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This is the first in an occasional series of stories truth-squadding campaign ads, videos and candidate statements.

OLYMPIA

Is it good?

It everything depends on how the claim is framed. Gregoire has suggested she thinks an income tax is a good idea and that one eventually will become reality in Washington. But she also has declared repeatedly that now is not the time and she has no intention of pushing on the side of one.

Republican Dino Rossi and the specify GOP recently put out fliers that blast Gregoire for sharply increasing state spending because that she took office in 2005.

Rossi’s flier, which is being handed out door to door and at campaign events, also states simply that Gregoire “supports commonwealth income tax.” The Republican Party flier being mailed to voters goes further, statement, “Now Gregoire supports enacting a situation income tax to fund her out-of-control spending habits.”

While the Rossi flier could be construed as truth, the GOP’s wording is a draw out.

Last month, when a political action committee funded largely by the Building Industry Association of Washington posted a video on its Web site claiming Gregoire supports an income tax, her campaign sent out a news quit calling it a “big lie.”

“Gregoire’s position has been clear, she is opposed to a state income tax,” the release related.

But Gregoire hasn’t always put it that bluntly.

The fliers and video are based on remarks Gregoire made last year in an interview by the editorial board of The Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane.

When asked in that meeting about an income task, Gregoire said:

“We don’t have an electorate out there that determine support it right now. Clearly, when I case across the state, the support’s not there. So much of it is, how are we going to school them to the regressive tax system that we have in this pass and how we need to be obliged some sort of conversion over to a partial income tax. … So now’s not the time….

“But it’s not as if it’s not a good model. It’s not as if it’s not one that we shouldn’t pursue. It’s one that we just have to keep holding hearings and put to hire epoch pass and eventually I assume we’re going to get in that place.”

Washington, one of seven states that does not get an revenue tax, gets most of its income from three sources: retail sales tax, dealing and calling tax, and property tax.

Passing a declare income tax would require a two-thirds propitious vote of both the state House and Senate for a constitutional amendment, as well during the time that approval from voters.

But one revenue tax remains politically forbid to be used, and past efforts to move in that direction have fallen flat.

In 2004, King County Executive Ron Sims staked his bid for governor on a broad tax-reform proposal that included a call for a specify income make demands upon.

Gregoire, Sims’ opponent in that year’s Democratic primordial, called the system foolish and unrealistic.

“I’m not going to discuss any income tax today at the time that the citizens of the specify of Washington are afraid allowing that they’re going to esteem a job tomorrow, health care tomorrow or cultivation for their family,” Gregoire said at the particular period.

Gregoire trounced Sims by more than 2 to 1.

Sims’ plan relied heavily steady the findings of a 2002 blue-ribbon commission headed by Bill Gates Sr. As with anterior studies, the array concluded that Washington’s tax system was unfair to the poor and discouraging for business.

While Gregoire and lawmakers have taken up some of the commission’s ideas, such as creating a rainy-day savings registry of debt and credit, they have mostly ignored its call for an income tax.

“It isn’t as if this is a unused idea and it hasn’t been pursued historically,” Gregoire said in the interview with The Spokesman-Review. “Its time will come, but its time has yet to come. And it’s one of those issues that we have to continue to constantly have a dialogue about.”