WSLC’s Johnson: GOP extremists ‘tone deaf’ to state’s needs

(June 26, 2015) — The following statement by Jeff Johnson, President of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO was distributed Friday:

Once again, Senator Andy Hill showed how extreme and tone deaf his Republican Senate caucus is by declaring that the debate over taxes, funding education, and the social safety net is over and that the only thing left is the issue of reducing higher education tuition.

This false narrative was shamelessly reinforced in a commercial funded by the State Republican Party on Thursday, which accused Governor Jay Inslee of forcing a government shutdown which would close our state parks and keep college tuition high.

Is anyone paying attention?

The Senate Republicans are taking our state to the brink of shutdown because they don’t care that we have the most regressive tax system in the country, that teachers will get one quarter of the cost-of-living pay increases that they as legislators will get, and that the social safety net has so many holes in it that thousands of our most vulnerable fall through it every day.

Everyone would like to see tuition costs go down. But how about a tax system where everyone pays their fair share? How about closing unnecessary corporate tax loopholes? And how about raising wages so that more folks could actually afford to go to college, no matter the tuition level? And how about enough affordable housing so that people could afford to live in the cities where they work? And how about? And how about?

The debate is far from over and our structural budget deficit remains with us still.