It's back-to-school time, and if you're shopping for your kids, you've already noticed everything costs more. Backpacks? Up 30%. Sneakers? Up 40%. Computers and tablets? You'll pay up to 20% more.
Local Republicans want you to blame state Democrats for this, claiming they just passed "the largest tax hike in Washington's history" that will cost your family $2,000 more this year.
That's a scary number. It's also not true.
They cite a bunch of local tax changes, then grossly exaggerate their impact on everyday spending. What they're not mentioning is that 85% of that new revenue comes from taxes on massive corporations making over $250 million a year and people selling stocks worth more than a million dollars. Last I checked, not many folks in Lewis County are sitting on million-dollar stock portfolios.
Meanwhile, those back-to-school prices that are hitting your wallet? They're going up because of Trump's tariffs, not state taxes.
It’s true, the new surcharge on massive corporate profits might add a few cents to your Walmart receipt or the gas tax might add a penny or two to shipping costs, but that's nothing compared to the cost of tariff increases hitting every imported backpack and pencil.
Remember, American businesses pay tariffs, not foreign countries, and economists say they will add 12% to 15% to school supply prices across the board. Rulers, lunchboxes, shoes, clothes, even pens and glue sticks are all made with imported materials that now cost more. Retail industry groups estimate that families could end up paying $2,600 more per year on everyday goods due to the tariffs. That's real money coming out of your pocket every time you shop, not just during back-to-school season.
But instead of standing up for Lewis County families against these federal policies actually driving up costs, our Republican representatives are trying to distract you by blaming state Democrats for a problem they didn't create.
Let's talk about what fiscal responsibility actually means. When Republicans promise they can balance the budget without new taxes and without painful cuts, they're selling you a fantasy. It was just over a decade ago that we tried the cuts-first approach and ended up destroying funding for schools, medical services, and financial aid for college students.
The truth is, Washington faces a budget deficit of about $12 to $14 billion over four years. That's real, and it needed to be dealt with. Democrats did deal with it when they cut a whopping $7 billion in spending, including painful reductions to state agencies and delayed programs. And yes, because the political will was not there to implement a truly equitable wealth tax, some regressive taxation was necessary to get the budget balanced.
Real fiscal responsibility means making smart choices about both spending and revenue to keep things running without putting all the burden on working families. When you look at what Republicans are actually proposing with their so-called "no cuts, no taxes" budget plan, it's all smoke and mirrors. They shuffle money from one account to another, delay payments, and hope nobody notices when the bill comes due. Have you ever paid a credit card with another credit card to kick debt down the road? It's just like that.
Meanwhile, they're protecting tax breaks for the wealthy while our schools and hospitals struggle under enormous pressure from federal cuts.
Not a single Republican legislator has clearly explained where they would find additional billions in savings without hurting services people depend on. Acting like we can run the state on the same budget we had ten years ago is like saying you should be able to feed your teenager on the same grocery budget you had when they were five.
If state Republicans really cared about back-to-school costs, they'd fight federal tariffs instead of protecting them, and they'd support state education funding that reduces what parents and teachers have to buy out-of-pocket. Instead, their '$ave Washington' plan would have cut over a billion dollars from education while freezing salaries, despite teachers already being forced to spend hundreds of dollars buying their own supplies.
For decades, rural communities have been asking our politicians to balance the scales and champion policies that will serve us here and not just the big cities. They keep claiming the wealth will trickle down if we just keep cutting taxes for the ultra-rich and big businesses, but that never actually happens.
The solution isn't to gut services and put us further behind the rest of the state, the solution is to finally ask those who've gotten incredibly wealthy to pay their fair share and invest back into the communities they built their fortunes on. It’s past time to close the loopholes and fix the regressive tax policies that have helped disenfranchise middle-class people for decades.
Bezos may have moved to Florida to save for his $20 million Venetian wedding, but Washington’s millionaire population has increased by 47% and the wealth of the ultra-rich has increased by $748 billion since we instituted our capital gains tax in 2022. The fearmongering over millionaire flight was clearly overblown.
So as you're shopping for school supplies this month, or groceries next month, don’t buy into the lie that somehow state taxes on millionaires and huge corporations are raising your prices. Remember that federal tariffs are forcing American businesses to pay drastically more for their imports, and passing those costs on to you is a feature, not a bug, of Trump’s trade policies.
Democrats are fighting this hidden federal tax on working families. Our Republican representatives should be fighting it too, instead of protecting the policies that caused it.
Zac Eckstein is chair of the Lewis County Democratic Party. Learn more about the party at https://lewiscountydemocrats.org.
