The Washington State Senate today passed a bill amounting to the single largest operating-budget tax increase in state history. Senate Bill 6143would increase taxes by $794 million in the current biennium and nearly $1.7 billion in the 2011-13 biennium.

Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, voted against the bill, saying the direction it takes the state is very troubling.

“At the beginning of the regular session in January, we heard from the majority party that we were going to enact real government reforms to pull ourselves out of this economic crisis,” King said. “In fact, no reforms were adopted even though we offered dozens of solutions that would have helped Washington avoid this predicament. Instead, the majority party went straight to tax increases which will only do more damage to our state’s already struggling families and businesses.”

In addition to the massive tax increase passed this session, the increase in spending has produced a bow wave effect which will worsen the state’s budget situation by roughly $8 billion over upcoming budget cycles. King says this “bow wave” will come about as a result of moving the cost of some items forward, obligating the state to new policy spending in the future and the expiration of so-called “temporary reforms” which result in costs returning to the budget in the future.

“The fact that it took a regular and a special session to get to this point only underscores how badly the majority party wanted to avoid reforming government at a base level,” King continued. “We could have been taking steps to not only solve the current fiscal problems but address them for future biennia as well. I’m extremely disappointed that it’s come to this, and I only hope that our businesses and taxpayers can survive the nearly 800 million dollars in new and increased taxes headed their way.”

If signed into law by the governor, the taxes in SB 6143 will take effect between May and July.