UNEXPECTEDLY: More WA businesses considering leaving the state due to high taxes.

The latest Association of Washington Business quarterly survey shows bad news on the economic front, with 44% of business leaders saying they are considering moving their personal residence out of state and businesses indicating they are now more than twice as likely – 30% to 14% – to expand outside the state than within it.

The results of AWB’s winter survey are based on 429 responses collected by email from business owners and operators across the state between Jan. 12 and Feb. 2.

“Washington employers signaled a continuing collapse in confidence in the state economy in this quarterly survey, with significant year-over-year deterioration across multiple metrics driven largely by the state’s growing tax burden,” according to the survey’s executive summary.

I wonder if part of the “no hire, no fire” economy is due to uncertainty created by ham-fisted blue-state governance.