Many Washington families statewide continue to struggle with the high prices of fuel, food, utilities, housing and more. No one reading the “room” that is our state would say property taxes are too low.
Enter the 20 Senate Democrats who want to lift the voter-endorsed, bipartisan 1% cap on the allowable annual growth rate of property taxes.
As filed, their Senate Bill 5770 would raise the allowable growth rate to 3% annually for both state and local property taxes. That would cost about $12 billion over the next decade.
The “substitute” version that came before our Senate Ways and Means Committee on Jan. 18 would apply only to local property taxes. It would take about $6 billion out of the economy in the next decade.
Both versions run counter to the property tax relief Republicans have proposed to lower the cost of living and make homeownership and rent more affordable.
People may go online to express their support or opposition to a bill once it’s scheduled for a public hearing. Of all the bills to come before Senate committees in the first two weeks of the 2024 session, none attracted more opposition than SB 5770.
Specifically, the 7,500-plus signing in as “con” ahead of the hearing on SB 5770 was 10 times the number signing in as “pro” and “other.” A room like that shouldn’t be difficult to read.
Our Senate Republican budget leader, Sen. Lynda Wilson of Vancouver, has done a great job of listing the bill’s many faults in a policy paper posted at senatorlyndawilson.com, her official website. I’ll highlight a few.
First, the property tax is regressive, meaning it consumes a larger share of a lower-income person’s money. Just 10 months ago, the Seattle Democrat prime-sponsoring SB 5770 publicly described Washington’s tax system as “uniquely bad and regressive” — yet he and at least 19 more Democrat senators are willing to triple the allowable growth rate of a regressive tax.
Then there’s the “councilmatic” nature of the annual tax-rate increase. While a city or county council may automatically raise property taxes by 1% annually, nothing prevents them from asking voters for an increase larger than 1%. When we say SB 5770 would allow the tax rate to grow by up to 3% annually, that also means without voter consent.
A third fault: When people were asked about this idea at “tax town halls” conducted by the bipartisan Tax Structure Work Group, two-thirds of those surveyed opposed raising the 1% cap. Of the people of color who were surveyed, nearly three-fourths said no. Again, it shouldn’t be difficult for Democrats to read the room.
The 1% cap was first set in 2001, through Initiative 747. It was part of a property-tax revolt of sorts that had already attempted to cut a 6% annual cap to a 2% limit. I-747 was approved by 57.5% of voters statewide after the state Supreme Court invalidated the 2% cap.
In November 2007, the 1% cap also was struck down by the high court. The Democrat-controlled Legislature responded later that month in a one-day special session called by former Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire to reinstate the tax limit through legislation.
The 1%-cap bill passed overwhelmingly in both chambers, with support from 74 of the 94 Democrats serving then. Clearly they knew how to read the room — the legislation re-establishing the 1% limit even was prime-sponsored by a Democrat.
Besides criticizing the 1% cap as “arbitrary,” which dismisses how so many of their predecessors had backed it, the 20 Democrat senators behind today’s SB 5770 hint in the bill that local governments need more money for law enforcement and criminal justice.
We agree, but our approach to helping rebuild the criminal-justice infrastructure would offer financial support without opening the door to higher tax rates.
At the Jan. 18 public hearing on SB 5770, the prime sponsor also attempted to sell the proposed tax increase as being about “democracy.” That’s ridiculous. Further restricting the freedom of taxpayers to make decisions about whether to pay more in property taxes seems like the furthest thing from democracy.
The people of our state pay more than enough in taxes already. Their legislators must do better.
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Sen. John Braun of Centralia serves the 20th Legislative District, which spans parts of four counties from Yelm to Vancouver. He became Senate Republican leader in 2020.
