By Amber Gunn

I’ve taken to labeling Washington state’s 2010 legislative session as the “Year of Kamikaze.” The name describes not only the legislative majority’s actions, but also the financial course they have set for our state.

Despite the threat of a November election backlash, legislators approved nearly $2.5 billion in new taxes over the next three years. But none of us should be concerned about these taxes, right? If we don’t buy beer, cigarettes, bottled water, candy, gum, or soda, or if we don’t work at a place that sells these products, we won’t be affected. And as long as we don’t need a haircut, an accountant, a lawyer, or any kind of consultant, we won’t notice a thing.

Taxpayers are being asked to judge these tax hikes by their intentions rather than their results. The tax hikes are intended to fund public schools, financial aid, health care, and disabled and elderly assistance. The reality, of course, is that higher taxes enable legislators to continue in their failure to define the role of government and prioritize spending.

This is lazy governance. Legislators are barreling ahead with no regard as to how their policies will affect current and future generations. For example, when legislators were debating a hospital bed tax in March, Senator Rosa Franklin attempted to persuade her peers to vote for it saying, “Sure, fiscal responsibility, bow waves, whatever. Nobody has any money. The feds don’t have any money. The state doesn’t have any money. So what we are acting now on I would say is of hoping that it will work . . .”

The bill passed.

This is the pervasive attitude of those in power. Good intentions aside, the consequences of this kind of thinking has been and will continue to be disastrous for citizens.

The bottom line is that legislators had the opportunity to correct years of mistakes—entitlement expansions, overspending, overreaching, pervasive waste—but instead, they raised taxes to help finance higher spending. After all of the handwringing and dramatic floor speeches legislators increased total state spending by more than $3.2 billion.

And what of all the devastating “cuts” chronicled in your local paper?  Those are the cuts made in one account—the general fund—which is the state’s main checking account. But that account makes up less than half of total state spending. So while legislators decreased spending in the state’s main checking account, they increased spending in the remaining accounts dramatically more.

Make no mistake: government didn’t shrink this year, it grew. It grew at our expense, financed by our money. If the legislature continues to chase businesses out of this state, we’re all going to be competing for fewer jobs and opportunities.

And what of those business owners and innovators who provide those jobs and opportunities? They are increasingly marginalized, demonized and hauled before various legislative or congressional committees to explain their ideas and actions like some kind of Soviet-era show trial. Yet these are the same individuals who put their personal wealth and energy on the line to produce something that betters our lives, and who employ tens, hundreds or even thousands of people.

This is why I believe there is no one braver than a capitalist. They are inventors, entrepreneurs, investors, masters of industry, and innovators. They have the vision it takes to overcome obstacles, take risks, and transform the world around them while improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Capitalists, and the long lines of human achievement they have plaited, give us something to celebrate.

Wealth creation, like balancing a budget, is something few politicians know anything about. In particular, the current crop of people in office have proven they don’t have what it takes to lead this state. They don’t have the vision or the foresight to address our long-term budget problems. They spent nearly the entire legislative session scheming about how to raise taxes without getting booted in November. In the process they cut out the people by waiving public notice rules, passing blank bills, holding last minute hearings, and committing a slew of other offenses against the principles of open government.

It’s a hard thing for us as Americans to think that tomorrow may not be better than today. But as government at all levels continues to expand its role in our lives, the fate of individual liberty is increasingly in question.

If you remember only one thing from this column, let it be this: America is not inevitable. A society as free and as prosperous as ours is an anomaly in world history. For more than 300 years people from all over the world have been pouring into America. When people get on a boat or a plane to enter America, they may or may not be educated, and they may or may not know how to read. But there is something that draws them to America. What is it?

Opportunity. The chance at a better life. Freedom is essential for human happiness. It is the foundation of opportunity. Government, on the other hand, is institutionalized force. As government coercion grows, individual freedom must necessarily wane.

At its core, the heated debate surrounding this legislative session was not about budgets, deficits or spending levels; it was about individual liberty versus brute force. Despite the overwhelming prosperity that one brings, the other has long dominated human society. This is why the freedom that was established in America is so precious, and why so many have stood and will continue to stand in its defense.