Jeopardy! Host Doubles Down On Lies Leaving Washington Taxpayers Searching For Answers

“I’ll take far-left game show hosts peddling far-left propaganda for $500, please.”

“This Seattle millionaire just spent 30 seconds lying to Washington voters about Initiative 645, Democrats’ latest income tax scheme.”

“Who is Ken Jennings?”

The liberal “Jeopardy!” host stars in a new “No on 645” television ad airing in Washington state, and almost everything he says is either a lie or aggressively misleading. The only fact he gets right is when he identifies himself. Everything after that is wrong, and on his show, wrong answers cost you money. In this ad, they cost you yours.

I-645 repeals the 9.9% tax on income above $1 million that Democratic Governor Bob Ferguson signed March 30. The tax applies to income starting January 1, 2028, with first payments due April 2029. The state hasn’t collected a dime, and it currently funds nothing. Jennings needs you to forget that.

Jennings opens with his biggest whopper.

“Did you know Initiative 645 would give millionaires and billionaires a $13 billion tax break, making Washington’s unfair tax system, where working families pay three times more than the wealthiest, even worse?” he says.

You can’t get a break on a tax you’ve never paid and never existed. Repeal leaves every millionaire exactly where they are today. Even the number is padded. The state’s fiscal impact statement puts the revenue loss at $11.4 billion across fiscal years 2027 through 2031. The $13 billion is the No campaign’s four-year projection.

The “three times more” line comes from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. It measures the share of income, not dollars. Legislative staff expect roughly 25,000 filers to cover about $3.5 billion a year by themselves. Working families from Seattle to Vancouver, and Spokane to Tacoma, aren’t writing checks like that.

The “even worse” claim is the dumbest part. I-645 doesn’t take away any tax relief for anyone. It merely stops millionaires from being targeted.

Jennings also complained that voting yes to repeal the income tax “would mean huge cuts to public schools.” But the law dedicates no set amount to K-12. The money goes into the general fund, with just 5% earmarked for the Fair Start for Kids child care account.

Meanwhile, K-12 spending has climbed 110% since 2013, to about $20,000 per student, according to an Edunomics Lab analysis. Our schools have a results problem, and more cash has never fixed it.

“Or that teachers, nurses, and small businesses all oppose 645?” Jennings declared.

Well, union bosses oppose it. The Washington Education Association is the top donor at $3 million. The Service Employees International Union, which represents publicly funded health care workers, gave nearly $2 million. The Washington Federation of State Employees added more than $1 million, according to Public Disclosure Commission data. The No campaign has raised $11.5 million, mostly from public-employee unions. Their members get paid from the state budget. Of course they want more of your money in it.

Small businesses? The National Federation of Independent Business urged members to sign the repeal petition. Elizabeth Milito, executive director of its Small Business Legal Center, issued a warning.

“This law puts small business owners in our state directly in the crosshairs, while exempting most big businesses,” Milito said.

The income tax target doesn’t just target pass-through businesses; Democrats are also talking about lowering the threshold to households earning $250,000. When Republicans added an amendment to restrict the income tax to millionaires, Democrats rejected it and then added a line to tax pensions, too. Knowing this was unpopular, they used a rigged system to try to defend it.

Washington state voters have rejected income taxes 11 times since 1932. Democrats knew it. So they slapped a “necessity clause” on this bill, the legal cousin of an emergency clause, to block a referendum. Senate Republicans tried to strip it; the amendment failed 28-21. The left-wing state Supreme Court blessed the maneuver in May.

A referendum needs about 160,000 signatures. An initiative needed more than 300,000. It also flips the ballot, so you have to vote yes to kill a tax instead of no on a tax. Then Attorney General Nick Brown’s office stuck school budget cut language under the ballot title for good measure.

Jennings closes the ad by insisting it doesn’t take a quiz show host to know 645 is wrong for Washington. He’s right. It takes $11.5 million in union money. Final Jeopardy is November 3. Vote yes on 645 to repeal the income tax.

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Jason Rantz is a Seattle-based talk show host and author of “What’s Killing America: Inside the Radical Left’s Tragic Destruction of Our Cities.”

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