Washington’s legislative majority accomplished two mutually exclusive fiscal maneuvers in a span of about 24 hours. On March 11, they passed the long-opposed, unpopular state income tax to “fully fund” education. The very next day, they approved cuts exceeding $1 billion over the next four years to…education.
Key Takeaways
- The same majority that passed Washington’s income tax — sold as essential to funding education — approved more than $1 billion in education cuts the next day.
- The promised tax revenue won’t arrive until 2028 at the earliest. It never could have protected the programs used to justify it.
- Washington spends $21,000 per pupil — yet most students can’t demonstrate grade-level proficiency in math or science, and barely half can in English.
- Mississippi spends less and now outperforms Washington in fourth-grade reading and math. The problem isn’t funding. It’s how it’s spent.
- Washington is effectively taxing families twice for education: once by leaving $700M+ in annual federal scholarship funding unclaimed, and again through a new state income tax that won’t deliver a dollar to classrooms until 2028, if at all.
Welcome to Olympia, where the political whiplash is dizzying.
Virtually all of the same elected officials who spent months invoking constitutional “Paramount Duty” education funding obligations, hungry schoolchildren, and looming crises to justify an unconstitutional state income tax turned around and imposed cuts to K-12 schools and child care programs.
Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, hailed as the chief architect of the state income tax, proclaimed his purpose was “making sure that we have a fantastic, well-funded system of public schools,” and only a state income tax will provide the necessary revenue (beginning at the 0:35 mark). Several lawmakers echoed this sentiment, including Speaker of the House Rep. Laurie Jinkins, House Majority Leader Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, and Rep. April Berg, chair of the House Finance Committee. “For Washington’s 1.1 million school kids…help is on the way,” Pedersen promised — but by design, it’s not coming any time soon.
Proponents’ much-touted $3.7 billion in projected annual income tax revenue wouldn’t arrive until 2028 at the earliest, if at all. “Tax folly” is what the Washington Post called the plan because it hinges on successful people sticking around, but they don’t. Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is just one of a growing list of tax refugees fleeing the state, including most recently Starbucks founder and chairman emeritus Howard Schultz.
What the 2026 Washington Budget Actually Cut from Education
Nearly all of the same legislative majority that passed the income tax on March 12 finalized a supplemental budget deal on March 11 (SB 5998 and HB 2289), approving K-12 education, early learning, and child care reductions totaling more than $1 billion over the next four years.
Direct K-12 reductions: ~$110 million. The Transition to Kindergarten program, which prepares children who aren’t quite ready for kindergarten, absorbs the largest share of direct cuts: $102 million over four years (also here).
Phased-in subsidy restructuring: ~$781 million. The majority of the spending reductions stem from an overhaul of the Working Connections Child Care (WCCC) subsidy structure. By shifting to an attendance-based reimbursement model and halting previously scheduled eligibility expansions — which under the 2021 Fair Start for Kids Act (SB 5237) were supposed to extend coverage to families earning up to 75%, and eventually 85%, of state median income — the state avoids hundreds of millions in planned spending. Those expansions, already delayed once by the 2025–27 budget, are delayed again until 2029 and 2031, respectively.
Additional reported cuts include reduced reimbursements to school districts for school bus purchases and the Running Start program, totaling a combined $91 million, as well as a four-year $45 million cut to the local effort assistance subsidy for school districts in low property-wealth areas.
The majority’s explanation for this about-face seems straightforward: their projected income tax revenue won’t arrive until 2028, and the state faces an $878 million deficit next year. Cuts were unavoidable. But that explanation only deepens the irony instead of resolving it.
The income tax was sold as an urgent remedy. Yet since the “cure” doesn’t arrive until 2028, the tax was never going to protect the programs it was invoked to save. The urgency was real. The solution was theoretical.
Which calls to mind J. Wellington Wimpy’s famous offer from the classic Popeye cartoon: “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Washington’s schoolchildren are the hamburger. Tuesday is 2028.
More Money, Worse Outcomes: The Case Washington’s Majority Won’t Make
The deeper irony isn’t just the timing. It’s the premise.
Washington has been here before — and kept arriving at the same answer. Since 2013, per-pupil education spending has climbed from just under $14,000 to $21,000. The return on that investment? A majority of students cannot demonstrate grade-level proficiency in math or science. In English language arts, barely half can.
Mississippi — long the punchline of education ranking jokes — now outperforms Washington on fourth-grade reading and math on the Nation’s Report Card (and here). It does so while spending considerably less per pupil at just over $14,000. The difference isn’t money. It’s how it’s spent.
Washington’s majority has yet to seriously engage with that question. Instead, they prefer to treat every education problem as a revenue problem — and every revenue problem as a reason for a new tax. There is, however, a ready alternative they could pursue: the federal tax-credit scholarship program for K-12 education expenses. Opting into the program would unlock more than $700 million annually for Washington students and schools — at zero additional cost to state taxpayers.
Zero. As in, no new income tax required.
Washington families already pay federal income taxes that fund the scholarship program. But now they’re being asked to pay again — through the state income tax whose revenues, if they materialize at all, won’t reach a classroom until 2028 or 2029.
Washington doesn’t have an education funding problem. It has a problem spending better — and a legislative majority that keeps mistaking the two.
