Barlow scrambles to clarify income tax remark

OLYMPIA – State Rep. Don Barlow, facing a fierce re-election challenge, is trying to beat back allegations that he supports an income tax.

“It’s not true,” Barlow, D-Spokane, said Monday night. “I don’t support instituting an income tax. I said it’s an option, we’d look at it in the future.  … It’s a long-term discussion.”

A Republican- and business-backed group has set up a Web site, www.barlowincometax.com, that claims Barlow “believes it’s time for Washington state to adopt an income tax” and urges a vote for his opponent, Republican Kevin Parker. A similar mailer was recently sent to voters in Spokane.

The Web site includes a video taken from a League of Women Voters candidates’ forum in Spokane last month. On the clip, Barlow says: “I think an income tax is an option right now.” The state isn’t raising enough money to provide quality services, he said, and an income tax “is going to have to be looked at.”

Part of the problem with the current system’s reliance on the sales tax, he said, is that poor residents pay a higher percentage of their income than rich people do.

But Barlow said Monday that he would not support an income tax in the current weak economy. His campaign launched automated phone calls to that effect Monday, and a mailer was slated to go out today.

Washington voters have repeatedly opposed income tax efforts over the decades, and creating one here would likely require a constitutional amendment. An amendment would require the support of an overwhelming majority of state lawmakers and most voters in a statewide election.

The most recent major politician to campaign while supporting an income tax was King County Executive Ron Sims, a Spokane native who ran in the Democratic primary for governor in 2004.Voters picked Chris Gregoire by a wide margin.

Barlow has said in interviews that an income tax would mean the state could reduce the sales tax. He’s also said that he’d like to do away with the state’s business-and-occupation tax and that he’d like to avoid tax increases as a solution to the state’s projected $3.2 billion budget shortfall over the next two years.

The critical Web site was not created by Parker. It was paid for by “the Citizens Action Group,” an Olympia-based group that has raised $375,000 this year for Washington races.

State campaign finance records show its money comes from two other groups, the Leadership Council and the Reagan Fund. The former’s donors include the state Republican Party, Philip Morris USA, Chevron and a hospital PAC. Donors to the latter include a state GOP group – the Speakers Roundtable – the state restaurant association, Weyerhaeuser, the state troopers union, the Service Employees International Union and the Holland America cruise line.