The good news from Olympia is that the Democrats are intent on passing an income tax on millionaires. The bad news is that they seem to want to give back money to billionaires. How does this work out?
Senate Bill 6347 and House Bill 2725 are clearly titled, “Undoing recent changes to the estate tax.” By reversing the increases in tax rates on the very wealthy, especially the billionaires, this proposal would result in a revenue loss to the state of almost $200 million a year starting this July. That revenue is supposed to go into the Education Legacy Trust Account – a crucial funding vehicle for early childhood education.
Last year, the Legislature’s actions exempted almost 45% of estates that would have been taxed from paying the tax altogether, and reduced the tax on another 40% of estates. The loss was made up for by increasing rates on estates valued at more than $15 million. That is literally a couple of dozen estates each year.
By reversing these rate increases, SB 6347 and HB 2725 are simply a gift to the children of the uber wealthy, children who did nothing to gain this wealth – a bow to the intergenerational and antidemocratic transfer of income, power, and political influence.
This isn’t a proposal from a right-wing corporate backed backbencher. It is sponsored in the House by Joe Fitzgibbon (D-Seattle, 34th LD), the Democratic Majority Leader, along with other Democrats (and no Republicans) and in the Senate by Vandana Slatter, who ran and won a special election as a progressive Democrat in Legislative District 48.
This estate tax cut just passed 38-11.
— Ryan Packer (@typewriteralley.bsky.social) February 16, 2026 at 5:52 PM
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SB 6347 was voted through the Senate Ways and Means Committee, with support from Chair June Robinson (D-Everett, 38th LD) and Vice Chairs Derek Stanford (D-Bothell, 1st LD) and Yasmin Trudeau (D-Tacoma, 27th LD), and all Republicans. The only Democrats who voted no in committee were Noel Frame (D-Seattle, 36th LD) and Bob Hasegawa (D-Seattle, 11th LD). On Monday, the legislation passed the full Senate in a 38-11 vote.
The tally.
— Ryan Packer (@typewriteralley.bsky.social) February 16, 2026 at 5:52 PM
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How do the Democrats, allegedly trying to fill a multi-billionaire deficit in the state budget, decide to relinquish half a billion dollars every biennium to billionaires? It really doesn’t take much – a phone call, an aside at a celebration, a quiet visit to elected officials. It is hard to track – but it happens.
The result is that the legislative leadership is rewarding the billionaires and centimillionaires, including those who covered up their relationships with Jeffrey Epstein. Our state leaders are more comfortable stooping to these billionaires and begging them for money, for services like early learning, rather than actually taxing them like the rest of us.
After George Bush and the Republican Congress pretty much leveled the federal estate tax in 2002, Bill Gates Sr. helped to develop our own estate tax, understanding that wealthy individuals have an obligation to pay back into the society that provided them with the infrastructure to succeed. This is especially true in our state, with wealth accumulating over decades without paying one dollar in state income taxes. The people understood this. In 2006, Washington state voters endorsed the estate tax by a two-to-one margin.
Regarding the proposed giveaway to the already wealthy – there is a solution for Democrats: Don’t do it. Don’t vote for it. Don’t fall for it. If you do, you are doing the biddings of the ruling elite, not the children and the people of this state.
John Burbank (Guest Contributor)
John Burbank founded the Seattle-based Economic Opportunity Institute in 1998 and led it until his retirement in 2021.
