OLYMPIA — Amid the clamor on taxes, Snohomish County airplane owners Ron Morcom and Jim Smith are trying to let state lawmakers know their concerns.
It’s not easy.
An array of forces organized to push and prevent the increase of taxes is besieging legislators.
They’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on television and radio commercials and orchestrating thousands of phone calls and e-mails to lawmakers. These groups have delivered polls and petitions and dropped a few hints of ballot box retribution this fall to drive home their point.
It’s nearly enough to drown out Smith and Morcom as they try to persuade their representatives to drop a proposed excise tax on planes.
“We can’t compete. In our case, I get the impression that the legislators are not listening to us,” said Smith, a veteran Lynnwood city councilman and owner of a single-engine Beech Bonanza.
Lobbying on the tax packages of the House, Senate and governor grew intense as the regular session wore down. It hasn’t let up in overtime.
“I’m facing pressure on a lot of different things, and I don’t always know where it comes from,” said Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina, sponsor of the House proposal for generating new revenue. “It’s astounding how much energy is going into it.
“Every lobbyist who can work in Washington state is here right now,” Hunter said.
Two lines are generally drawn in the debate. There are those who call for raising revenue to sustain funding of education, health care and human service programs, and there are those who argue that each new or higher tax will harm individuals, businesses and the state’s economic recovery.
The potent skirmishing is on the differing planks within the House’s $680 million package, the Senate’s $890 million proposal and Gov. Chris Gregoire’s $760 million offering.
Washington Realtors may be leading the pack in expenditures with the most comprehensive push to keep new taxes away from the real estate and construction industries.
The statewide group has run ads on TV and radio, in newspapers and Web sites. It launched MoveTheEconomy.com to drive home its theme.
“We recognized back in October there was going to be some kind of revenue package,” said state Realtors president Bill Riley, who could not say how much as been spent by the organization. “We’ve done the best we can to tell them that if they can leave us alone it will benefit the state’s recovery as we go forward.”
Other groups have spent money beyond the hiring of lobbyists. Since January, there have been numerous full-page ads run in newspapers around the state making points on the general harm of new taxes, the negatives of a nursing home fee and ending a tax exemption for the nation’s largest banks.
Tobacco firms Altria and R.J. Reynolds ran a reported $40,000 worth of radio ads opposing the higher cigarette tax. Petitions against the hike placed in 7-Eleven stores around the state garnered thousands of signatures, including 5,000 in Snohomish County, which were delivered to lawmakers.
Washington Conservation Voters, seeking support for a higher hazardous substances tax, paid for phone calls to 10,000 residents of the 44th Legislative District in Snohomish County outlining the positions of Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, and Sen. Steve Hobbs, D-Lake Stevens.
Rebuilding Our Economic Future bought ads in newspapers, including The Herald, as part of its $200,000 campaign against cuts in state spending on education, human service and health care programs. The coalition has more than 130 members including labor unions, environmental groups, hospitals and nonprofit health care and human service providers
“(Lawmakers) hear a lot from the Tea Party types and the loud anti-tax types,” said coalition spokesman Sandeep Kaushik. “We want to make sure legislators understand that there is serious support for raising sufficient revenue to stave off these cuts.”
On some tax proposals, such as charging sales tax on elective cosmetic surgeries, lawmakers hear only from those who don’t want it to happen.
“There is absolutely no organized opposition to what we’re trying to do here,” said Dr. Phil Haeck of Seattle, president-elect of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
Eleven other states also have considered a tax on cosmetic medical procedures and found it wasn’t workable, he said.
Dr. Richard Baxter, who has operated a plastic surgery clinic in south Snohomish County for 20 years, said that Washington previously considered, and ultimately rejected, adding a similar tax to help pay for health insurance for uninsured children.
Baxter treats about 1,000 patients a year in nonsurgical procedures such as Botox injections that cost a few hundred dollars and surgical procedures such as facelifts that run into the thousands of dollars.
Adding sales tax could give people a strong incentive to leave Washington for the surgery, he said. “If you’re looking at a $10,000 procedure, you can save a lot of money by hopping over to another state.”
Taxing airplanes in the same way as boats is generating plane owners’ opposition.
Morcom operates Regal Air flight school at Paine Field, where he has 13 planes for instruction. He now pays the state an annual fee of $65 per plane. If the state levies an excise tax based on each one’s value, it will cost him roughly $3,500 more per year.
“This is going to hurt the aviation community. This is going to hurt the economy. I have to pass it on to my customers,” he said.
Based on his conversations with representatives and senators, he said, he believes they are “on the fence” about the tax. He worries that what he’s said to them gets lost in the constant din financed by organized forces.
Morcom can take heart knowing that those spending money are as worried as him about the outcome.
“It’s really tough. This is largely out of our hands,” said Brendon Cechovic, director of the environmentalists’ campaign for the higher hazardous substance tax. “All the arguments are out there. There’s no tricks left up anyone’s sleeve.”
Herald Writer Sharon Salyer contributed to this report.
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