You know what’s easier than telling the truth? Distorting it to fit your own narrative. The Seattle Times demonstrated that last week when it disingenuously compared I-1098 — the Bill Gates Sr.-sponsored initiative that would introduce an income tax on the wealthy — to Oregon’s much more censorious tax codes. Now the Wall Street Journal has gotten in on the fact-fumbling fun.The first sign that the Journal is playing fast and loose with the facts is when it cites opposition to I-1098 from the “liberal” Times. When in fact, the denunciation came from the extremely unliberal wing of the Times known as its editorial board.The Journal

article — which is behind a paywall, but can be read (kind of) in this Crosscut analysis — then goes on to say that, by passing the initiative, “Washington would move overnight from one of the nine states with no income tax to having the eighth highest rate in the country.” That my be technically true. But the Journal failed to mention a rather important caveat.While I-1098 would impose a nine-percent tax on any income earned by a single person over $500,000 or a couple earning more than $1 million, it wouldn’t touch 98.2 percent of Washington’s population. Whereas, in most other states, the usury tables begin at the first dollar you earn.Of course, highlighting that relatively unsubtle nuance might then make I-1098 seem kind of reasonable when compared to tax boogeymen states like California and Oregon. As would pointing out the tax relief that the initiative proposes for both property owners and those who run small businesses. But if the Journal acknowledged all that, then what kind of argument would it have?