution and recent legal precedent make a statewide income tax a legal minefield; voters and courts have pushed back on this exact idea before. Legislators and the governor may talk about constitutional fixes or voter referenda, but pursuing an end-run around the rule of law is exactly the kind of audacious power grab that fuels distrust in Olympia.
Meanwhile, at the federal level, President Trump is pursuing a radical tax rethink of his own, floating the elimination of federal income tax in favor of tariffs and other mechanisms — an idea that sounds great in slogans but raises brutal questions about inflation, funding for Social Security and Medicare, and who really pays at the checkout line. If you replace steady income tax revenue with volatile tariff schemes, you don’t shrink government responsibly — you gamble with the retirement and health-care security of ordinary Americans.
Conservative voices in Washington state and national commentators aren’t buying the spin. Seattle radio host Jason Rantz, among others, appeared on Fox to call out the proposal as unconstitutional and dangerous, warning that this is the sort of policy that chases out employers, chills investment, and ultimately hits workers in their paychecks. That pushback is the only thing standing between Olympia’s spending addicts and total tax fealty to the political class.
Hardworking Americans should view both theaters — Washington state’s so-called millionaires’ tax and the federal posturing about scrapping income taxes — with skepticism and anger. Tax policy must protect prosperity and opportunity, not punish success to feed an ever-expanding government wishlist. If you care about thriving families, good jobs, and constitutional limits on power, now is the time to speak up, contact your representatives, and make it clear that the American dream won’t be sacrificed to political theater.
