Washington state’s progressive political machine just got an awkward reality check — from one of its own.
Former Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire is sounding the alarm over her party’s latest tax-the-rich obsession, warning that left-wing lawmakers are turning the Evergreen State into a cautionary tale for businesses, investors and anyone with a moving van.
She says Democrats still don’t get it.
Speaking at a recent business summit, Gregoire blasted the state’s newly approved millionaire tax and the broader anti-business climate brewing in deep-blue Seattle, where boarded-up storefronts, open-air drug use and homeless encampments have become as common as coffee shops.
“No, I really don’t,” Gregoire said when asked whether lawmakers understand the fallout from their policies. She pointed to Washington’s estate tax — which briefly hit a staggering 35 percent before lawmakers dialed it back to 20 percent — as proof Olympia politicians have lost the plot.
Now the state is piling on again with a 9.9 percent tax targeting household income above $1 million, a move supporters insist will create “fairness,” even as critics warn it could hollow out the tax base.
“Because here’s what you can expect. Those people are not homeless. They will not pay. They’re leaving,” she warned.
And unlike progressive activists who seem to think wealthy residents are interchangeable ATM machines, Gregoire pointed out that high earners often bankroll charities, nonprofits and local investment. “When they leave, they stop paying capital gains. When they leave, they stop giving significantly to philanthropy, which would otherwise be necessary by government,” she said. “So you understand, do you see the consequences of what you’re doing? And the answer is no.”
That’s a brutal indictment coming from a Democrat who governed the state for nearly a decade.
Gregoire argued the bigger problem is ideological groupthink in Olympia, where lawmakers keep layering taxes, regulations and mandates onto employers while lacking real-world business experience themselves. “I would suggest to you, we don’t really have an income problem. We have a spending problem,” she said. “And we’re answering it by stacking one more tax, one more rule, one more regulation.” The adults in the room are finally noticing the progressive experiment isn’t penciling out.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Washington Democrats. The millionaire tax doesn’t officially kick in until 2028, but major employers are already signaling frustration with the state’s direction.
Starbucks recently announced plans to shift roughly 2,000 corporate jobs to Nashville — hardly a vote of confidence in Seattle’s economic future. Other major employers including Amazon and Meta have also scaled back jobs in the region amid mounting concerns over costs, regulation and public safety. Even Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, admitted last year he was “more worried right now about the business climate in Washington than at any point over the last 30 years.”
Meanwhile, Seattle’s progressive leadership seems less concerned with keeping taxpayers than waving goodbye to them. New socialist Mayor Katie Wilson recently mocked fears of millionaire flight, dismissing concerns with a breezy: “If the ones that leave, ‘bye.’” The crowd loved it. Of course they did. This is the same city where public drug use, homelessness and crime have become defining features of downtown life years after the disastrous “Summer of Love” era chaos that saw anarchists seize chunks of the city during 2020 unrest.
Some residents openly cheer the hands-off approach. One homeless Seattle local reportedly praised efforts to avoid prosecuting many public drug-use cases, bragging: “We went buck wild! I’m not gonna lie. We blew it up.” That’s not exactly the tourism slogan the Seattle Chamber of Commerce had in mind.
Critics say the city’s leadership class remains insulated from the consequences of the policies they champion. Wilson herself faced scrutiny during her campaign after reports revealed she received financial help from her professor parents while paying thousands each month for childcare and rent.
But while progressive politicians trade applause lines about sticking it to “the rich,” Gregoire’s warning carries extra weight because it comes from inside the Democratic tent.
Her message was simple: when government treats success like a sin, successful people eventually stop sticking around.
