Editorial: Lawmakers need to get busy fixing big problems

If it was not clear before the Legislature got down to business Monday, it’s clear now: Neither of the major changes in the Washington tax code proposed by Gov. Jay Inslee will pass in the Senate.

With the two-thirds procedural rule quickly adopted by the Republican majority, just 17 members – one more than one-third – can block bills that would implement a new tax. There are certainly more than 17 senators prepared to stop the governor’s cap-and-trade air pollution control plan and his proposed tax on capital gains.

Inslee did not acknowledge this in his State of the State address Tuesday. Instead, he cited an obvious fact the majority of Washington residents have shown they are willing to ignore: the inequity of a tax system that imposes a disproportionate share of the burden on the state’s middle- and lower-income residents.

A state income tax might be fairer, but voters in 2010 rejected Initiative 1098, which would have created one. A capital gains tax is much the same thing, with much the same future.

Inslee celebrated Washington’s history of innovation, but that has not been true regarding taxation.

In her response to Inslee on behalf of Republicans, Rep. Norma Smith of Clinton started, as Inslee should have, by noting the state expects to collect an additional $3 billion in revenues during the next budget biennium, a better than 8 percent increase that should go a long way – if not all the way – toward meeting court-ordered mandates to increase education funding and support for mental health services.

As revenue projections have advanced with each quarterly report, the possibility the state will be able to pad its reserves and backfill pension accounts has increased.

Smith’s comments on Inslee’s environmental initiatives were less helpful.

The governor and the Department of Ecology are fighting the good fight against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on water quality regulations. Also, the department last month released a nearly 500-page study, with recommendations, of the potential impacts of more oil train traffic through Washington and how the state can respond.

Knocking cap-and-trade as a substitute for higher gas taxes is easy. Finding money to get the North Spokane Corridor and other projects completed will be hard. Reforms – and they are needed – are not going to get these jobs done.

Senate Republicans last spring blocked a plan that included gas tax hikes. Gasoline was about $1 more per gallon then. If legislators are going to spurn ideas like cap-and-trade, or the expansion of tolling, this is an opportunity to minimize the pain of a tax increase and relieve the congestion that pours tons of pollutants into Washington’s skies.

Although the gas tax works less well with every advance in automotive technology, the new Senate rules do not require a two-thirds majority to adjust existing taxes.

The state of this state’s roads is detrimental to business, health and the environment. Let’s get on with a fix.