The following article was adapted from the opening segment of Tuesday’s episode of The Ari Hoffman Show on Talk Radio 570 KVI
This is not an April Fool’s joke. Governor Bob Ferguson announced today during a press conference that he will not sign either budget passed by the Democrat-controlled Washington Senate or House.
Rather than making cuts to reign in their out-of-control spending that has led to a $15 billion budget gap, Democrats proposed massive tax increases as part of their budgets, the largest tax increases in Washington state history.
APRIL FOOLS?
Gov Bob Ferguson rejected Democrats' budgets that would have levied the biggest tax increase on Washingtonians with no meaningful cuts to solve the state's budget gap
Is this 4D chess where he's being set up to look like the good cop & they're playing the bad cop?… pic.twitter.com/EetKfQ5stY
— Ari Hoffman 🎗 (@thehoffather) April 2, 2025
Ferguson said during the presser on Monday, “Neither budget, however, is close to one that I can sign for two key reasons. First, they each propose far too much in taxes. Second, they both rely on a wealth tax, which is novel, untested, difficult to implement, and most importantly, for purposes of adopting a sustainable budget, will face an immediate challenge in court. If the Legislature wishes to complete our work on time, they need to immediately move the budget discussions in a significantly different direction.”
I was waiting for Jay Inslee to pop out and say, “April Fools!” but no, Ferguson is 100 percent serious. But is he sincere?
Ferguson laid out $4 billion worth of cuts. During his inauguration, Ferguson gave a bipartisan speech and said he was excited to work with Republicans, and Democrats immediately started penalizing him. They ban his staff from the chambers, they start targeting him, and staff begin resigning from his office, and fellow Democrats encourage people to march in protest of his cuts.
Ferguson previously said he wanted to have a broader discussion to figure out how the Legislature dug itself a $15 billion hole and that “We must protect our rainy day fund, every penny of it.” The Democrats wanted to raid the fund to pay for their reckless spending and blew a gasket when Ferguson said, “This is not the time for major investments in any program, no matter how worthwhile.”
I can’t even imagine the conversations going on in the Democrat chambers right now. They’re probably having a colossal meltdown. But a guy who is a far left progressive for 12 years as attorney general does not spin 180 degrees in the other direction just because he becomes governor. Something else is going on.
I don’t trust this at all. Notice that he said he’s open to the other taxes, just not the wealth tax.
Last week, Seattle came up $47 million short when it taxed payrolls because Amazon picked up and left town. Expedia and Starbucks laid off thousands of workers. If companies leave like Amazon did, a lot of people won’t have jobs anymore and you won’t have their revenue. Bob gets campaign money from unions and employees of big corporations. If these big corporations don’t support him, then their employees won’t support him and he won’t have a war chest for his next campaign.
Today a whole bunch of moderates probably said that Ferguson was being pragmatic in not hitting Washingtonians with the largest tax increase in history. He just got their vote. Some more moderate Republicans might say, “He’s not as bad as I thought he was going to be.”
Ferguson plays 4-dimensional chess and has an angle on everything, and while I might be thrilled with this result, I am very, very skeptical of the motivations.
For a while now, we’ve been seeing Governor Ferguson head to head with the Democrats in the Washington Legislature. Is he trying to make them look like the bad guys in a game of “Good Cop, Bad Cop?”
Is it his ambition? He wants to run for higher office. You can’t run for higher office nationally in a country that’s moving more to the right if you sign into law the largest tax increase in Washington history your first legislative session.
You will see Bob Ferguson be his true self when he realizes the presidency is not an option, higher office is not an option, and he’s stuck being governor of Washington. That’s when he will drop the hammer and be the Bob Ferguson we all know and detest. After 12 years of being as vindictive as Bob Ferguson was of going after anything conservative, of going after police officers, you don’t do a 180-degree turn overnight.
We’ve done these budget calculations. If you look at the actual budget gap right now, it’s about $7 billion, not $15 billion, but the Democrats need to keep claiming it’s $15 billion so they can rationalize the taxes against you. Likely, 2, or 3 days from now, maybe on Monday, Democrats and Ferguson will have a joint press conference and say, “After sitting together, we came up with this plan,” and it will be a hybrid of cuts and taxes, so Bob gets to look like the deal maker. They may even con some Republicans into going along with it.
What’s Bob’s angle? Higher office. This is his first step to trying to get there.
Listen to The Ari Hoffman Show, weekdays 3-6 pm pacific, on Talk Radio 570 KVI.
