Five more claims against the million-dollar earners' tax that don't check out: Debunking Republicans' opposition to SB 6
Republican legislators yesterday leveled a barrage of familiar arguments against the Senate Democratic majority’s proposal to create a million-dollar earners’ tax, grousing about runaway spending, capital flight, economic harm, constitutional defects, and threats to philanthropy before voting against the bill on final passage.
While these charges have been made before, repetition does not make an argument true. When examined against actual fiscal data, credible research, and the text of the legislation itself, their arguments fail. For example, Washington’s budget has decreased relative to the size of the state economy, not exploded. The wealthy have not fled in droves because we’ve increased their tax obligations. And Republican lawmakers have already demonstrated that their grasp of constitutional law is sorely lacking, so when they complain, That’s unconstitutional!, we know we can’t take them seriously.
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Concerning claims that “we have a spending problem,” questions of “when will it be enough” and arguments that the state budget has doubled
The overall state budget, including the operating budget, has actually shrunk over the last few decades and is now smaller than it was when Republicans last controlled both chambers of the Legislature in the 1990s. Here’s a visualization:
https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2026/02/five-claims-against-the-million-dollar-earners-tax-that-dont-check-out-debunking-republicans-opposition-to-sb-6346.html