James Etzkorn: End the Bait-and-Switch Tax Games
How career politicians use budget gimmicks to cost us more and deliver less.
Congressional candidate James Etzkorn (Dist 1) exposes how career politicians routinely divert voter-approved tax revenue away from the advertised purpose. To fix our infrastructure, grow our economy and lower costs, we must end these tax shell games and bring an engineering approach to public finance.
When a crisis like failing infrastructure or a lack of affordable housing hits, career politicians pitch a new targeted tax to fix it. They promise the revenue will be strictly locked in a dedicated account. We do our part. The tax passes. Yet years later the crisis remains and we wonder where the money went.
The answer is a budget shell game called "supplanting." When your new tax dollars arrive to fund a specific cause, politicians shut off the money that was already flowing to that cause from the general fund. They divert the old money to cover their own overspending elsewhere. The total funding for the advertised crisis never actually increases. You pay more but the community gets zero new investment.
Look at the track record right here in Washington state. In 2021, the legislature passed the capital gains tax to fund education. But every new dollar that goes into that education trust allows them to quietly free up a general fund dollar to plug their own budget holes. They pulled the exact same bait and switch with the carbon tax.
Pitched as a fund for long-term green infrastructure, lawmakers recently diverted over $540 million away from climate investments to fund short-term $200 utility credits. This was just a political band-aid to mask the pain of the very tax they just passed.
The most damaging example is the chronic raiding of the state Public Works Assistance Account. This fund was built to help local cities build foundational water, sewer, and road systems. Instead, career politicians raided it for $2.2 billion between 1985 and 2017 to cover general operating expenses. They recently proposed taking another $375 million.
When you starve utility infrastructure, you kill housing and jobs. Without state funding, local utilities force massive project-killing costs onto homebuilders.
In Seattle alone, inadequate water infrastructure stopped roughly 5,000 homes from being built. Furthermore, infrastructure investments create good local jobs right here in Washington. Economic studies consistently show that every $1 invested in core infrastructure generates up to $5 in long-term economic growth .
When politicians raid these funds, they do not just stall housing. They drive away jobs and businesses that depend on reliable roads and water systems.
I am running for Congress because this exact same mindset exists throughout our government.
The federal budget is dominated by a two-party system of career politicians who do not manage our economy. They just shift the debt around. For decades the federal government has borrowed from dedicated payroll taxes to subsidize general overspending. This exact systemic raiding is why the Social Security trust fund is projected to run out by 2032 .
Taxes are not inherently bad.
We all need to pitch in to fix problems and support our communities, and we should demand that everyone pays their fair share. The problem is the bait and switch. We feel the pain from higher costs due to thousands of unbuilt homes. Workers lose out when projects never break ground. And we all foot the bill when politicians issue high-interest municipal bonds to temporarily backfill the accounts they just raided.
We end up paying twice. We pay once for the initial tax and again for the interest on the multi-decade debt.
This is exactly why we need professionals in government who make the best long-term decisions for the people — not for party power or the next election cycle. We need leaders who understand return on investment and how to actually grow an economy. We need to enforce strict un-raidable firewalls on dedicated funds. We must root out budget mismanagement and instead demand a government that actually delivers for the people.
Independents answer to the people paying the bills, not party bosses. It is time to end the fiscal shell games. It is time to fire the career politician and hire the engineer.
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