Posted on 04/23/2010 6:10:18 PM PDT by mdittmar
OLYMPIA, Wash. — Calling it a "sensible and modest" solution to Washington's historic budget crisis, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Friday approved a revenue package that nets roughly $780 million to avoid deeper cuts in education, health care and human services.
Consumers will pay more for a basketful of convenience-store favorites: Soda, bottled water, major-brand beer, candy and cigarettes. Service businesses will send the state a larger share of their gross sales, from attorneys and lobbyists to hairdressers and janitors.
Out-of-state companies also were targeted for more revenue, either by recalculating how taxes are charged or shrinking certain exemptions in response to court rulings. A collection of smaller loopholes and other exemptions also were closed or downsized.
The taxes on soda, beer, bottled water and service business are temporary, lasting through June 2013.
Gregoire, a second-term Democrat, said the tax package was a reasonable response to the estimated $2.8 billion budget deficit that the Democrat-controlled Legislature confronted in its recently concluded special session.
"I believe in the people of the state of Washington. I'm asking them to stand up and do what's right on a temporary basis to see us through this worst time," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
LOL. “Temporary” tax hikes. What BS.
bump
Raising taxes is much more responsible than lowering spending.
God knows, I hate demoncraps.
Imagine what Washington would be like if the election wasn’t stolen..
C’mon Mount St. Helens, blow up again.
...always nice to have OREGON 150 miles to the south, to keep the BLOOD-SUCKERS in Olympia honest.
"I felt like humming the Battle Hymn of the Jerk."--Murray L. Slaughter.
“...a modest $780 million...”
That’s not modest, it is obscene.
I have two sisters living in the Seattle area. Both are democrats who regularly vote ‘left.’ Don’t feel a d*mned bit sorry for them!
LOL,that’ just mean spirited;)
Sportutegirl the Great's prediction: "These tax increases will hurt businesses, and lower tax revenue." (I'm psychic.)
Welcome to Michigan!
I wonder how many people will just stop buying that stuff? What will that do to their ‘anticipated’ revenue???
I’ve got a kitchen. I’ll make my own. It’s not hard to do and it tastes better. Let them try to tax it.
At the time of my Thanksgiving visit (1964), my cousin Gordon was attending school with Bill Gates. Gordon writes avionics software for the B2 program today.
Here is an idea, instead of forcing the people to pay for YOUR spending excesses why don’t you cut spending instead of forcing the people to cut their own individual spending to pay your higher taxes?
Don’t Democrats ever think of cutting budgets rather than raising taxes?
No they leave the budget cutting to the individual American, so that a ever greater share of the fruits of our labor can be managed by them instead of us.
The folks in Vancouver can start a tidy business...running water, soda, beer in - tax-less from Portland. There is always a way to avoid the hand of the man! I recall living in a dry county. Friday night found a long traffic snarl out of the ocunty into the next WET county. Folks in power just never get it. Me thinks they never lived in the real world where folks are always smarter than their stupid, idiotic rules.
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