In hearing on proposed high earners tax, Republicans serve up a litany of bad arguments to justify their coddle the rich

Yesterday, on my way home from a conference in sunny Arizona, I tuned in to the Ways & Mean Committee’s hearing on Senate Bill 6346, the Democratic legislation that would levy a 9.9% income tax on high earners making $1,000,000 or more per year in Washington State. As Jim Brunner and Frank Lenzi reported for their respective outlets, for about two hours the committee discussed the bill and heard public testimony, with Ways & Means leadership generally alternating between panels of pro speakers from the progressive movement and con speakers from the right wing.

It is rare for a hearing to draw as much interest as yesterday’s did — with Chair June Robinson even commenting near the outset on the number of reporters and photographers in the room — but, to employ an old cliche, the stakes are very high.

Washington has spent decades fiscally limping along, but is now growing way too fast for its antiquated, extremely regressive, very upside down tax code to keep up.

That has put us in a precarious position. Contrary to what Republicans and many lobbyists claimed yesterday, the state budget has been shrinking overall for over a quarter century, as a lot more people choose to live here while revenue falls woefully short of what would be needed to maintain previous levels of public expenditures. (You can see this plainly when making a proper comparison of the state budget between eras, rather than a totally inappropriate comparison that uses absolute dollar figures.)

https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2026/02/in-hearing-on-proposed-high-earners-tax-republicans-serve-up-a-litany-of-bad-arguments-to-justify-their-coddle-the-rich-dogma.html