By Bill Lucia | Editor
If approved, the initiative to repeal Washington’s new income tax on millionaire earners would mean the state loses around $3 billion a year in expected tax payments. But the measure would also leave in place tax relief provisions embedded in the law that total around $570 million annually, with those costs rising in future years. In other words, the state will be short on money that lawmakers built into their spending plans, while taking on costs that the vaporized income was supposed to help pay for.
Also in today’s edition…
A fast-moving wildfire in the Spokane area.
Washington households tap federal flood aid.
U.S. wealth becomes even more concentrated among the richest 1%.
And, efforts to stop the dismantling of an ocean science network.
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People sign petitions for a proposed ballot measure to repeal Washington’s new income tax on high earners in early June in Tumwater. (Photo by Jerry Cornfield/Washington State Standard)
By Jerry Cornfield
The law creating the 9.9% tax on household income over $1 million also calls for removing sales tax on diapers, grooming products and some over-the-counter drugs, and repealing recently added sales taxes on services. And it expands a tax break for small businesses and a tax credit program for working families.
The initiative would keep those tax rollbacks and breaks intact. “We’re taking out the parts that drive people away from the state and we’re keeping the parts that allow them to be successful,” said Hallie Herzberg, spokesperson for Let’s Go Washington, the political committee gathering signatures for the measure.
Sen. June Robinson, D-Everett, chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, doesn’t see it that way, describing the measure as “deeply irresponsible fiscal policy.” Robinson added: “If the initiative passes, it would create a massive budget gap for the Legislature to grapple with.”
Spokane wildfire
Fire crews were battling a roughly 250-acre blaze threatening neighborhoods in the Spokane area as of last night. An unspecified number of homes had burned, and 11,750 residents were under evacuation orders, The Spokesman-Review reported. Spokane County Fire District 9 said at 10 p.m. last night that the Upriver Fire was 10% contained. State fire officials said late yesterday afternoon that the fire was threatening 500 homes, power lines, waterworks, and other infrastructure.
By Jake Goldstein-Street
More than 1,200 households have tapped Federal Emergency Management Agency aid to help with recovery from December’s flooding. The deadline to apply was last week. Some applications are still being processed, so the $11.2 million handed out so far is likely to rise. That amount is just over half of what Gov. Bob Ferguson requested based on initial estimates of the need. The money can help flood victims repair their homes or find stable housing. About half has gone toward housing assistance, while the other half has been earmarked for other needs, like child care, replacing or repairing personal property or vehicles and hotel stays.
By Tim Henderson
The richest 1% of Americans held nearly a third of the country’s total wealth at the end of 2025, the largest percentage the Federal Reserve Board has recorded since it started monitoring the numbers in 1989. In 1990, the share was 22.5%.
Today’s top 1% consists of about 1.4 million households with at least $12 million in net worth, holding a total of $55.9 trillion in wealth. The bottom 50% consists of 67.7 million households with less than $264,000 in net worth.
There are no state-level statistics on the top 1%. But Census Bureau estimates from 2022 show Washington among the top three states for the highest share of households with more than $500,000 in net worth, with 43% of households here in that category.
Workers retrieve a data-recording instrument in the Gulf of Alaska. (Photo by Dee Emrich/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/provided by the Ocean Observatories Initiative)
By Yereth Rosen
Several members of Congress are trying to prevent the National Science Foundation from dismantling portions of an instrument system that monitors the nation’s oceans. The National Science Foundation plans to pull out much of the instrumentation in the Ocean Observatories Initiative system, which began operating in 2016 and was intended to last for three decades.
The system has more than 900 instruments that track ocean conditions, including circulation and currents, temperature, marine life, weather events and data used to manage seafood harvests. Under the Trump administration, the National Science Foundation plans in the coming year to remove instruments from the waters off Alaska, Washington, Oregon, North Carolina and Greenland.
Washington’s Democratic Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell were among 10 senators who sent a letter to National Science Foundation Director Brian Stone this week urging him to reverse the decision. A separate letter to Stone from 25 U.S. House Democrats called the decision “absurd.”
ICYMI
WA sued over assisted living spending cuts | by Jake Goldstein-Street
North Cascades Highway reopens | by Aspen Ford
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