Erik Smith used our recent policy brief as a peg for an excellent column on tax policy in today’s Seattle Times.

Though the Department of Revenue calculated it exactly as it was supposed to, a more realistic view is that the legislation costs taxpayers nothing.

He summarizes, drawing on points we developed in the brief.

First things first: The state didn’t give Boeing any money. It couldn’t. The Constitution forbids public gifts to private interests.

Nor did the state really forego a penny. Last fall, the prospect of thousands of jobs left other states drooling. Twenty-two of them submitted bids for 777X work, and Boeing executives were ready to jet. No tax legislation, no assembly line and no tax revenue.

Smith stopped by the office and some of our conversation made it into the column.

But the argument that the Legislature bent too far for Boeing implies something is wrong whenever Olympia fiddles with the state’s arbitrary tax rates — to prevent double taxation, spur investment or preserve competitiveness. Davis says the Boeing vote has taken on “a mythical, unrealistic symbolic value that I think threatens to shift the discussion from a realistic appreciation of the competitive challenges our tax policy already imposes on employers in the private sector.” He fears lawmakers will try to make up for Boeing by taking it out on some other industry.

It’s going to be a tough session. Misunderstanding what happened last fall in the special session will only make it worse.

Read the whole column. It’s persuasive and well done.