Good year for east side at Olympia

It’s been about a month since the Legislature wrapped up its work. Now is a good time to look back and see what was and was not accomplished.

From an Eastern Washington perspective, it was a pretty good year. The session focused on keeping taxes low, increasing water supplies to the agricultural community, and stopping gun control legislation.

To many, that sounds like something that would happen in Montana, not Washington. But, this year, it did happen in Washington.

For the first time in many years, there were almost no new tax increases. We eliminated the .03 percent Business and Occupation (B&O) surcharge, killed the beer tax, stopped the TV tax, and prevented a move to increase taxes by nearly $800 million.

There was a change in taxes to phone service, but that tax saved the people of Eastern Washington who still use land-lines about $800 a year. There was also a change to the estate tax, also referred to as the “death tax,” that I fought hard against.

It will retroactively apply the tax to about 60 families, which is an injustice to those families. However, overall it was a good year for those who dislike new or increased taxes.

It was a big year for water. We passed and funded the Yakima Integrated Water Plan. It will bring thousands of new water acre-feet to the basin. We also allocated millions of dollars to extend the East Low Canal and stop our reliance on the Odessa Aquifer. Grant County farmers are going to see new water from Lake Roosevelt as soon as the construction is completed

There was a strong push by Democrats to institute new gun control laws in Washington—even going so far as to require you to do a background check on your own family member if you sold them a gun. We were able to stop that proposed bill.

Despite a strong push by the Democrats to mandate abortion coverage at every workplace and in every insurance plan, the Republican-controlled Senate was able to stop that legislation when it reached their chamber. If you want the choice to buy an insurance plan that does not cover abortion, you will be able to.

It was a great year for education, whether you are a parent, teacher or student. We increased funding for K-12 education by about $1 billion. And we did it without raising your taxes.

That extra money will shrink class sizes, re-establish all day kindergarten, boost teacher pay and cover the local costs of supplies and transportation.

We also froze college tuition for the first time in over 20 years. If you are a parent paying for your child’s tuition, you will not see an increase in your bill this year.

At the end of my first year in the Legislature, I can tell you I am proud of the work we did. It took longer than it should and we still spend too much money, but compared to previous years, this was a noticeable improvement.