The Blog at MSPC

Now Washington state legislators want to take this experiment statewide, arguing that a new 3-cent sugar-sweetened beverage tax will improve health outcomes and fight hunger. It sounds noble. It sounds decisive. And it’s deeply disconnected from reality.

Despite Washingtonians consistently and overwhelmingly rejecting income taxes and the legislature in 2024 enacting I-2111 to prohibit state or local income taxes, some lawmakers in the Evergreen State are again pushing for an income tax this year.

By opting in and embracing the federal education tax-credit scholarship program, Washington can expand opportunity, strengthen educational outcomes, and put families first.

We have dozens of policy recommendations for lawmakers to consider. These reforms can be acted on even with the challenging budget situations across the states. Here are a couple of our top recommendations for Idaho, Washington and Wyoming lawmakers

Mountain States Policy Center's (MSPC) Board of Directors has unanimously approved the election of Tiffany Smiley to its Board of Directors,

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.

What comes back from the dead more frequently than Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger? Efforts to impose an income tax in Washington State. Like those perennial terrors, this income tax fixation in the Evergreen State should finally die, too.

Washington state’s ban on thin plastic grocery bags is increasing the amount of plastic used by shoppers and overall environmental harm, contrary to the intent of the law.

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.

Grocery competition doesn’t just come from the store down the street anymore—it comes from Amazon dropping food on your doorstep, Walmart offering rock-bottom prices, and Costco selling everything in bulk. Albertsons and Kroger needed each other to stand a chance.

It has been fifty years since the four dams on the Lower Snake River were completed. Originally built to provide transportation, they now create the equivalent of one-third of the electricity generated in Idaho, helping balance the growing amount of wind and solar energy across the Pacific Northwest.

Taxpayers across Washington state have had a rough go as of late. New gas taxes, increased capital gains income taxes, and higher B&O taxes are hitting the wallets of many across the Evergreen State.

Today, miners are well informed about the risks surrounding uranium mining, and many steps are taken to protect workers from its effects.

the Washington State Supreme Court has given its official blessing to a secretive process that allows the offers and counteroffers leading to more than a billion dollars in taxpayer-funded compensation to remain secret until after the state budget is signed into law.

With the stroke of a pen, the future of the Snake River dams is looking better. President Trump issued an Executive Order on June 12 repealing a secretly negotiated memorandum signed by President Biden that was attempting to set the path for the possible breaching of the Snake River dams.

Washington state lawmakers this year imposed a new tax that has already sent tremors through the state’s tech titans and small business owners. Senate Bill 5814 significantly broadened the state’s retail sales tax to include an extensive array of digital services.

There was a lot of intrigue in Washington state as citizens and businesses waited to see what Governor Ferguson would do with the record tax increases lawmakers sent to his desk this year. Despite speculation that the new Governor may veto these massive tax increases, in the end, he signed them into law on May 20.

While an attempt was also made again to tax drivers by the mile to divert money, lawmakers “[waved] the white flag” on the issue this legislative session. This mileage tax will likely resurface again. The transportation tax bill currently sits on Governor Ferguson's desk for signature.

Concluding the measure was "administrative" in nature, rather than a policy matter, justices claimed it couldn't be brought to voters. The state Supreme Court was the only court to rule that way, with other courts upholding the measure calling it a "classic vagrancy ordinance."

While the rest of the nation today enjoys the relief of surviving another National Tax Day (April 15), our friends in Washington instead woke up to the news that no fewer than five new tax increase bills were introduced on April 16.