Average real estate taxes for Bellevue homeowners will rise about $600 on average in the coming year, according to news reports. If you are retired and living on savings and if your neighbor is a surgeon, a Google engineer, or an executive earning $350,000 a year, you will both pay the same amount in real estate taxes.

Indeed, Washington state has one of the most regressive state tax systems in the nation. The Democrats wanted to help fix that by raising capital gains taxes (which would have affected only the richest 1 percent of people) and by eliminating tax breaks for corporations. But Republicans, who narrowly control the state Senate, insisted on raising your real estate taxes and even tried to add more tax breaks for corporations. Republicans are against new taxes, but they are perfectly happy to raise old taxes on the middle class and to force King County to subsidize the rest of the state where Republicans live.

Donald A. Smith

Bellevue