An Extreme Tax Makeover for Washington?

An excellent op-ed in today's Herald-Bulletin gives options for reforming Washington's tax system. The main recommendation, from author Marilyn Watkins, is, in some ways, quite ambitious:

How about a new high income tax that exempts the first $200,000 of family income, then begins at 3 percent and jumps to 5 percent on incomes over $1 million? It could be coupled with a reduction in either the sales or property tax. That way, most families would see their total tax bill decline. Only four out of 100 households would pay the new tax, and it would be those that have seen their incomes grow fastest and their federal taxes fall the most in the past decade.

Watkins herself describes this as not very ambitious at all, and she's right in the sense that much broader reforms are needed to bring Washington's tax system into the 21st century. Sadly, these ideas are politically very ambitious, and they shouldn't be.