As published Friday, Oct. 8, in The News Tribune (Tacoma): Taxpayers are regularly asked to raise their own taxes by approving local levies. They are rarely given an opportunity to lower their tax burden. So here’s a timely question: If you could vote to exempt the first $250,000 of your...

VANCOUVER… Sen. Lynda Wilson, R-Vancouver and Republican leader on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, offered this statement today after Gov. Jay Inslee’s signing of the $59.2 billion state operating budget for 2021-23: “There are good things in the new budget, like more support for our most vulnerable residents and...

VANCOUVER… Washington taxpayers who wonder what the new state income-tax bill really means for them didn’t get any answers from the signing of the legislation today, says Sen. Lynda Wilson. Wilson, R-Vancouver and Senate Republican budget leader, made this statement following the ceremonial signing of Senate Bill 5096, the income-tax...

Hello Friends and Neighbors, The Legislature’s 105-day session ended last evening, shortly after the passage of a new state operating budget that is – unfortunately – much more partisan than it needed to be. The budget wasn’t the only disappointing news to come out of our final week (and weekend)...

OLYMPIA… Sen. Lynda Wilson, R-Vancouver and Republican leader on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, offered this statement following this afternoon’s final passage of a new 2021-23 state operating budget, on a partisan 27-22 vote in the Senate: “The budget leader for the Senate Democrats calls this new budget ‘awesome’....

OLYMPIA… The final 2021-23 operating-budget agreement made public this afternoon by the Legislature’s majority Democrats is still a step backwards for Washington’s low-income families and marginalized communities, say budget leaders in the Senate Republican Caucus. Sen. Lynda Wilson, R-Vancouver, and Sen. Sharon Brown, R-Kennewick, also are critical of how legislators...

OLYMPIA… Sen. Lynda Wilson says majority Democrats negotiating the new 2021-23 state budget should have had a final version ready for consideration before now – and it definitely shouldn’t take until Saturday, although that timeline has been predicted by the Democrat chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee and...

Hello Friends and Neighbors, The final day of our 105-day session is a week from this Sunday. I mentioned in my previous report how there’s no excuse for going past that deadline when one party controls both houses of the Legislature… but sure enough, the chatter about an overtime session...

OLYMPIA… If the Senate’s Democratic majority wants a new state budget that is truly historic, says Sen. Lynda Wilson, there are more good ideas to be had in the Republican alternative she will put before the full Senate today. “Earlier this week my Democratic colleagues spoke of ‘meeting the moment’...

Best parts of new plan mirror Republican spending ideas, says Wilson Sen. Lynda Wilson, R-Vancouver and Republican leader on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, offered this statement about the 2021-23 operating-budget proposal made public today by the state Senate’s Democratic majority. “The good news is this budget would make...