OLYMPIA, WA – With the Washington state legislative session scheduled to adjourn one month from Thursday, lawmakers are getting down to the nitty-gritty work on massive budget proposals that will impact taxpayers. This week, majority party Democrats in the House and Senate unveiled competing transportation budget proposals. Both budgets call for increased gas taxes tied to inflation, and new fees to pay for ongoing projects and new priorities.
The Senate plan calls for a 6 cents per gallon hike at the pump. That hike would bring the total state tax to 55.4 cents per gallon, before being tied to inflation. Beginning the following year, the state tax would then rise by 2% annually to account for inflation.
The House of Representatives proposes a 9 cents per gallon increase, also with future hikes tied to inflation.
“This is going to be a very difficult time for me because it’s going to be one of the first times I vote ‘no’ on a transportation budget,” said Rep. Andrew Barkis, R-Centralia, in an interview with The Center Square on Thursday.
Barkis said he will not support the massive tax increases in the proposal despite spending a great deal of time working with Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, the chair of the Transportation Committee.
“The primary reason for that is I just can’t support the tax proposals that are being floated,” Barkis said. “We have existing resources. We’ve got the Climate Commitment Act and other pools of money that we can reprioritize that I believe should be used differently than what we are doing.”
Both the House and Senate transportation proposals use about $1.3 billion from Washington’s carbon auctions via the CCA to fund transit and other clean energy projects.
CCA money should be diverted to general transportation priorities, according to Barkis.
“We’ve shifted away from maintenance and preservation and increasing capacity, and it’s really put a focus on public transportation and the climate, and that’s a direct result of the Inslee administration and the people around that,” he said.
Barkis said his main concern is not wanting to further burden the average taxpayer.
“There’s almost $2 billion in our budget right now that is going to other things like transit, electrification, and all these things that are good, but are they the priorities that we need right now?” he asked. “Is this the time to increase costs for the average Washingtonian by increasing their gas tax and other fees?”
Barkis said the people should have a say in hiking the gas tax
“I believe that the power and decision should be with the Legislature when it comes to increasing taxes,” he explained. “The gas tax should be debated and voted on, and if agreed to, then okay. Indexing puts it on autopilot. Go back and look at what we just came through with 7-8-9% inflation; that gas tax would be somewhere in the 65-cent, 70-cent range if we were indexing right now, so it’s worrisome that we’re looking at doing this.”
Both the Senate and House transportation budgets were scheduled for executive session late Thursday afternoon.
105-day legislatives session is set to conclude on April 27.