“Professional runner-up Dino Rossi has made a career out of ducking the tough issues facing Washington State,” said Drew Godinich, DCCC spokesperson. “It should come as no surprise that Dino Rossi has declined to tell voters or reporters where he stands on the issues affecting middle-class families – perhaps because his values are stuck in the last century, the last time Dino Rossi won a race.”
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The Stranger: I Wonder Why Dino Rossi Doesn’t Want to Talk About the GOP Tax Bill
Last week the House passed the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” which cuts corporate tax rates at the expense of teachers, students, the sick, and the elderly. And that’s not to mention the $1.5 trillion deficit it creates in the budget. The Senate is expected to move on an equally odious effort next week while a lot of us are doped out on tryptophan. So far McConnell has been met with little real resistance among Republicans—maybe Susan Collins here, maybe McCain because of the extreme contravention of regular order, but a true wall of three has yet to form. (Btw, here’s a few things you can do to add some bricks. And one of them involves caroling! But there’s no event in Washington yet. Get on it, Washingtonians!)
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But you know who isn’t talking about this bill? Congressional hopeful Dino Rossi. He hasn’t publicly said one word about whether he’d support the bill if he were to join Washington’s giddy Republican delegation, and he hasn’t responded to my request for comment, either.
I’m unsure, frankly, why Rossi would be shy about discussing a bill that blows a $1.5 trillion dollar hole in the budget. After all, he describes himself as a “fiscal conservative,” and while running for governor in 2003 he constantly (and misleadingly) pointed to the fact that he once wrote a balanced budget as state senator. His objections to the bill should be loud and crystal clear—but not a peep yet.
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Rossi’s silence on the issue hasn’t been lost on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Today they launched an ad blitz calling out Rossi and linking to an article by Ryan Blethen in the Seattle Times. The piece includes a detail from a letter written by “Gov. Jay Inslee and county commissioners of both parties from Kittitas, Wahkiakum, Lincoln and Snohomish counties” that shows how the SALT repeal contained in the House’s bill hurts Washingtonians. Here’s the impact on our state alone:
30 percent of Washington tax filers claimed the state and local tax deductions in 2015, averaging about $7,400 a piece for a total of $7 billion statewide. Sales tax deductions made up $2 billion of the $7 billion.
Rossi’s silence is typical of Republicans who have held the position he hopes to assume, and it speaks volumes. Rossi’s silence, like Reichert’s, suggests he won’t listen to constituents who disagree with him, won’t meet them in good faith on the field of ideas, and won’t stand up to Republican leadership when they ask him to take a vote on a bill that goes against his own beliefs.