Spin Control: Democrats in Olympia are looking for new taxes. How about these?

Gov. Bob Ferguson’s announcement last week that he would veto at least some of the legislative Democrats’ tax proposals has the majority party in a bit of a quandary.

If they want the state to vacuum up more money for the its budgets, they’ll have to get creative, but not so creative as they were with the proposed Financial Intangible Assets Tax, which was hard to explain and would have been even harder to defend as constitutional.

In taxes, the Keep It Simple, Stupid principle is usually best. It’s also an advantage if you can tax something that can change public behavior or at least attack something people tend to dislike, making it harder to rally the voters against it. With that in mind, here are some ideas:

A Pharma Acronym Levy: Any television, radio, internet or newspaper advertising for a medicine that features an acronym instead of the actual condition – A-Fib for atrial fibrillation, ED for erectile dysfunction, AMD for … I can’t remember what that one is – must pay an extra $1,000 per acronym per airing of the commercial. It would be collected by the media on top of the fees for the commercial and sent to the state on a monthly basis. The nightly newscasts alone should add about six figures a week to the treasury.

Electric Vehicle Recharge Surcharge: Transportation officials are rightly concerned that the increase in electric and fuel-efficient vehicles is causing a drop in the gas tax revenues (which has been predicted since the first Prius set wheels on a Washington road). They’ve been kicking around a per mileage charge, but the mechanics of that are difficult.

Instead, the state should charge a $2 “hookup fee” when an electric vehicle gets recharged at a commercial charging station. The charging stations are automated, and they can be set to Venmo the money to the state at the end of each day.

If people will pay $1 to put air in their tires at those gas station machines – air is, after all, free in its normal state, while electricity is not – who can object to a couple of bucks for a charge?

Server Surcharge: Speaking of making money off new demands for electricity, we have been inundated with stories about how the region will need more generating capacity for the growth in server farms. And don’t even get the tech folks started on the power needs of AI. In the 20th century, the government got into the habit of giving big power users like the aluminum industry a discount on their electricity. Power got too expensive for that, and the smelters had to go elsewhere. This time around, it might be smart to charge a bit more in fees or taxes for big users of power, tacked onto each month’s bill and forwarded by the utility to the state. Washington also could hit up the indoor marijuana growers who are already sucking up lots of juice.

Legis Lottery: Legislators file about 2,000 bills in a session, and only about 400 actually pass and get signed. That means an average legislator files about 13 bills, and time gets taken up for hearings on things that are never going to pass but some legislator filed to be a “hero” to someone back in the district. The state could allow each legislator two bills to sponsor for free, which would take care of a couple of local concerns or some pet issue. The rest of the bills would be auctioned to the highest bidder, 30 or so per day – which would provide one bill per lawmaker per week – during the first two months of the session. Special interests that want something could bid on a bill they want passed and pick a sponsor, although no legislator could be selected for more than one bill each week. Committee chairpersons and those in leadership positions might bring a premium, freshmen might be a bargain. For an extra 10%, they could have naming rights, so it could be the Building Industry Association of Washington Housing Bill or the Washington Tenants Union Rent Stabilization Bill. Toward the end of that two-month period, the bids likely would go up because time to get them rolling through the process is at a premium.

What’s in a Name Sales Tax: Speaking of naming rights, the state could levy its tax on the annual payments a company makes for the naming rights to buildings, sports facilities or other structures built, in whole or in part, with public money. The tax might be adjusted upward at a stadium during the team’s season when traffic is highest, and maybe a couple of extra points for T-Mobile Park and Lumen Field, which serve as a year-round giant billboard for their sponsors on possibly the busiest interstate interchange in Washington. Those structures that haven’t been branded – think Spokane Arena or Tacoma Dome – would be exempt.

Campaign Finance Tax: The state could level a 10% tax on all contributions made to candidates, political committees and initiative campaigns. Let’s not call it a sales tax, which would suggest that those folks are for sale. Donors could build it into their contributions, so if they want a candidate to have $100, they’d send in $110. Candidates could be responsible at each filing period to multiply the contribution line by .1 and send it in. The state might even ask Elon Musk to show up next year to weigh in on our Supreme Court races.

Overused Cliché charge: Politicians, pundits, news anchors, podcasters and journalists could be subject to a flat $10 charge per designated cliché, such as “glass ceiling” or “you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs” or “the only poll that matters is on election day.” To determine the offending clichés, the state will appoint a panel of retired high school English teachers and speech coaches who will meet once a year to review suggestions, and a list will be published in newspapers and a state website. A cliché will remain on the list until no fee has been collected on it for 10 years.

Robocaller Fee: The state would charge any organization making robocalls to state residents a $100 fee. Call recipients can get $10 of that fee for reporting the number and a synopsis of the call to a state hotline, which seems fair for having to stay on the line a little longer before slamming down the phone.

I can’t say whether any of these would pass, and if they did, whether they’d survive a constitutional challenge. But not knowing that rarely prevents the Legislature from considering a new tax.