And the blows to the law-abiding citizens of Washington State just keep coming. It now seems that every day there are new stories of further insults to the intelligence and the already-strained bank accounts of long-suffering Washingtonians. Every day, new indications that we will be hit with higher costs of living, additional red tape and regulations, and more ways the majority-DemocRat legislature will be making our lives harder.
Take, for instance, the constant new revelations of fraud in our government’s handling of our tax dollars. With all the publicity recently regarding Somali daycare fraud, diligent investigators here in Washington (which has the third-highest number of Somalis of any state) have discovered that we have a similar incidence of such fraud. That fraud is actually pretty easy to find, if you go to the state records and find multiple “daycares” operating out of the same derelict building, where you can see that no economic activity is taking place at all, least of all daycare centers.
Very concerning article in @NRO about potential fraud in Washington state by Somali immigrant run daycare centers. Per the article, it is disappointing to learn that state Attorney General Nick Brown does not seem to be taking this potential large scale fraud seriously. Tax payer… pic.twitter.com/0UzdDQKQfR
— Congressman Michael Baumgartner (@RepBaumgartner) March 17, 2026
This is only one incident, more investigations have been held. So today, we see an article in KOMO News that the state legislature “quietly” included in their over-spending budget bill, money for “internal audits” of government agencies to root out “waste, fraud, and abuse”. This is the same legislature that refused to fund or support the State Auditor’s Office hiring an impartial third party to audit state agencies. So, now, we have the classic “fox guarding the henhouse” situation where the profligate-spending legislature vows to audit ITSELF to find the waste that they engage in every day! Below are a couple of pages from the comments on the KOMO article.
And then, there’s the Department of Licensing scandal, where since 2018, when the current governor was Attorney General, drivers license records were stolen by hackers, through a “back door” that the AG knew about from the beginning, and refused to address. Many identities were stolen, and the State is still trying to cover up the issue.
In the linked Glen Morgan YouTube video, he well explains what happened, and is continuing to happen in this continuing scandal that affects ALL Washingtonians. Most of the public is unaware, and will remain so unless we get the word out. Our government sees us as simply their piggy-banks for all their pet projects, NONE of which work for anyone but illegal migrants, criminals, and their cronies in the Homeless-Industrial Complex.
And then, there’s the Climate Grift. The “Climate Commitment Act” is skimming billions of dollars in taxes and fees, and producing exactly ZERO benefits. Really, absolutely zero benefits. We pay a $0.54 gas tax, huge taxes on our car registrations every year, property taxes, and higher prices for everything we buy, due to fuel price increases.
40 years of one party rule… what will they try next? An unconstitutional income tax???? https://t.co/zELbv9sYLA
— Brian Heywood – That Damn Mormon (@bkheywood) March 17, 2026
No reporting on the effects of the Carbon Tax, and now that’s OUR fault??!!
This really should be a national story, or at least better known by Washingtonians.
The "Climate Commitment Act" was enacted in Washington state in 2021, establishing a cap-and-invest program that sets a declining limit on greenhouse gas emissions from the state's largest… https://t.co/zOr1dmckUm
Now, we are finding out that the government is out to get us in real estate transactions. First, there’s the new law just signed by the Dictator-in-chief, taking the process of selling your home out of the hands of the homeowner, and forbidding private transactions. I just wonder who benefits from this little law?
“NO KINGS!” they shout…
Meanwhile in Washington, Gov. Bob Ferguson just signed the bill banning “pocket listings” — forcing EVERY single property to be marketed publicly instead of letting sellers choose who sees it first.
And then, at the County level, we have this. It was “tentative”, now it’s final. We expect every other Western Washington county and municipality to adopt this. Believe me, it will benefit NO ONE but the fake firms that will suddenly appear, to do the “scoring”.
WTF. Thurston County, WA, becomes first in the nation to pass an ordinance FORCING people to obtain a certain "home energy score" before they're allowed to sell their house.
Please note two things. Firstly, this article is by a national account, not local. We are getting an enormous amount of attention to how our governments at all levels are making our lives much more difficult and expensive, all for a hoax. Next, for those who don’t live in Washington, Thurston County is the county where the capital of Olympia is situated. Gee, how many legislators live in Thurston County?
And the blows just keep coming. Washington State is getting a gusher of national attention for the unconstitutional income tax which our Leftist legislature has been salivating over for decades, and finally got passed. The effects and publicity are widespread and increasing.
This income tax is unconstitutional, harms our economy, and it will spread to lower income people in no time. The destruction this tax will cause is nearly incalculable. Worse, they took away your right to vote against it on the ballot. That’s called tyranny.…
I’ll keep this short. But just in case you didn’t think Dems were being vindictive with the recently passed income tax, here’s another great example. Look how they’ve chosen to define “residency.”
In (i) above, you have to meet ALL 3 PRONGS. The key is the “permanent place of abode” clause. Basically, for everyone thinking that they can spend winters in AZ or Palm Desert and then come back to your PNW home for the great summers, think again. Unless you only plan to come from July 4th-July 31st, you’ll be on the hook if you’re here for MORE than 30 days and have ties to permanent residence (home, apartment, condo, etc., owned or leased).
This is NOT how residency is currently formulated in the cap gains or estate tax; it’s based on the more widely used construction in (ii). And they didn’t dream this up on their own; it’s nearly verbatim what NY has, as well as CT and MA.
Run this through your AI helper of choice. Also, certainly run it by your tax advisor. Mine gave me reassurance yesterday, “yes Steve, it does exactly what you’re concerned about. But our state & local tax team says it’s only used in cases where they’re going after a significant tax bill or some other high-profile taxpayer.”
So, they’re basically going to trigger a fire sale of higher end homes here for anyone wanting to be clear of the tax land grab. And I suspect it will be fire sale with lots more people of means wanting to leave than move here. (Oh, and they’ll be just fine collecting the real estate excise tax on your way out the door).
And yes, there are tax planning strategies that may help (but don’t write them down, because trying to lessen the tax impact is also potentially against the law, something my tax advisors didn’t laugh at when I made that point at a recent meeting…)
Tick tock. Better have everything sold by January 29th, 2028.
Please do click through to see the whole thing. Steve is a Washington business executive who ran a trucking line for years, and knows whereof he speaks.
Washington State is about to repeat a costly mistake.
Every state that adopted an income tax has fallen behind economically.
Democrats in Olympia want a 9.9% “millionaire tax.” History says this ends badly.
🏈Democrats denied an income tax would hurt free agency. The Seahawks say it will. ✈️Democrats denied an income tax would lead to capital flight. It already is. 💵Democrats now deny that the "millionaires' tax" will turn into an income tax on all.
Bob, a 35-year Seattle contractor who has overseen projects worth $100 million, is leaving the city, fed up after years of dealing with homelessness, taxes, break-ins, and immigration issues.https://t.co/iU9yWmyw35
arguing Washington’s income tax would solve homelessness and help working families. They sort of kind of forgot to mention that their organizations belong to a coalition that received $3.65 billion in direct state payments over the past three and a half years — and that passing the income tax would not only expand the very programs that pay their salaries but the organizations they represent as well— and that is the grift.
Warning WAY WAY TLDR
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FIRST, THE ARTICLE — THE DATA DOESN’T SUPPORT ITS CLAIMS
First lets talk about the op-ed and its claims that Washington has a housing crisis, the wealthy aren’t paying their share, and an income tax would fund the solution which is to build more houses.
Washington has been running a tax payer funded housing experiment at scale for a decade.
— $270K per unit just to acquire the buildings, before a single dollar of rehab or services. King County’s own 2024 Point-in-Time count: homeless population grew 23% anyway, from 13,368 to 16,385.
and 50% suffer from a combination of physical illness, mental illness, and substance abuse —suggesting that perhaps addiction and mental illness are a much bigger contributor to living on the street than lack of housing.
By nearly every metric, the housing first model has been a colossal failure and a mismanagement of taxpayer dollars. But the organizations asking for more money designed this approach. It failed by their own metrics. The simple truth is that they have no financial incentive to see it succeed.
THE AUTHORS — WHO ARE THEY?
Rachael Myers — Executive Director, WA Low Income Housing Alliance (WLIHA)
Her funding loop:
1. WLIHA lobbies the Legislature to increase the budget of the taxpayer funded
2. WLIHA helped secure $527M of WA taxpayer dollars in the 2024 Capital Budget for the HTF
3. State Commerce Dept administers HTF and distributes grants
4. WLIHA members (Bellwether, Plymouth, DESC, Mercy Housing, YouthCare, HDC) are some of the primary recipients of those grants
5. Members pay dues to WLIHA→ funds Myers’s ~$136K salary
6. WLIHA 2026 priority: pass income tax to keep money flowing
7. Back to Step 1
Among WLIHA’s dues-paying members are government agencies: the City of Olympia, the City of Seattle’s Office of Housing, the City of Everett, King County Housing Authority, and the Housing Authority of Okanogan County. These are not private advocates. They are public agencies — funded by taxpayer dollars — paying membership dues to a nonprofit lobbying organization whose explicit 2026 priority is passing new state taxes to increase the very housing grants those agencies receive and administer. The loop is almost elegant: government agencies use public funds to pay dues to Myers’s organization, Myers uses those dues to lobby the Legislature for more housing spending, the Legislature appropriates it, and it flows back to the agencies that started the cycle. Washington taxpayers are, in effect, funding the campaign to raise their own taxes — just with a nonprofit in the middle so nobody has to call it what it is.
BOTC’s own footer: “PAID FOR BY BALANCE OUR TAX CODE” — a political expenditure campaign, not a charity. Scalzo’s BOTC bio: she’s ready to “play the world’s tiniest violin for all Washington’s billionaires.”
She is the paid director of the income tax campaign and a lobbyist for BOTC.
WA law requires lobbying employers to file annual expense reports.
BOTC PDC lobbying filings:
• 2021: $3,000
2022: $11,200
2023: $2,700
2024: no filing
2025: no filing
Oddly, BOTC stopped filing exactly when their income tax advocacy went into high gear.
THE MONEY THEY REPRESENT
BOTC represents 80+ organizations. Their advocacy is a who’s who of public unions and taxpayer grifting NGOs. According to the Washington State Open Checkbook (
), identified BOTC member organizations received $3.65 billion in direct state payments over the last 3.5 years:
• Community Health Plan of WA: $3,582,390,846
• Habitat for Humanity (WA chapters): $17,512,330
• YWCA (WA chapters): $14,003,699
• Front and Centered: $5,807,828
• YouthCare: $5,443,550
• Food Lifeline: $4,809,287
• OneAmerica: $4,439,854
• Building Changes: $3,372,365
• Northwest Harvest: $2,474,070
• Stand for Children: $2,122,665
• + 8 more identified members: ~$9M
TOTAL: $3,652,138,725 — confirmed from state records from just those identified groups.
The anchor is Community Health Plan of Washington — a Medicaid managed care org, $1.64B annual revenue, almost entirely Apple Health state/federal payments. CEO Leanne Berge: $1,021,846 compensation. A BOTC member funded by tax payer dollars using tax payer dollars advocating for income tax revenue to expand programs that will generate more revenue for themselves.
The checkbook doesn’t capture everything:
WEA — ~funded from the $6.5B/yr in taxpayer provided teachers salaries. WEA spent $448K against I-2109.
• SEIU 775 — employee wages funded from $1B+ state long-term care Medicaid budget. Spent $432K vs I-2109.
• WFSE state workers — $3B+/yr state payroll. Spent $500K vs I-2109.
• HTF grants — $527M last biennium to WLIHA’s member nonprofits.
This coalition represents wealthy public unions (which are privately held) and savvy politically connected NGOs already taking enormous sums of money from taxpayers, and using it to push an unconstitutional income tax.
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THE BOTTOM LINE
They are not fighting for affordability for Washington families or even for alleviating the homeless problem.
They are defending their funding model. A very expensive not so small violin.
— Brian Heywood – That Damn Mormon (@bkheywood) March 17, 2026
In an effort to benefit 3D printing of guns and parts, the dumb-ass DemocRats write a law that could ban ALL 3D printing.
A crime free, responsible person with a grandfathered arsenal of legally aquired, common firearms could lose their ability to vote, travel and own firearms just because they have a flash drive with techinical data for an object they already posess and aquired legally
Their big Kahuna has already left for Florida. Headquarters is now moving to Nashville. They will feel right at home, since Nashville is a blue city.
The boot of Government on our necks here in Washington is pressing down ever-harder. The DemocRATS are putting the citizens of Washington in a tightening straitjacket, from which they are making sure we cannot escape.
Calling-all-RushBabes 