No Loss for Words

Who is surprised that Governor Inslee is proposing more new taxes? As Rob McKenna pointed out the other day, when he ran for Governor in 2012, Inslee said he wasn’t proposing any new taxes at that time, but wouldn’t say whether he planned to if he were elected. McKenna reminded us that he was willing to commit to No New Taxes or Tax Increases if we elected him.

The way I see it the voters in our state fell into one of three categories; they voted

1. For McKenna and his commitment to no new taxes.
2. For Inslee knowing he was saying whatever it took to get elected and would raise taxes at the first and every other opportunity.
3. For Inslee because they were told all Republicans were bad, they weren’t paying attention or they just hoped the Democrat was looking out for them. (For the sake of writers privilege I will call them Gruber Party Voters.)

For the most part, candidates for office over promise and under deliver. Newcomers to the political process do that because they don’t understand the limitations of their authority or the constraints of the system.

Veteran politicians do it because they know there are a lot of Grubers out there who won’t connect the new taxes with the guy they voted for. Jay Inslee is a veteran politician and anyone who is paying attention even a little knows he is a Big Government, Big taxes politician. The question for him, every time he runs is “How gullible will the voters be?”

Let me be fair about this, both political parties have their

• Base voters, folks who consistently vote and who vote for their party candidates
• Independent Voters who regularly vote and are engaged enough to swing back and forth between the parties based upon their feelings about the individual candidates.

Then we have the Gruber voters who don’t know, don’t care about the candidates or the issues but are enticed to vote a particular way by promises and incentives. We often see the Gruber Party Voters out on the streets protesting one thing or another. They really don’t know what they are in favor of or why they are there but Hey it must be a good idea.

For the time being, Jay Inslee is our Governor and he is now proposing new taxes; a Cap & Trade carbon tax, a Capital Gains tax and another cigarette tax increase of $.50/pack along with repeal of a handful of “tax breaks”. In fact, according to the article in today’s Everett Herald it is the largest tax increase in Washington State History.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a bit surprised by his actions. I would have been disappointed if he hadn’t because many of my persuasion predicted he would. We knew he was a lock for the Cap & Trade carbon tax since he’s been touting it for years. We knew there were other taxes and strategies he likes so he’s pealing his onion and revealing himself to us a little more this week.

The Governor views the reduction in gasoline prices as an opportunity to add on taxes because in his mind, you have surplus revenue in your pocket. He’s counting on the Gruber Factor coming into play.

Governor Inslee always characterizes his tax increases as “a few pennies” and questions why anyone should get upset about a few pennies. This is where he hopes the Gruber Factor will pay off for him.

Another new tax that’s gaining traction in this state is the VMT tax; the Vehicle Miles Traveled tax. Discussions began a few years ago about the predicted decreases in the revenue stream from Gasoline Taxes in the coming years and the way to offset those decreases.

You thought that by getting rid of your big comfortable car with low mileage in favor of a compact car with high mileage you would be doing your part while saving the money from lower fuel purchases. The government saw that as a hit to fuel tax revenues they are counting on. So now they are saying that in addition to the fuel taxes, they want the money you saved by taxing the number of miles you drive rather than the number of gallons of fuel you buy. That way, it doesn’t matter what kind of car you drive.

Remember, Governor Inslee says we shouldn’t object because it’s just “a few pennies”.

The elitists in the Democratic Party never expected Jonathan Gruber to reveal the secret that they have known about for many years but didn’t say out loud. There are millions of gullible people in our country who will believe just about anything you tell them if you tie the lie to something free for the voter. The big test has always been to determine how little you had to promise them to buy the biggest lie.

The Gruber Party

Let’s hope there aren’t enough Grubers in the State of Washington to buy Governor Inslee’s new line of crap.

Gruber Party