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“Certainly, we are going to have to do reductions, and that’s always been the primary first place that we’re looking to is, let’s do reductions that are prudent, but that are not—that’s where we’re trying to minimize harm to Washingtonians.”
This week on Inside Olympia, House Speaker Laurie Jinkins discusses House Democrats’ approach to bridging a multi-billion dollar budget gap, which she says includes looking at reductions but also new taxes.
Host Austin Jenkins sat down both with Jinkins, and with Senate Republican Leader John Braun for one-on-one interviews.
Jinkins expressed satisfaction with House passage of a rent stabilization bill aimed at capping rent increases at 7% annually. The bill passed the House last year but failed in the Senate. This year, Senate leaders have indicated a willingness to consider it, though potential amendments could change its final form.
Braun points to the proposed state budget his caucus introduced a little more than a week ago, which included no new taxes: “We work really hard to make sure we maintain services, especially for vulnerable individuals in our state, but we just do, I think, a very good job of living within our means—no taxes.”
The budget debate is now joined in earnest, with Senate Democrats releasing a tax package this week that includes a new “financial intangibles” tax on wealthy stockholders, employer payroll tax hikes, removing the 1% property tax growth cap in favor of tying increases to inflation and population growth, and one tax decrease: a proposed one-half-cent reduction in the sales tax.
House Democrats also rolled out a tax package that included the intangibles tax, raising the property tax cap, and a business and occupation (B&O) tax surcharge on large businesses.