Sen. Schoesler speaks about next legislative session

COLFAX — Sen. Mark Schoesler, 9th Legislative District, met with the Gazette on Tuesday, Dec. 12, to discuss about his plans concerning budgeting, electricity, and taxes in the next legislative section.

“First and foremost I am the ranking Republican on Capital Budget,” Schoesler said, noting that the chair, Senator Mullett, and him work well together. “Though we have a limited amount of money in general obligation bonds, I think we will probably use other resources,” Schoesler said of the budget.

Schoesler said one of their priorities is the school budget and plans on seeing some good news in the area. “We find a lot of agreements,” Schoesler said of the school budget.

Some focuses include modernization, planning grants and actual school construction.

“We sponsored a bill to give the school to re-credit the school district’s sales tax back on construction,” Sen. Schoesler said, noting that they’ve never gone down that path before for a variety of reasons.

Schoesler said there’s a revolving loan fund for construction, and there are several other options they’re considering. “It will be strong it will be bipartisan, and we’ll see how we fare with the house in negotiations,” he said.

The Capital Budget is of major interest to Sen. Schoesler because he works well with those across the aisle.

Schoesler said that he is back to working on his plan for permitting liquor licenses in the next legislative session.

Schoesler said that the issue is the fact that if a business wants to get a liquor license, and wants to move to another location, getting the acquisition could tie up the business for months.

“I worked with the department, and we didn’t get it off the floor,” Schoesler said, noting that it takes 45 days to be approved for a liquor license.

“We went from 30 to 45. Had I not gotten involved they would not have made it in 45 days,” he said

Schoesler said he asked their liaison if they could tell him what disqualifies a person from having a liquor license. They could not tell him.

Schoesler said convicted felons can go to law school and get into the legislature.

“They can’t even tell you why you would be disqualified from a liquor license,” he said.

Schoesler said that in comparison working taxpayers who want to move their business in town have to wait a long time.

Another thing that Schoesler said has gotten his attention is giving away electricity. “There is supposed to be a report due out for how much electricity gives away for EVs,” Schoesler said, noting that gas and diesel aren’t being given away, and yet electricity is.

Schoesler said that if electric companies want to give away electricity that’s fine, but the cost of the electricity being given away free is not known.

“Everybody should pay their way,” he said, noting that he’s looking at legislation that way.

Schoesler said that the governor was set to put out the Capital Budget on Tuesday, Dec. 12. “We’ll see what is in it and what naive assumptions there will be,” he said.

One of the things that Schoesler said the governor wants to do is put $1 billion in different housing funds, and he wonders where that money is coming from.

Schoesler said there are a hundred million dollars in general, and overruns that will absorb a lot of it. Schoesler’s biggest questions are which taxes will be increased, and what gimmicks will be used.

“There was a billion dollars in housing last year,” Schoesler said, noting that they did low-income housing, housing for disabilities, and they even did Habitat for Humanity. “We did a host of things,” he said.

Schoesler said the governor is also talking about another billion dollars for environmental policies. “Lots of free stuff, and it’s not always money well spent,” he said.

Schoesler said there is a crude oil market driving prices, and a huge artificial tax without roads known as Cap and Tax.

“It’s been very deceitful,” Schoesler said, “Remember it’s only going to be a few cents,” noting that without roads and throwing all the money away at things that don’t have a good return on investment.

“We have the third highest fuel in America at one point we were number one,” Schoesler said, noting that he doesn’t want to be a leader in that category.

Schoesler said a lot of the session will be driven by which initiatives to the legislature are certified. “At this point, it looks like the repeal of cap and tax will make it and we’ll see if the long-term fare tax and income tax will make it,” he said, noting that there is a real chance to deal with those issues to legislature.

“Think of the long-term care they got some of the budget out of it but it is still a terrible investment for Washingtonians and it should be voluntary,” he said.

Schoesler said that traditional insurance is generally portable and voluntary. Schoesler recalled hearing an advertisement on the radio for state insurance. “The height of absurdity is full,” he said. “The state of Washington was advertising their long-term care plan.”

Schoesler asked why they would advertise something mandatory.

“They don’t advertise telling you about Medicare about social security a mandatory plan that is not even portable,” he said, noting that it’s deceiving young Americans and it’s giving false hope to middle age people because the max amount of money is relatively small.