Washington state House Democrats on Wednesday passed a pair of bills delaying the WA Cares employee collection tax by about 18 months, while also amending the program to include exemptions for workers who may not see the benefit or already have existing coverage.
House Bill 1732, which delays the program, passed the House on a floor vote of 91-6. Reps. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia, and Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, both of the 20th Legislative District, voted for the delay, while 19th Legislative District Reps. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, and Joel McEntire, R-Cathlamet, voted against the bill.
“I voted ‘no’ because the 18-month delay doesn’t go far enough,” Walsh wrote on Facebook. “We should have repealed the rotten Long Term Care tax scheme. It’s a bad deal for working people in WA.”
Orcutt was the only local lawmaker to vote in favor of House Bill 1733, which deals with four exemptions, when it came to a floor vote. Abbarno, McEntire and Walsh all voted against the bill, which passed on a closer 67-29 vote.
Abbarno in a news release this week compared the Democrats’ fixes to the WA Cares program to “playing music on the sinking Titanic.”
“HB 1773 offers more opt outs, but does not address the regressive tax, the restrictive investment strategy, or the limited benefit. And all three need to work for this program to be successful. Ultimately, as the ship sinks faster and faster because of these so-called fixes, it will become more likely that higher taxes must be imposed on all Washingtonians, in and out of the program, to keep this vessel afloat,” Abbarno said in a statement. “If these opt-outs in HB 1773 were really a fix, the House would not have needed to pause the program for 18 months in HB 1772.
Abbarno earlier this session introduced HB 1594, which would fully repeal the WA Cares program and its tax of 58 cents on every $100 earned by Washington workers. Democrats have yet to give his, or any other Republican fixes, a hearing.
“Pausing the program is one option. Repealing an insolvent program is another option that should be considered,” he said in a statement.
