This is what the Democrats are doing with YOUR MONEY!

Hi, it's State Representative Jim Walsh here at the Capitol and Olympia with my good colleague, Representative Peter Abarno. And we're here to talk about the big operating budget that just passed into law today. We'll head to the governor's desk for his signature. Peter, before I blow a blood vessel, what happened in this operating budget? Yeah, Jim, it's a $78 billion operating budget that relies on over $9 billion in new taxes. And it's really built on a lot of just budgeting gimmicks. Obviously, the taxes on a lot of the hardworking Washingtonians out there. And looking at future revenue, it is spending more than we're bringing in in revenue. And so it's really a bad operating budget this year. And a lot of us, all of us voted against it. Yeah, it's bad. At the beginning of this legislative session earlier this year, you heard a lot about this big deficit. We have this big budget deficit. This operating budget does all the same bad stuff that caused the deficit. And the deficit's a projected deficit, of course, several years out. This doesn't fix anything. It's still spending too much. And the main thing is, Peter, these gimmicks. I mean, they're playing a lot of games with both tax revenue coming in and government spending going out. That's just, it's not straight accounting. It's trickery and gimmickry. That's the part that blows my mind. Yeah, and Olympian Democrats have been doing this over and over again. And we've been warning them that using these gimmicks is just going to get us in more and more trouble. They did it again. And you know what they say about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting something different or a different outcome. It's no different outcome. Actually, this budget is worse than some of the past ones that we voted against. This one really sets up Washington for failure. And that's what we all talked about on the House floor. Yeah. And I mean, failure means everything costs you more and you're getting less for the tax dollars that you're sending to Olympia. It just boggles my mind how the majority in the legislature and the new governor, it's like they don't care. They're just going to drive this rig right off the edge of the cliff. There are not enough cuts in this to call it a cut budget, although some of the people on the left said that. But really what it is, is it's not focusing your tax dollars on the programs and the projects that will do the best for you, like make your roads easier to drive on, like make your schools more productive and efficient for getting kids educated, like making your neighborhoods safer. It's not channeling your tax dollars into those things. It's playing a bunch of budget gimmicks so that a bunch of bureaucrats can continue to be the lords and ladies of their manners. Yeah. It's not a budget crisis. It's a priorities crisis. And that crisis is built on the backs of working families. I mean, I keep thinking about all the families who are going to be preparing to go on weekend trips and summer trips as the kids get out of school. And at the same time, some of this budget is built on increased fishing licenses, increased hunting licenses, discover passes. So when you want to plan a family vacation at a state park, it's costing you more. And with the massive gas tax coming out of the transportation budget, I think vacations are going to be really expensive. And a lot of families are going to struggle to actually go on vacations because they can't afford it. And they use some of this gimmickry also to raise your property taxes after saying they weren't going to do that. This is a lose-lose operating budget. And I mean, I'm glad we fought it as hard as we could, Peter. But this gimmickry, the game playing, the calling it one thing and doing another, we got to call an end to it. And that's an issue that's bigger even than the budget. And we'll put underneath this video a link to our graphics and our reports on the details of this operating budget so you can see for yourself how bad this one is. We're spending too much and we're playing gimmicks and games with how we're accounting for it. Peter, last word. Well, I mean, even though our job here at the Capitol looks like it's finishing up with sine die, our work never stops. And folks can go to houserepublicans.wa.gov because there's a lot more bad Democrat bills and policies and taxes that may be coming in 2026. So as you and I and others prepare for 2026, we want them to stay engaged all summer long. Information is your best shield from bad policy here. That's it for now. We'll talk to you again soon. Wish we had better news, but we'll keep fighting. Have a good one.