Washington's million-dollar earners tax will provide sorely-needed funding for public services and boost our business

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

climate

This morning in Olympia, Governor Bob Ferguson is set to sign Senate Bill 6346, which will establish a historic million-dollar earners tax in Washington, making the state’s long regressive tax code more equitable. Today’s bill action at the Capitol is the final step in a long legislative journey that included a marathon debate in the Washington State House that stretched on for more than twenty-four consecutive hours.

Much of the media coverage of the legislation has been taxation-centric as opposed to expenditure-centric — meaning, who will pay the tax, who opposes it, why they oppose it, and so on. There has been less attention paid to what the revenue we’re raising will be used for in future bienniums and how those investments could improve Washington’s business climate, making the state more economically competitive, though The Seattle Times’ Jim Brunner filed an excellent story examining just that this morning.

Going back almost to the founding of The Cascadia Advocate in 2004, I’ve observed that there are two sides to every equation, and that’s true with the basic equation underpinning public finance. Revenue and expenditures go together: the taxes we pay are what makes civilization possible. Police and fire protection, K‑12 schools, colleges and universities, roads and bridges, mass transit, parks, ports, courts, swimming pools, and critical electrical and water infrastructure all cost money and aren’t things we can afford individually. It is only by pooling our resources that we can get them.

That’s what taxes are and that’s how we should think of taxes.

https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2026/03/washingtons-million-dollar-earners-tax-will-provide-sorely-needed-funding-for-public-services-and-boost-our-business-climate.html

[MichMan]

1. Since taxes are needed to fund things for the public good, why is everyone else exempt from paying income taxes?