Ag and Rural Caucus for May
Link to Thursday’s briefing on Human Trafficking…an excellent session.
Policy Briefing
6:30 pm Thursday 15 May
JoDee Garretson, Support, Advocacy and Resource Center
"For Your Situational Awareness": Human Trafficking in Central Washington
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85907982157?pwd=MU4vV3E3VGZ5VU02dnhvZjg2b3hKZz09
Click link or Paste link into browser.
Stereotypes are mental shortcuts. We think of stereotypes as mostly negative. Some have come to your mind as you read this, and you have pushed back. Other stereotypes may be positive….play with that for a moment. Stereotypes persist in part because of our intellectual laziness and in part just because we don’t know much.
So, what are your stereotypes about the victims and perpetrators of human trafficking? Give it thought for a moment and then test your hypotheses by joining JoDee tomorrow. JoDee will take care of our “because we don’t know much” excuse. The other excuse? Well, we will leave that one up to you.
Don
14 May 2025
Live near water? A pond, a stream, a creek. Ever look through the water with a microscope? Did you see all the life and wiggly stuff….stuff that maybe you really did not want to know about?
Well, this may be what human trafficking is like, when what we see on the surface is not quite all there is.
I have not peppered you with facts and data on human trafficking. I simply do not know anything about human trafficking or where to look for information. Not quite true. I do know JoDee. JoDee will open our eyes to what may be happening below the smooth flow of social life in central Washington.
Join and learn with the rest of us.
Don
11 May 2025
Tough topics…taxes and human trafficking. You can get buried in tax data. Human trafficking? Not so much.
Questions are why JoDee Garretson is our guest on the 15th. JoDee heads up SARC, Support, Advocacy and Resource Center in the Tri-Cities. She knows human trafficking. We look to her for information and insight into what is happening in our neighborhoods. Maybe not pretty but important to know.
Join us to learn more about rural life, human life..
Don
5 May 2025
Better Practices
6:30 pm Thursday 1 May
State Taxes: How to Message for Rural Washington
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86197176823?pwd=6BIWfzuGjNJvviW6YvgbeDeLHKF8FA.1
Click link or Paste link into browser.
Here is the link to last evening’s session. Somehow, we failed to solve the problem of how to talk about taxes. We did generate a couple of insights.
We should talk about services instead of taxes. Talk about who clears the snow off Snoqualmie after a blizzard, or about the children in Yakima County who can use Apple Health to visit their doctor.
Talk about how rural counties receive more from the state than we pay – a lot more – and that cuts will hit us first and hardest.
Sales tax rates were not increased. Money came from cutting back on exemptions.
B&O tax is bad, really bad. It is so complicated, though, that it resists easy politicizing.
GOP will target increased Discover Pass fees and fishing and hunting licenses fee increases. Not huge money generators but politically vulnerable. Sad, because these are rural issues. The people paying are our people.
Can gun permit legislation look like a tax? There was spirited division on whether the gun permit is like a poll tax, having to pay for a fundamental constitutional right. Acknowledged, though, is that the required training and live-fire shooting is expensive and much less available in rural areas.
Snippets: Democrats did cut benefits; Republicans cannot tell you what they would cut. Tax reform would be great; tax reform is improbable. Universal health would cut costs, not increase them. Not really sure what accounts for projected deficits. Need to hold funds in Rainy Day account to handle Trump fallout. Democrats protected homeowners – it backed off from exposing property tax payers to increased rates.
We punted on parental consent changes because we were not sure of the facts. Here are two accounts, from the Washington Standard and from the Seattle Times.
Don
2 May 2025
How do we sell tax increases? We can talk about “tax equity”, or we can talk about “knocking The Privileged down a notch – have them pay their share”. We can say that only the top 200 taxpayers are affected [“This will impact about 200 businesses, Democrats have said.”], or we can fume about why Boeing is exempted. We can use tax policy to offset substance abuse, or we can finally call out nicotine as a danger to our youth.
You get the picture. We have choices in the language we use and how our language fits our message.
Let’s get our heads together. See you this evening
Don
1 May 2025
Addendum:
A couple of things did not happen. We did not overturn Tim Eyman’s 1% of revenue limit for local government property tax rates, and we did not adopt a payroll tax on high earners that would kick in where social security hits its limit at $176k.
And a couple of sleepers did happen and may bite. These are the parental consent amendments, and gun permits requiring gun safety training and live-fire shooting.
Don
1 May 2025
Sales tax makes up 50 percent of state revenue. Sales tax is Washington’s answer to an incomes tax and accounts for why our low-income families pay a far greater share of their income on taxes than our rich folks. Tax regressivity, in smart talk.
Short of increasing the rate of sales tax, what can be done? Look at exemptions, that’s what. We use exemptions for good things, like groceries, manufacturing R&D, and “certain machinery and equipment to reduce field burning sold to qualified farmers”. Sometimes we think that maybe the market does a good enough job to provide incentives, or that we want to curb some consumption:
The other major increase comes from updates to the state’s sales tax that would add retail taxes to software development, web design and IT training. It also would repeal an exemption for some digital services like advertising and impose a new tax on cigarettes and nicotine products. These would bring in about $1.1 billion for the state.
How about the B&O tax? B&O tax makes up about one-fifth of the state’s revenues. There is probably no other tax that is more regressive. It applies to a business’s gross receipts and no deductions. Our colleague, Perry Campbell, a couple of years ago argued successfully that the B&O tax is a de facto income tax on small entrepreneurs.
So, how to make the B&O less punitive? The only way is to limit increases to larger businesses or add surcharges to large companies. B&O on services, for example, go up if they collect $5 million or more. Same for finance but the cutoff is $1 billion.
The B&O tax regime is so complicated that it is a playground for policy makers. And some things do not change. Boeing is exempted from a surcharge on large companies.
The B&O tax is a bad idea but it is what we have. Democrats need to know more about it and make sure it is “least bad”.
Don
30 April 2025
How do you want to talk about the Budget? Dollars, irritation, regret, or feel-good?
The “feel-good” would have to include the “Tesla Tax” where the sale of electric vehicle tax credits is taxed. Elon is the only one selling these credits. Dollars? 54 million. Republicans say that this is a double-cross. Probably right.
“Feel-good” counts also the Budget’s compensates local governments for loss of state and local recording fees.
The “regret” is cuts to abortion access funding, and subsidies for child care. Maybe, too, the phase-out of Rainier School.
“Irritation”? Increased cost of the Discover Pass, and fishing and hunting licenses. This budget is a “gut punch to working people.” says Republicans. Add the increase in fuel tax to pay for roads. Be careful here.
The old standards lead the dollar race: B&O and Sales tax. B&O raises $2 billion, Sales Tax about $1 billion. More later.
Don
29 April 2025
Quick look at where the state is spending money…Human Services are big, but what would you expect? This is health care after all. Income support is counted, too, but it is not the main driver.*
| Expenditures, in millions | 2016 | 2024 | 2027: Gov budget | delta | Annual dollar change | “Has increased x%” |
| Op/Capital/Transportation | 43.633 | 81.915 | 88.259 | 44.626 | 3.72 | 102% |
| Human Services | 17.212 | 32.842 | 39.431 | 22.219 | 1.85 | 129% |
| Public Schools | 9.79 | 18.133 | 18.753 | 8.963 | 0.75 | 92% |
| Higher Education | 7.709 | 9.819 | 10.415 | 2.706 | 0.23 | 35% |
| Natural Resources | 1.417 | 3.152 | 3.105 | 1.688 | 0.14 | 119% |
| Government Operations | 2.178 | 7.554 | 5.922 | 3.744 | 0.31 | 172% |
| Transportation | 2.992 | 6.54 | 6.636 | 3.644 | 0.30 | 122% |
| [several smaller line items are not shown] | ||||||
About health care, OFM reports that “the size of the health care budget, combined with the rapid growth in per capita health care costs, make this a prime source of pressure on spending” but also that “for the first time since 2020, the medical assistance caseload has decreased, showing a year-over-year decline of 5.98%.”
Public Schools, in spite of McCleary moving dollars from local districts to the state, is not a big winner in dollars. It trails only Higher Ed.
A presentation note. The “has increased x%” is intentional. If you rephrase the increase, you can say that the projected spending is twice (202%) the 2016 level. Language makes a difference.
Don
29 April 2025
Keeping things in perspective?
Thursday we are going to talk about how to message the tax increases coming out of the Democratic legislature. We do not have a designated presenter. This one is up to us.
Let’s take a look at the parameters.
Are Washington residents overtaxed?
State/local revenues per $1,000 personal income.
| Fiscal Year | Revenues per $1,000 |
| personal income | |
| 2022 | $145.34 |
| 2002 | $146.77 |
Doesn’t really look that way. These are Office Fiscal Management data. The only twist is that it is total state and local taxes. It is expressed as tax revenues per $1,000 personal income. In 2002, we paid $146.77 per $1,000 income; In 2022, we paid $145.34. The number goes up and down a little but is remarkably stable and tracks the national average closely.
Let’s cut this another way and the picture is not so reassuring. State spending increased 74 per cent from 2016 to 2023. Per capita personal income increased 20 percent between 2016 and 2023. Median household income increased 44 percent.
Something does not square. Household income and per capita income measure the same categories of income; one just aggregates to the people living under one roof and the other does not. The median can move up when very high incomes are counted but does not explain the 2:1 difference.
This data confusion equals political disaster. You can make a range of statements about taxes and incomes in Washington and find something to back you up.
For rural Washington, though, there may be a bright light. We can look not just to tax burden but to what we get back. The ratio of benefits returned to a rural county to what it pays in taxes is striking.
The state ratio, of course, is 1.00. And King County is 0.63. Okanogan County, however, is 2.07! Maybe our taxes are burdensome but we get back more than we pay. (And our incomes, as low as they seem, are increasing as fast or better than in King County.)
| Median Household Income | 2016 | 2024 | delta | Annual change | % Increase | Annual increase | Expenditure/revenue ratio 2016 |
| State | 65,500 | 97,970 | 32,470 | 3,608 | 50% | 5.5% | 1.00 |
| King | 84,897 | 125,485 | 40,588 | 4,510 | 48% | 5.3% | 0.63 |
| Pacific | 42,118 | 63,688 | 21,570 | 2,397 | 51% | 5.7% | 1.67 |
| Cowlitz | 48,208 | 72,145 | 23,938 | 2,660 | 50% | 5.5% | 1.47 |
| Yakima | 46,957 | 71,427 | 24,469 | 2,719 | 52% | 5.8% | 1.92 |
| Grant | 52,981 | 73,801 | 20,820 | 2,313 | 39% | 4.4% | 1.49 |
| Okanogan | 41,028 | 57,515 | 16,487 | 1,832 | 40% | 4.5% | 2.07 |
| Pend Oreille | 42,391 | 68,199 | 25,808 | 2,868 | 61% | 6.8% | 1.73 |
| Garfield | 46,358 | 62,232 | 15,873 | 1,764 | 34% | 3.8% | 1.26 |
Follow the links for the full data sets. I welcome your clarifications on what I have described as data confusion.
More on tax proposals tomorrow.
Don
28 April 2025
Taxes, or Cut Spending?
The Republican answer to Democrats tax plans is to cut spending. The Republican budget plan did not get a hearing. It is some 1100 pages. I did not read it.
If you want to give spending a look, go to fiscal.wa.gov/spending. It frankly is an incredible tool. Touring it will give a sense how complicated state budgeting is. And it will increase your appreciation of legislative budget writers.
The fiscal.wa.gov/revenue is also good, especially “Washington State’s Tax Structure”, which is text.
Enjoy your journey.
Don
23 April 2025
Taxes and lemonade
Taxes – not “yes” or “no”, but how are we going to talk about them.
The legislature is still working on details. They adjourn the 27th so expect some movement yet.
Why am I bothered? Our rural candidates are going to get slammed by whatever comes out of Olympia. We need to anticipate. We need to come up with messaging that works. It’s the least we can for our colleagues who put themselves on the line to represent us.
Details matter, so does heart. Below are several recent articles that lay out some arguments:
Governor and legislature [two articles]
Progressive messaging: bnpinfo@budgetandpolicy.org
Republican messaging: How Democrats want to tax you.
Don
21 April 2025
Our Better Practices roundtable is on the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm.. Use the link above for 2025.
Our Policy Series is on the third Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm. Use the link above for 2025.
Copyright © 2025 Ag and Rural Caucus, All rights reserved.
Ag and Rural Caucus of State Democratic Central Committee
Our mailing address is: Ag and Rural Caucus 2921 Mud Creek Rd Waitsburg, WA 99361