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Spin Control: The crystal ball for 2025 might be a bit cloudy

Spin Control makes two predictions for 2025 about lawmakers’ debate on Daylight Savings Time.  (Molly Quinn/The Spokesman-Review)

The year 2025 stretches ahead of us, clean, crisp and sparkly like the morning after a blanket of snow from the previous night’s storm.

It’s that nice feeling you might have when looking out your window before heading to work and dealing with all the idiots who think their four-wheel drive SUVs allow them to drive just as fast as a summer’s day and start crashing into sign posts, telephone poles and each other.

With that rather strained analogy in mind, Spin Control likes to take advantage of the last Sunday of December to prognosticate the year ahead rather than looking back at the year behind. Or as Bullwinkle J. Moose used to say when looking into his crystal ball: “Eenie, meenie, chili beanie …”

Prediction 1: The Legislature will convene on Jan. 13 facing the problem most current members have never experienced – less revenue than expected and more expenses. Democrats will consider a “wealth tax” that would hit people with savings and investments worth eight or nine figures. People with wealth totaling eight or nine figures will threaten to give money only to Republicans. The tax will die a quiet death in an obscure committee.

Prediction 2: A cold snap, possibly given a name that combines a Canadian province with “Clipper,” will leave the northeastern part of the United States with subfreezing temperatures for three days. Its effects will lead the evening news on all networks and prompt some people who confuse weather with “climate” to say it is evidence that global warming is a hoax.

Prediction 3: An hour after incoming and former President Donald Trump’s inaugural address, cable news pundits will be predicting whether Democrats will take control of the House and Senate in 2026.

Prediction 4: At the start of his second administration, Trump will say nice things about Washington state because Jay Inslee, whom he once called “a snake,” is no longer governor. That will last about 30 minutes until an aide reminds him the new governor, Bob Ferguson, is the one who filed more than 60 lawsuits against his plans in the first administration.

Prediction 5: In an effort to solve the Saving Time/Standard Time dispute, a member of Congress will suggest getting rid of the twice-yearly swap but moving all clocks up a half-hour from Standard time to get some advantages of both time systems. Congress will order a study with the results to be announced in 2032.

Prediction 6: A blizzard that will not be given a fancy name will hit parts of the Northwest and Rocky Mountain states, pulling down power lines and trees, and leaving hundreds of thousands without electricity for much of a week. It will get a 30-second mention on network news on the third night.

Prediction 7: Legislative Democrats, still looking for a way to raise money from the state’s wealthiest residents, will propose an “ugly vehicle tax” that targets the Tesla pickup trucks. The proposal will fail when Elon Musk threatens to devote 50 daily postings on X bashing the plan, and people who drive a range of vehicles from Volkswagen Beetles to Ford Edsels point out that ugly, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Prediction 8: In an effort to buy Greenland, Trump will offer to trade Washington state to Denmark for the island.

Prediction 9: By Groundhog Day, cable news pundits will be predicting which Democrat will win their party’s nomination for president in 2028. By the time we know that, they will only remind us if they were right.

Prediction 10: At the beginning of March, as the news media starts issuing reminders that the clocks will change to Daylight Saving Time on March 9, the Legislature will debate a law to keep the state on permanent Standard Time. It will pass out of committee on March 10, at a hearing in which half of the members show up late and grumpy because they’re still adjusting to the time change. It will fail a House vote three days later, when everyone’s body clock has adjusted to the change and people start enjoying the fact it’s light longer in the evening.

Prediction 11: When Canadians reject Trump’s offer to become the 51st state, he’ll offer to trade them Washington state and Oregon in exchange for removing tariffs on U.S. goods.

Prediction 12: Unable to persuade local health officials to ban vaccines, commissioners in some rural Washington and Idaho counties will join the movement to replace antibiotics with leeches.

Prediction 13: In an attempt to break a budget deadlock in early April, legislative Democrats looking to “soak the rich” will suggest adding surtaxes to all wine and liquor over $50 a bottle and to all edible cannabis products. The state’s wine and craft distillery industries will rebel at the former, as that would be most of the products they sell. The edible surtax could survive, however, as consumers of those products might not be in any condition to mount an opposition campaign.

If any of these things actually happen, we will take credit; if not, we’ll deny ever saying it.

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