Clueless in Seattle - Washington Adopts an Income Tax

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Unleash Prosperity Hotline
Issue #739
03/27/2023
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1) Clueless in Seattle - Washington Adopts an Income Tax
It’s sad. The blue states keep doubling down on economically destructive policies.

Liberal Washington State has long been a mecca for technology start-ups - from Amazon to Microsoft and hundreds more - in no small part because it is one of nine states without an income tax. Regular readers know that the no-income tax states create jobs at roughly twice the pace of high-income tax states.

But in 2021 the Democrat-dominated legislature decided it would slap its millionaires with a first-ever capital gains tax of 7% on annual gains of more than $250,000.

The state constitution forbids an income tax, but the State Supreme Court upheld the law by skirting the clear language of the law and called it an “excise tax.” With this twisted logic, the Court could say that a personal income tax is really just a sales tax on your labor services.

Washington has had a competitive advantage over neighbors California and Oregon, but they just flushed that away. At 7% Washington will now have one of the top taxes on the sale of stocks and other assets.

Washington is likely to fall at least 12 spots in the ALEC “Rich State, Poor State” rankings - from above average in the business climate to below average.

One woke business leader in Washington admitted that millionaires may move to Florida (where there is no income tax), but scoffed: “Hope you like the hurricanes and mosquitoes.”

Washington’s progressives forget that when the millionaires leave, they take their jobs and their capital with them. And they also forget that after they flee, 7% of zero is zero.

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2) The Debacle of Houston’s Failing Schools
Houston’s public schools range from mediocre to rotten - as is tragically the case in most inner cities. Fortunately, under a 2015 state law, passed by a bipartisan legislative majority, if a school district has a campus with a failing grade for five consecutive school years, the commissioner is required to appoint a new board of managers. (Our only gripe is why they tolerate even TWO consecutive failing grades?)

Well, Houston’s schools have failed five times in a row to cross that low bar. Some 200,000 Houston kids are being victimized by this educational ineptitude. So last week state officials announced they would take over the failed school district. Thank God.

Predictably, the unions are throwing a hissy fit.

Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, exploded:

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The Houston Federation of Teachers claims the state takeover may lead current teachers to opt out of their contracts by the April 15 deadline.

Well hallelujah. This is a great way to weed out bad teachers - and reward the good ones. The district is also offering a $2,500 signing bonus for new teachers. That's on top of the $61,500 starting salary.

The last time Houston’s school district was taken over was in 2008. Only 25 of its roughly 350 teachers were competent enough to be rehired. Things are no better today.

The fiasco of Houston schools should only further embolden Governor Greg Abbott to keep pushing for universal school choice in the Lone Star State. Minorities will be the big winners.

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3) Here’s One Democrat Who Gets How Important School Choice Is to America’s Future
Why oh why are so few Democrats willing to speak the simple truth that State Rep. Mesha Mainor of Georgia does here? (She represents Martin Luther King Jr's old neighborhood.)

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4) Americans Agree With Us: Raising Taxes and Increased Regulation Weaken Social Security and Medicare
We noted last week on these pages that our new study by CTUP scholars Casey Mulligan and EJ Antoni shows that Bidenomics has weakened Social Security and Medicare's long-term solvency by roughly between $400 billion and $900 billion.

Voters must be reading the Hotline because a new poll by America’s New Majority Project of 1,000 registered voters (conducted by pollster Scott Rasmussen) finds a majority of Republicans and Democrats agree that a strong economy is the key to solving the multitrillion-dollar funding train wreck. Three times as many Americans (70%) think prosperity is a better solution than raising taxes by 11%.

As for HOW to grow the economy by a two-to-one margin, voters endorse lower taxes and less regulation as a sound strategy.

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These results flatly contradict the Biden fiscal strategy of fixing Social Security by raising and expanding the reach of the 15.3% FICA payroll tax.

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5) And Now the Left Is Censoring That Terrible Racist…Agatha Christie
It’s no mystery why Agatha Christie has been translated into over 70 languages and is the most published author of all time, behind only the Bible and Shakespeare. Her detective stories are so popular that they’ve sold over a billion copies.

But now Christie has run afoul of the “sensitivity police.” She’s joined British children’s author Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, in having many passages in her books reworked or removed.

No one argues that a 1939 Christie novel title that included a term that was racist toward blacks shouldn’t have been changed. She herself agreed at the time. But the dozens of new concessions to ‘wokeness” are absurd and baffling.

In “Death on the Nile” (1937), references to the proud Nubian people of Egypt have been cut, with “the Nubian boatman” now referred to as “the boatman”.

A young woman described as being “of gypsy type” is now only referred to as “a young woman”.

References to “natives” have been replaced with “locals”.

Black people are apparently no longer allowed to smile or grin in Christie's books.

Nor is an angry judge allowed to have “his Indian temper.”

What’s next, blacklisting Eeyore for stereotyping donkeys as grumpy?

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6) The Left’s Answer To EVERYTHING!

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