washington business
Congress passed the first tax reform bill since Ronald Reagan’ s presidency. What does that victory mean for Washingtonians?
Congressman Dave Reichert
was to have a“ heart of a servant.” Building on that heart of a servant, you build trust; you’ re honest with people. You build on honesty with integrity and now you have a team built on the heart of a servant. All three of our offices— two district offices and our congressional office— operate under that heart of a servant mentality. That has been our strength. It’ s about following up with a phone call. But, you don’ t stop there, you ask how you can be of further help. And, if we’ re not the ones who can help, we’ re going to find the person they need to talk to. It all points back to trying to make life better for the people we serve.
I’ m really excited about this. Those of us who have been on the committee for a while worked very hard on this issue. So, all the rhetoric we hear about how this tax reform was done in two or three weeks, or that is was rushed through, it was seven years of work going through the tax code line by line. People need to know that effort meant working through weekends, flying back early and leaving late and giving up family time. This has been a very long, tedious, thorough and well thought out process to finally come to an agreement, and the benefits are going to be worth the effort we put in it. You know some of the details: the corporate rate goes down to 21 percent, which happened on Jan. 1; and, doubles the current exemption from the death tax. There are so many benefits for small businesses, such as full expensing. And, the way we structured the individual along with the small business rate, it provides much more revenue for small-business owners to fold back into their businesses and create more jobs. We’ re already hearing a lot from some of the larger companies about how they’ re providing more benefits for their employees and putting more money back into the business, so they can make more products and hire more people. And, they’ re raising wages for workers. Speaking about Washington state, there is going to be so many benefits related to the new federal tax code to energize businesses to create more products and more jobs. But, states have got to do their part, too. In the state of Washington, we have some laws that are hindering small businesses. I just spoke with some of the smaller orchardists here in Washington state and they’ re saying that the regulatory packages passed in the state, minimum wage and paid leave law, for example, create an additional burden. Some of these businesses are going to be driven out of the state because it is not business friendly. I’ m not saying that everything that Washington state does is bad, but that initiative [ 1433 ], is particularly hard on the smaller businesses and makes it harder for them to keep their businesses afloat. congressman dave reichert at a glance
Born in Detroit Lakes, Minn., U. S. Rep. Dave Reichert is the eldest of seven siblings. His family moved to Washington state in 1951. Reichert attended Kent Meridian High School. He graduated with an A. A. degree from Concordia Lutheran College in Portland, Ore., where he played football and met his wife of 47 years, Julie.
From 1971 through 1976, Reichert was a member of the U. S. Air Force Reserve. In 1972, Reichert joined the King County Sheriff’ s Office and in 1997 he became the first elected sheriff in 30 years. Along with being elected to his first term in Congress in 2004, Reichert also received the prestigious National Sheriffs’ Association’ s“ Sheriff of the Year” award. He is a two-time Medal of Valor Award recipient from the King County Sheriff’ s Office. He authored the book,“ Chasing the Devil,” which chronicles the team’ s 19-year hunt for the notorious Green River Killer.
After seven terms in the U. S. House of Representatives serving the 8th Congressional District, which includes the eastern sections of King and Pierce counties as well as Kittitas, Chelan and Douglas counties, Reichert will retire from office when his two-year term concludes at the end of the year.
The Reicherts currently live in Auburn. They have three grown children, Angela, Tabitha and Daniel, and six grandchildren. spring 2018 23