The Blog at MSPC

It’s the oldest trick in politics: sell a major policy shift by assuring voters it only targets someone else. Olympia is now running that play with the 9.9 percent “Millionaire Tax.” For those of us who have watched Washington’s spending habits for decades, the warning signs are obvious. The “fair share” narrative depends on intellectual dishonesty—and it’s being used to wedge open the door to a permanent state income tax.

History is rarely kind to policies that treat property rights as expendable. Housing affordability will not be achieved by suffocating peaceful uses of private property, but by expanding supply and allowing markets to respond to demand.

Roughly three out of four businesses say they’ve been hit directly by the recent sales tax on services or B&O tax increases. More than half are raising prices because of it. The rest are just absorbing the blow and hoping things calm down.

Idaho’s top real estate agents are not cashing commissions in Boise—they’re writing tax laws in Olympia. Washington legislators keep raising the cost of doing business so fast that they may as well set up a relocation desk for Idaho.

Fifty years ago, government shutdowns didn’t exist. But now, each fall, the nation groans as Congress turns one of its most fundamental duties—passing a budget—into a manufactured crisis.

In moments of crisis or uncertainty, free societies are tempted to hand their problems to a "strong man"—someone who promises swift, decisive action when the slow machinery of constitutional delegation feels too unwieldy.