Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
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All parents in Washington and across America want their children to thrive in learning environments that reflect their diverse interests, talents, and individual challenges. That's why one-in-five parents last year enrolled at least one of their children in a new K–12 school. In fact, the process of moms and dads actively choosing how and where their children learn - often referred to as school choice - reached a five-year high in 2025. Meanwhile, more than 60% of parents s...
In the race to reshore manufacturing and stay ahead of foreign competition, America needs an abundance of added skilled workers and electricity sources. “Electrify Everything” has been our recent political mantra as key politicians race to replace natural gas and coal-fired generation with vast fields and wildlands of wind turbines and solar panels. However, that strategy has glaring glitches, which could derail our economic recovery and job creation. For example, it is bureaucratic nightmare siting power lines and rel...
Public transportation features prominently in city, county and regional plans. The Legislature has been very accommodating and has enabled five different types of transit authorities, each with dedicated revenue sources (also known as taxes). The most common is a Public Transportation Benefit Area. These agencies are governed by boards usually comprised of nine city and county council members appointed though a caucus process. Twenty-two such agencies have been formed and their taxing districts encompass more than three and...
This year’s 60-day legislative session opens Jan. 12. When legislators gather in Olympia, the No. 1 issue facing us will be the state operating budget problem. If this sounds familiar, you are correct. When the Legislature entered last year’s session, there was a budget shortfall. As they are prone to do, majority Democrats chose to balance the new two-year operating budget with a record four-year tax-increase package. The problem is, even after the Ds’ new taxes kicked in a few months ago, the state budget is still hurti...
Editor’s Note: The following column from the Washington Policy Center’s Todd Myers has been abbreviated for space. To read the column in its entirety, log onto www.washingtonpolicy.org. Judging by the discourse in Washington state, many progressives believe the political value of environmental rhetoric supersedes the value of delivering results. On the right, too many treat every environmental concern as a Trojan Horse for socialist policies. That divisiveness has made productive environmental efforts extremely difficult and...
Health care has become a major policy issue in Congress. The recent government shutdown was caused by the minority party insisting on extending the deadline for the COVID-era, generous taxpayer subsidies in the Obamacare exchanges. That was in spite of the fact that when in the majority, they were the ones who set the deadline for Dec. 31. Obamacare has been an abject failure. It has not provided universal health insurance coverage as was promised, nor has it controlled the ever-rising cost of health care. All Americans, exce...
The Holiday Season is an especially tough time for anyone grieving lost loved ones. Evergreen wreaths placed on veterans' graves across America help to ease that pain. On December 13, an ISIS shooter killed two members of the Iowa National Guard and their American interpreter while they were serving in Syria, causing another tragic loss. More than 3.1 million red-ribboned wreaths were placed by thousands of volunteers, including many family members, on December 13. Those...
State government is entitled to a fixed portion of what you earn, even if it is wasted or isn't needed to fund important programs. That is the crux of the argument being made to justify yet more tax increases. Leadership of Washington State Senate Democrats have circulated a document arguing Washington's tax code is "broken." They assert the state is being "defunded" because revenue as a percentage of "total personal income" has declined over 20 years, from a historical 6-7% to approximately 5%. The document's main argument i...
A state agency and two different legislative commissions had meetings last week in which they discussed health care issues in Washington state, legislative priorities and federal health care reforms. “The sky is falling” was the tone whenever federal reforms were mentioned and doom was predicted, despite remaining unknowns and failing to mention the many state-level actions harming Washington's health care landscape. ( Worse than trying to pin all our health care woes on federal Medicaid reforms and the likely and rig...
Washington voters have rejected state income tax proposals 10 times. But Democrats still haven't gotten the message. Sen. Noel Frame of Seattle, who serves with me on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, has become the latest Democrat to push the idea of a state income tax. She's also behind the Democrats' multi-year effort to treat certain investments as taxable property – meaning you would get taxed simply for owning them, just like a piece of land. As reported by the m...
President George W. Bush’s eulogy of Dick Cheney, his vice president, brought back memories of a kinder, gentler America—a time when those elected to office did what was best for our country not their political party. Bush reassuring words came after an unthinkable government shutdown (39 days) which paralyzed essential functions and threatened to stop flights during our country’s busiest travel time—Thanksgiving. The shutdown underscored how angry and bitterly divided...
Washington state, a beacon for innovators and entrepreneurs, is witnessing a troubling trend: a steady outflow of its wealthiest and most entrepreneurial residents. High taxes, burdensome regulations and an anti-business climate are pushing the wealthiest and high-earners to sunnier, lower-tax havens such as Nevada, Texas and Florida. Far from the progressive narrative of a booming millionaire class, recent data reveals a selective exodus among the wealthy, threatening the state’s economic vitality. Consider the numbers. A 2...
The state has a protocol for the removal of wolves that have repeatedly attack cattle. When activist groups or others disrupt that protocol, it erodes trust in the policy and the agencies implementing said policy. In the Sherman Pack territory in Stevens County, along with much of the northeastern region of the state, the federal government has already de-listed wolves from the endangered species list. It’s time the state does the same. The wolf population in the region is significant enough to be stable and treating the a...
“The U.S. market-based economic system where people, not government, decide what is produce and marketed is still the world’s “beacon of hope!” Poland and the United States are like two trains passing each other heading in opposite directions. Poland embraced our market-based economic system while America is drifting toward socialism and more government control which tend to stifle job growth, business opportunities, and prosperity. It comes down to affordability. Policies and government decisions impact peoples’ ability t...
A recent breach once again underscores the tension between age-verification requirements and data privacy in laws seeking to protect children online. When I wrote a few months ago about the unintended consequences of the UK’s data-privacy law, I warned that the very effort to protect children online can compromise their data. A new example has now emerged: a third-party vendor used by Discord was breached, resulting in the leak of private user details, including government IDs. Discord is an online platform where individuals...
The disconnect between the farm gate and the dinner plate has long been a concern for “ag-vocates” who’ve noted more people are unable to connect directly with reasons why agriculture is important. The recent announcement from Lays Potato Chips that 42% of consumers did not know that chips were made of real potatoes should maybe not surprise anyone. Yet, it is a shocking statistic. The data comes from a survey conducted by PepsiCo, Lays’ parent company, as part of a consumer and brand study. In our state, the nation...
If you think Olympia’s thirst for taxes couldn’t get any worse, get ready. Democrats in Olympia are discussing a 9.9% tax on income above $1 million dollars which along with high earning individuals, affects the vast majority of small businesses in in the state. The tax calculation is purportedly based on Adjusted Gross Income, which means any small business (depending on the business tax structure) that makes over $1 million will be taxed, even if business expenses are close to or exceed the threshold. It will eff...
During his first year, President Trump has been globetrotting attempting ink trade deals, repair tattered relationships, and attract manufacturing back to America. However, no mission has been more crucial than his recent trip to South Korea, Japan and China. Behind the bluster of new “reciprocal” tariffs was the simple fact that China is not only a manufacturing, trading and military challenge but it is our primary supplier of strategic metals. Not only is America short of RARE minerals, but metals such as iron, copper and...
Trying to "fix" the cost of beef is anti-agriculture and anti-free market. President Trump recently suggested the U.S. would purchase beef from Argentina to flood the American market and drive the cost of U.S. beef down. That plan is absurd. The comments came over the weekend while the president was flying from Florida to Washington D.C., according to several media reports. The plan to drive down the cost of American beef prices by purchasing Argentinian beef and dropping it...
Navigating health insurance can feel overwhelming, especially when headlines are swirling, federal rules are shifting and new plan options are entering the mix. With so much noise in the headlines, it's completely normal to feel overwhelmed. Whether you're already enrolled in an individual or family plan or shopping through the Washington Health Benefit Exchange (wahealthplanfinder.org) for the first time, we've outlined the key updates and important areas to keep in mind...
There's an old saying that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue - and nowhere is that more apparent today than in the far left's latest crusade: the "No Kings" movement. These activists claim President Donald Trump - who won both the Electoral College and the popular vote in the 2024 election - is destined to rule like a dictator. They warn that American democracy will crumble under the weight of the "evil orange man's" ego. They rail against "authoritarianism" and...
The mood of the nation is ugly and getting worse. Deadly violence from guns, knives, fire-bombings and vehicles is rising. Social media is toxic. Things have to change for all of our sake. The tone of the discourse is hateful. For those of us who started as journalists in the late 1960s, we are left wondering if public trust can be restored and civility is again possible. Over the last 40 years our family has vacationed at the same place on the beach. While the buildings have been refurbished, the complex is still largely...
New legislation is unleashing a slew of new sales taxes on services, courtesy of Senate Bill 5814, designed to plug a self-inflicted budget black hole at the expense of hardworking entrepreneurs. From freelance IT consultants to mom-and-pop temp agencies, the ripple effects of this 6.5% (plus local add-ons up to 10.5%) tax increase on previously untaxed services like advertising, security and software development is already proving catastrophic. More than 90,000 businesses must now scramble to comply, but it’s the little g...
Now more than ever, our young people need economic opportunities and the life lessons they offer. While we know not all jobs are meant to be careers, each one offers an important experience. Jobs provide our youth structure, accountability, social interactions, and an escape from their online world. The job of state lawmakers should be to foster an environment that enables employers to thrive and offer these opportunities. Unfortunately, policies from Olympia have pushed our state in the wrong direction. House Bill 1644,...
Like a lot of my generation, I am a movie fan. I grew up sitting in front of movies on the television and movies at kid’s matinees on Saturday afternoons. Because of this, movie lines will come to me at times that seem random and disjointed. A book lover may quote Hamlet’s “Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well,” when hearing about the passing of someone they knew. My head will fill with a scene of a handful of mobsters on a couch with an open package of dead fish on a bullet-proof vest and think, “He’s sleeping with the fi...
