Between his price range priorities and his inaugural handle, incoming Governor Bob Ferguson has put progressives on edge since formally assuming workplace final month. Democratic legislators have been simply gearing as much as repair the state’s main price range shortfall by elevating new progressive income, a plan of a chunk with Inslee’s parting proposal late final yr. Then in rides Ferguson, slashing his sabre on the wealth tax and trumpeting phrases like “lean,” “efficiencies,” “arduous selections,” and “right-size.”
Ferguson’s plan leads with cuts and refuses to ponder new income till “we’ve exhausted efforts to enhance effectivity.” And his inaugural handle? Within the phrases of Paul Question at The Washington Observer: “Probably the most attention-grabbing a part of it was how Republican it sounded.”
Wait a minute. Is that this the identical progressive crusader this very publication gushed over in 2017? Who precisely is Bob Ferguson, and why isn’t he all the way down to tax the wealthy?
Let’s be clear, I’m no Ferguson oracle. I’ve not adopted our new governor’s political profession intently. I’ve by no means met the person in individual. Heck, I don’t even play chess. However I’d wish to suppose my naïvety is a bonus. Once I began asking individuals with extra knowledgeable opinions than I about our state’s new chief, I didn’t have lots of preconceptions. In these conversations, I found not one however 4 Bobs. I current them to you now.
Strategic Bob
Possibly Ferguson is definitely high quality with taxing the wealthy, he simply has his personal intelligent manner of getting there. That is Danny Westneat’s Bob, Bob the chess grasp. By sacrificing the wealth tax, he’s opening up different strikes. Make some noise about “financial savings and efficiencies” now, and construct help amongst moderates for progressive income later: Ferguson comes out wanting just like the cheap grownup whereas legislators take any political warmth for his or her extra expansive tax goals. In the end, the Legislature will move a price range that features substantial new income and he’ll signal it.
There’s some strong proof for this Bob. In spite of everything, even Ferguson’s proposed cuts, which quantity to $4.4 billion on high of the 2 or three billion in Inslee’s price range proposal, don’t come near fixing the deficit, estimated at $10-12 billion over 4 years. Ferguson supported the capital features tax, and Sen. Jamie Pedersen is already hinting that he could need to increase the B&O tax on giant firms.
Even Ferguson’s large ‘no’ on the wealth tax could also be overblown. “He doesn’t say outright that he is against the wealth tax. I feel that’s one thing the media is taking and working with,” mentioned Emma Scalzo, Govt Director of the Steadiness Our Tax Code Coalition. “He’s mentioned he’s skeptical of the wealth tax and has questions. There’s a research already on wealth tax implementation [that addresses many questions]. Identical to capital features, there can be pushback, however I really feel like we’re totally ready. We all know what Washington state stands for. We don’t hate taxes, we all know how taxes create the communities all of us need to reside in.”
Possibly. However the Strategic Bob concept has its issues, too — notably, that this technique won’t be all that sensible.
“If that’s the place he desires to go, nice, that’s high quality, however he’s not setting himself as much as pull that off successfully. If he does this pivot, he’s going to appear like he’s flip-flopping,” mentioned Robert Cruikshank, a Precinct Committee Officer within the forty sixth District Democrats (Ferguson’s house district). “Ferguson coming in and instantly selecting a battle together with his personal base doesn’t make sense to me.”
“It seems like a slap within the face to the individuals who care about public faculties and progressive income,” mentioned Julianna Dauble, president of the Renton Training Affiliation. “It’s been stunning to me how many individuals in our native, individuals who I didn’t suppose had any inclination to concentrate to state budgets, have reached out to me.”
Voters have made clear that they help extra funding for public faculties, with at the very least a few of this coming from new taxes. Why not begin there, as a substitute?
“Sustaining a united base with the mainstream of the Democratic social gathering with a message of ‘we’d like a mixture of cuts and new income’ — that’s labored nicely for Inslee,” says Cruikshank. “Democratic majorities have grown all through his time in workplace.”
As an alternative, Ferguson got here out of the gates angering or bewildering lots of his supporters. And, in our hyperpartisan occasions, it’s unlikely that Republicans are going to heat as much as Ferguson simply because he parrots a few of their speaking factors. This raises what for progressives is a extra troubling chance: What if the fiscal conservative schtick isn’t a intelligent gambit, it’s simply Bob?
Conservative Bob
Ferguson wasn’t all the time The Stranger’s “American Heartthrob.” He first gained public workplace again in 2003 on skepticism of Sound Transit light-rail spending and help for shrinking the King County Council from 13 seats to 9. This plan was proposed by two of the council’s Republican members, cheered by Tim Eyman, and positioned on the poll by the King County Corrections Guild, offended over layoffs and insistent that the county ought to trim from the highest.
Ferguson could have gained progressive hearts as Lawyer Common by doing battle with Trump, however he’s by no means pretended to repudiate fiscal conservatism. As this publication’s endorsement final yr famous, he “refuses to advocate for brand new taxes on the wealthy” and “routinely asserts the necessity for the state to chop waste, to not improve its coffers.” If progressives assumed Ferguson was on board with their agenda, possibly that was a little bit of a wishful projection.
However this Bob isn’t solely a straight shooter. He has a devious, bait-and-switch facet, too. Whereas Strategic Bob presents himself as much less progressive than he actually is, Conservative Bob does the other. His price range priorities make a giant deal about growing “the share of the price range” that funds Ok-12 schooling, calling Inslee’s proposed 41.9% “unacceptable.” However learn the high quality print and also you’ll discover no point out of added funding for operations, closing deficits, or holding faculties open. The “enhance” seems to be a slight of hand: the share for schooling goes up just because the general price range goes down.
“It’s a few larger pie, not how large our slice is,” mentioned Dauble. “Particularly with extra billionaires in our area than ever in human historical past.”
And Ferguson did make guarantees. Dauble says he claimed to help progressive income within the candidate questionnaire he crammed out for the Washington Training Affiliation, which endorsed him unanimously. In keeping with Cruikshank, “Ferguson deleted the ‘Plans’ part of his web site only a week or two after the election, together with his guarantees to spend extra on smaller class sizes and particular schooling.”
Conservative Bob might nicely find yourself at loggerheads with an more and more progressive, activist Legislature — and together with his personal voters.
“Bob Ferguson was elected on the identical evening that voters rejected tax cuts for millionaires and voted for important companies that decrease prices for working households,” mentioned Rian Watt, Govt Director of the Financial Alternative Institute. “His mandate is that mandate: to guard important applications and proper our damaged tax code.”
Formidable Bob
However what if Ferguson doesn’t care all that a lot about that mandate or what Washington voters take into consideration his efficiency over the following 4 years? What if he has bigger ambitions?
In political time, 2028 is true across the nook. How would possibly the governor of one of the liberal states within the nation place himself for a critical presidential run? He won’t need to appear like a tax-and-spend Democrat. He would possibly even need to appear like somebody unafraid to slap down the progressive excesses of his personal constituents, channeling the soul of a extra centrist nationwide voters. The rumor mill is churning, and I’ve heard a number of second-hand studies that Ferguson has threatened to veto progressive taxes. Exhausting-nosed brinkmanship won’t play nicely on this Washington, however might it set him up for achievement within the different one?
These aren’t the teachings I might draw from the 2024 nationwide election outcomes, however this line of argument is actually within the air; possibly Ferguson buys into it. Possibly he’s searching for the long run President Bob.
Formidable, aggressive, ruthless? You can construct the case. Contemplate the primary goal of Ferguson’s proposed cuts: the Lawyer Common’s Workplace he simply vacated. Along with the six p.c cuts Ferguson desires most state businesses to organize for, he’s referred to as for a $35 million or 50% “sweep” of the fund that helps the workplace’s civil regulation enforcement divisions, together with its Client Safety Division. That income is generated by case settlements and in flip has powered lots of the high-profile victories the workplace gained beneath Ferguson’s watch — a virtuous circle for Washington customers.
To say that Ferguson started the cost-cutting “together with his personal longtime company” (as his price range priorities announce) appears like self-sacrifice. However keep in mind, it’s not Ferguson’s workplace anymore. It’s Nick Brown’s workplace, and Brown has made clear he believes these cuts would have a “actually devastating impression” on the workplace’s capacity to prosecute civil rights and antitrust instances.
If Ferguson wished to set a belt-tightening instance, maybe he ought to have educated his zealous eye for effectivity within the Governor’s Workplace. Knee-capping your successor to attain political factors with the appropriate? That has a a lot much less noble ring to it.
All the opposite regulation enforcement businesses — the Washington Division of Corrections, the Prison Justice Coaching Fee, and the Washington State Patrol — have been ostentatiously positioned out of attain of the budget-shredding machine. Possibly Ferguson’s enthusiasm for catching company criminals is considerably muted now that he’s not the one getting the glory.
Earnest Bob
That, nevertheless, shouldn’t be the person described to me by some long-time supporters. As an alternative, I heard a few Ferguson who cares deeply about inequality and can deliver new power and efficient management to the governor’s workplace.
“I feel one factor that basically had a big effect on him is a yr he spent in Arizona, engaged on an Indian reservation,” mentioned Steve Finley, certainly one of Ferguson’s consultants for his first two races for the King County Council. “I feel that basically opened Bob’s eyes to how individuals undergo. I simply suppose his first aim and what he’ll search for as governor is how will we assist the poor.”
I additionally heard a few true public servant who “walked the speak” — actually. In his first marketing campaign for King County Council, Ferguson mentioned he visited the houses of greater than 22,000 voters. And, say the Ferguson devoted, he didn’t simply hand out marketing campaign literature and ship his elevator pitch; he listened and realized, inviting individuals to inform him about their issues and priorities. Though Ferguson really is a progressive Democrat, on this telling, he additionally believes his job is to symbolize all the neighborhood, bridging numerous views by in search of areas of settlement.
Is Ferguson nonetheless listening? In that case, maybe he has a keener sense of how Washingtonians actually really feel at this second than the politicos do. And maybe it’s on this spirit that we must always perceive his inaugural handle’s paean to former Washington Governor Dan Evans, a Republican unbound by the straightjacket of social gathering politics. Improbably, Evans created the nation’s first statewide Division of Ecology and — germane to our present second — was an unapologetic champion for that third rail of Washington politics, a state revenue tax.
Possibly what Ferguson is actually doing is correcting for among the methods Democrats have misplaced the plot lately, turning into uncritical defenders of an institution that seems to the general public fairly clearly damaged. “So let me be clear: I’m not right here to defend the federal government. I’m right here to reform it,” he mentioned in his handle. If that sentiment feels international to many in his social gathering at this time, possibly that’s the issue.
A few of Ferguson’s priorities must be heartily welcomed by progressives. Free breakfast and lunch for each pupil attending Ok-12 public faculties. Reviewing all laws that impression housing allowing and building, with the intention of streamlining or eradicating obstacles to constructing extra housing. Defending reproductive freedom. And, simply final week, a fast response group to help the households of immigrants focused for deportation by the Trump administration. If a few of Ferguson’s turns of phrase are setting off our Republican alarm bells, possibly that’s on us. Possibly we have to get out of our bubbles and hear extra, too. Possibly.
Who’s the Actual Bob?
Which of those 4 Bobs did we simply elect to the governor’s workplace? All of us comprise multitudes, after all, and our new governor isn’t any exception; multiple Bob could lurk behind these rectangular glasses and disarming smile. As for what any of this implies for the state price range, I assume we’ll discover out. Progressive tax champions within the Legislature, for his or her half, are staying on message and never giving up.
“I stay up for continued dialog with the Governor and his group about how we meet neighborhood wants whereas additionally addressing our upside-down and regressive tax code,” mentioned Senator Noel Body. “I consider that they agree that the tax code is regressive and we have to do extra to enhance it. So I’d love to do the work with them to speak by way of the main points of what it means to try this.”
