Law­mak­ers rep­re­sent­ing Wash­ing­ton State’s House Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty took the wraps off of their bud­get this after­noon, offer­ing a stark­ly dif­fer­ent plan for the next bien­ni­um than the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans did last week.

“Our approach to the bud­get is ‘what’s best for kids?’ This bud­get and our [edu­ca­tion fund­ing] plan is what’s best for kids,” the cau­cus tweet­ed dur­ing a press con­fer­ence high­light­ing key ele­ments of the pro­pos­al.

The draft House Demo­c­ra­t­ic bud­get calls for $44.7 bil­lion to be invest­ed in Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic ser­vices over the next two years. $3 bil­lion in new rev­enue would be raised to sup­port these investments.

Key aspects of the bud­get that dif­fer from the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ proposal:

• Freezes col­lege tuition at Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties: “Unlike our col­leagues in the Sen­ate who have cho­sen to raise tuition, our bud­get freezes tuition,” says Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Drew Hansen.
• Does­n’t reject fed­er­al mon­ey for health­care: “Unlike the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans we are accept­ing the Med­ic­aid Trans­for­ma­tion waiv­er, over $1 bil­lion in fed­er­al fund­ing,” says Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Eileen Cody.
• $350 mil­lion invest­ment in men­tal health includes mon­ey for salaries: “Our biggest invest­ment [in men­tal health] is actu­al­ly in pay­ing those folks who are pro­vid­ing men­tal health­care both out in the com­mu­ni­ty and in our hos­pi­tal set­tings — to make sure that folks can actu­al­ly get the care that they need. And that’s prob­a­bly the most fun­da­men­tal dif­fer­ence between the Sen­ate Repub­li­can bud­get and ours,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Lau­rie Jinkins.
• Does­n’t raise prop­er­ty tax­es on fam­i­lies in sub­ur­ban or urban school dis­tricts through a “levy swipe” scheme.

The cen­ter­piece of the rev­enue com­po­nent of the plan is a cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy, which House Democ­rats esti­mate would raise approx­i­mate­ly $715 mil­lion dur­ing the next bien­ni­um. The tax would only be levied on Wash­ing­ton’s 48,000 rich­est tax­pay­ers. The oth­er 98.5% would be unaf­fect­ed. Sales of sin­gle fam­i­ly homes as well as retire­ment accounts would be exempt.

Wash­ing­to­ni­ans are over­whelm­ing­ly in favor of levy­ing a cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy to meet our state’s para­mount duty. Last year, NPI found that sup­port among Wash­ing­to­ni­ans for a cap­i­tal gains tax had increased to six­ty-five per­cent.

The spe­cif­ic lan­guage of our cap­i­tal gains tax ques­tion was as follows:

Do you strong­ly sup­port, some­what sup­port, some­what oppose or strong­ly oppose tax­ing the cap­i­tal gains of wealthy indi­vid­u­als to help pay for pub­lic schools, col­leges and universities?”

These were the answers:

• Sup­port: 65%
  • 46% “strong­ly sup­port” a cap­i­tal gains tax
  • 19% “some­what sup­port” a cap­i­tal gains tax
• Oppose: 33%
  • 9% “some­what oppose” a cap­i­tal gains tax
  • 24% “strong­ly oppose” a cap­i­tal gains tax
• 2% answered “not sure” 

More than three-fifths of our respon­dents also agreed that schools are under­fund­ed and that the State of Wash­ing­ton should increase rev­enue to invest in them.

Our ques­tion:

Do you strong­ly agree, some­what agree, some­what dis­agree or strong­ly dis­agree with the fol­low­ing state­ment: Washington’s pub­lic schools are under­fund­ed, and we need to raise state rev­enue to ful­ly fund them?

These were the answers:

• Agree: 63%
  • 45% “strong­ly agree” that we need more rev­enue for schools
  • 18% “some­what agree” that we need more rev­enue for schools
• Dis­agree: 32%
  • 18% “some­what dis­agree” that we need more rev­enue for schools
  • 14% “strong­ly dis­agree” that we need more rev­enue for schools
• 6% answered “not sure” 

Our sur­vey of 679 like­ly Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field from June 14th-15th, 2016; all respon­dents par­tic­i­pat­ed via land­line. The poll, con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling, has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.8% at the 95% con­fi­dence level.

Wash­ing­ton has the most upside down, regres­sive tax code in the nation, as the chart below shows. The low­est income fam­i­lies cur­rent­ly pay the most in tax­es, while the wealth­i­est fam­i­lies pay the least. That’s inequitable and unacceptable.

The House Demo­c­ra­t­ic bud­get brings us a step clos­er towards end­ing this inequity.

Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee praised the pro­pos­al in a state­ment issued through his office.

“When I rolled out my bud­get pro­pos­al in Decem­ber, I was very clear that any final bud­get must meet two cri­te­ria: 1) Ful­ly fund edu­ca­tion; and 2) Pro­tect vital state ser­vices for our most vul­ner­a­ble,” the Gov­er­nor said.

“The House bud­get does both those things. Their pro­pos­al ful­ly and amply funds edu­ca­tion while pro­tect­ing crit­i­cal ser­vices for our fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties. The bud­get the Sen­ate approved last week fails on both counts. That bud­get calls for large prop­er­ty tax increas­es and makes min­i­mal new invest­ments in edu­ca­tion while cut­ting ser­vices to our stu­dents, their fam­i­lies and vul­ner­a­ble people.”

“I am pleased we have two leg­isla­tive bud­gets on the table and I look for­ward to work­ing with the Sen­ate and House over the com­ing weeks so we can reach agree­ment on a bud­get that ful­ly and amply funds edu­ca­tion and works for all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans,” the Gov­er­nor added.

NPI com­mends the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus for craft­ing a bud­get that would put Wash­ing­ton State on the road to pro­gres­sive tax reform.

The next step is to go from words on paper and pix­els on screen to action: the House should demon­strate to Wash­ing­to­ni­ans that it is ready to enact these ideas into law so that vot­ers appre­ci­ate who’s real­ly stand­ing in the way of rev­enue fair­ness: the Sen­ate Republicans.