A spectre is haunting Olympia.  The spectre of a fair tax system.

Whether it’s the momentum of that whole 99% thing, or some fresh legislative leadership or just that enough is enough, it’s clear that momentum for a fundamental restructuring of the Washington State tax system is building. Even those legislators who have signed Grover Norquist’s we’ll-let-all-poor-people-die-before-we-raise-taxes-one-penny pledge (and you know who you are) have begun to face the inevitable. Probably the surest sign that this is happening is that the people who until now have only been shouting “Reform!” have now started to say “Reform then Revenue.”

These folks are, of course, using the word reform with a fair bit of elasticity. A more accurate description of what has happened as Washington’s tax system has collapsed would be just doing less for people who need more. When Governor Gregoire pitched her half-cent sales tax increase, she touted how she had “reformed” Worker’s Compensation, Unemployment Insurance, Public Pensions, and access to state parks. What this really means is that people hurt on the job are more vulnerable, people without jobs have a harder time paying their rent and buying food, people who spend their working lives serving the state will be poorer in their golden years, and people who want to visit public parks have to pay. The “reform” of our health care system has left 170,000 more people in our state without health insurance and taken away access to such things as hearing aids and eyeglasses from 180,000 people. The “reform” of our education system has inflated the size of K-12 classrooms, turned students away from community colleges, and left students at universities paying more to get less.

It would be a mistake to say that we have arrived at this sorry place by accident. Many years of business elite lobbying and false populist grass roots organizing (Tim Eyman is the tip of a very big iceberg) have created a pervasive illusion that Washington is an overtaxed state where greedy, lazy state employees get fat sucking from the public tit. In fact, the only overtaxed people in this state are poor people, who pay 17% of their income in taxes, while rich folks pay 3%. State revenues per thousand dollars of income have fallen from $64 in 1997 to $49 in 2010.

This assault on the public sphere has eroded Washington’s social, health, and education infrastructures to a point where a critical mass of legislators have finally begun to show some leadership. In an election year, dozens of legislators have proposed reviewing and closing tax expenditures, a capital gains tax, and a couple of different kinds of income tax.

None of this stuff is going to pass this year. Some of it might go to a spring ballot, but the chances of passing there are also pretty slim. This should not in any way slow the tide of genuine tax reform. The false consciousness that pervades the public perception of Washington’s taxes was not built in a day and won’t be undone in one legislative session.

This year’s all-cuts supplemental budget is going to make Washington even meaner than it has already become. We must hope that the death and destruction that comes with that will unite Washington’s citizens and their representatives continue to break the chains of the country’s most unjust tax system.