Oregon Public Broadcasting

As Washington state faces an $8 billion budget crisis, there’s a renewed call for a state income tax. Bill Gates’ father and others are proposing a tax on people who make $200,000 a year or more. Olympia correspondent Austin Jenkins reports.

The new tax would be paired with an across-the-board reduction in property taxes.

John Burbank runs a liberal think tank in Seattle called the Economic Opportunity Institute. He estimates such a proposal could net the state an additional nearly $2.5 billion every two years.

John Burbank: “We have an upside down tax system, which low income and middle class people are disproportionately paying taxes compared to higher income people. Especially now, high income are those people who can afford to increase their investment in public services”

Burbank would earmark the new revenues for education.

Washington voters have historically recoiled at the idea of an income tax.

Burbank says the proposal is not sufficiently ripe for consideration by this year’s Washington legislature. He’s thinking a multi-year campaign would be needed to change people’s minds.