Inslee urges COVID-19 vaccinations and defends vetoes of local weather change in an interview

Kip Hill / The Spokesman Review

Governor Jay Inslee said Tuesday if sports fans want to personally bet on the cougars and huskies this fall, it would be best to get a COVID-19 vaccine to make that happen.

“It’s a definite possibility,” said Inslee as he played the annual football competition with fans this fall. “What I can say is that anyone who loves the Apple Cup like me … will be vaccinated. The more people we vaccinate, the more we can put these numbers down, the more we can do things like that.”

Inslee spoke to The Spokesman Review during a Northwest Passages virtual forum after touring the Catalyst building, a higher education incubator in Spokane that houses several academic programs from Eastern Washington University. He cited the building as evidence of steps that must be taken immediately to address the threat of climate change, a dominant theme in his 2020 presidential campaign and a priority for the 2021 legislature.

Because of that, he said he had vetoed portions of two major pieces of legislation that passed that session – a low-carbon fuel standard and a “cap-and-trade” program – for having passed a tax increase of 5 Cents were connected. Inslee said lawmakers did a good job of guideline “driving the ball 99 yards” but believed the vetoes were necessary to get the legislation “over the goal line”.

“We are on solid foundations in this regard because when it was clear there was a desire to avoid a veto because they wrote this underground – we believe this happened here – that the governor has the option of one Veto a subsection, “said Inslee.

The legislative leadership in Inslee’s own party, the Democrats, has signaled that they will legally challenge the veto. The determination was necessary to get the number of votes to pass the climate change proposals, Senate majority leader Andy Billig said, and the vetoes will undermine future compromise efforts in the chamber.

Inslee countered on Tuesday that the measures must be enacted now and that the state cannot wait for means of transport to be approved.

The governor also said he believed the courts would uphold the imposition of a capital gains tax, one of several measures Inslee endorsed at the session. The law provides a 7% excise tax on the sale of stocks, bonds, companies, and other investments when profits exceed $ 250,000 per year. At least two lawsuits have been filed in Washington state courts alleging the measure violates a constitutional prohibition on property taxes that are inconsistent.

Inslee said the tax is necessary to ease the burden on Washington’s lowest income earners, who bear the heaviest burden on the state’s consumption-based tax system.

“To have a fairer Washington, we have to stand up for working people, people who are struggling to pay their bills and mortgage,” said Inslee. “Unfortunately we didn’t do what it took to give them a fair shot.”

According to the latest financial analysis by the Office of Financial Management, the tax is estimated to be around $ 445 million for the first year if it stands up to legal challenges.