Work with Gary for More Community, Less Olympia

Our priority must be on creating economic prosperity. If employers see hiring employees is a liability rather than an asset, our economy cannot prosper. Our state's legislators just added $757 million to our tax burden, much of it raising the cost of hiring employees. The result is that more than 180,000 private sector workers have lost their jobs in our state. 

Small businesses create 80% of the new jobs in America. Washington, as one of the few states without an income tax, has a tremendous opportunity to attract business here, but in May 2010,  U.S. News and World Report rated Washington state as the fourth WORST state to start a business. Why, our legislators scare new businesses away with their "more government at any cost" mindset. Even long-established local business such as Boeing are moving, taking their jobs elsewhere. 

We can only build prosperity on a solid foundation. A state that puts prosperity first will create more jobs and generate more state revenue. Growing government faster than the economy is a recipe for disaster. Businesses pay the same B&O taxes whether or not they are profitable. Looking at just our housing industry, more than one-third of all our real estate agents have quit in the last two years. In response, our legislators raised their B&O taxes this year to get more revenue. It is not just our taxes but our regulations. In a time of falling house prices, new regulations add an average of $25,000 to the cost of a new home this year. Each home sale adds seven permanent jobs to our economy. Each house that we don't build because people can't afford it shrinks our economy and tax base.

We can stop government takeovers. Not content with just driving our people out of business indirectly, our current legislators prefer state-run monopolies to small business. The most recent target for takeover is the day-care industry, planning to make it part of our already crumbling education system. Large corporations like Kindercare and big unions like SEIU get a seat at the state's new Early Learning Council planning the takeover, but the thousands of small day care operators are force to pay union dues. As we extend government, we replace workers who make an average of $46,107 a year in the private sector with government workers who make an average of  $73,988. Does this make sense?

Transparent, impartial government attracts business. "Crony capitalism" and "crony unionism" discourage business. Our politicians and bureaucrats must not pick the private sector's winners and losers. It doesn't matter if the special interests are big corporations or big unions, when the playing field is tilted, investors and employers stay away.

A Common Sense Plan for Creating  Jobs

We have a unique opportunity to make Washington state the most opportunity friendly, employer friendly state on the West Coast. All it takes is a more sensible tax system, fewer regulations, and eliminating cronyism can make our state extremely attractive to new employers. The solution is easy as long as we get rid of the entrenched politicians who are invested in the existing system.

• We must respect people's economic freedom. This means not  forcing people to join unions, abide by costly regulations designed for large corporations, or taking away consumers choices to satisfy special interests.
• We must reform our B&O tax system so that companies and professionals can survive economic downturns and when they are losing money so they can keep their doors open.
• We must encourage economic growth by restricting government growth.  Raising taxes--as our legislature continues doing--stifles investment, chases out businesses, and puts more people out of work.
• We must increase state income solely by growing the economy, tying government growth to economic growth. Government growth must be restricted to GDP growth. Government employee salaries should be brought in line with the average salary in the state.