From Stark
Even if Washington state voters approve a half-cent sales tax hike, the gap between state spending and revenue will continue to grow in the years ahead without major reforms, according to an analysis on the Washington State Wire.
No, this is not a report cranked out by the Republican Party. It relies mostly on numbers-crunching from State Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup.
I was alerted to it (via Facebook) by State Rep. Jeff Morris, the Democrat who represents the 40th District that includes a portion of Whatcom County and Bellingham.
The report does a good job of identifying the problems, but to me it seems cloudy on potential solutions. Kastama recommends eliminating voter-approved reductions in K-12 class size–but notes that those reductions mostly have not been funded. If that’s the case, how does eliminating them save money?
UPDATE: Here’s an explanation of the impact of eliminating the class size reduction measures from Jason Mercie, director of the Center for Government Reform at the Washington Policy Center. His emailed remarks are in italics:
Re eliminating I-728/732 and saving money; note the impact the measures have on the six-year budget outlook released by OFM: http://www.governor.wa.gov/priorities/reform/outlook.pdf
According to the Governor, with I-728/732 included in the budget in future years the state will continue to face multi-billion dollar shortfalls. Without them, the budget is projected to be balanced in future years assuming 4.5% per year revenue growth.
Since funding was not identified for I-728/732 (other than surplus funds) when originally adopted and the measures were subsequently suspended during tough budget times, voters were asked in 2004 to approve I-884 and in 2010 to approve I-1098 to pay in-part for the policies of I-728 and I-732. Both measures were overwhelming rejected statewide.
Another problem mentioned in the Washington State Wire analyis is the rising cost of health care. You probably heard about that. What is the legislature supposed to do about this problem? (I’m not saying they can’t do anything. I just want to know what they might do.)
The Business Roundtable chimes in with a suggestion that the state increase its rainy day fund. Great idea. And the money for that comes from…?
Suspending the class size and teacher COLA initiatives would be an actual savings because, even though they’re not currently funded, they’re still part of our future spending projections. In fact, Gregoire’s recent claim that she’s already cut state spending by $10 billion relies on the billions we would have spent to fund those initiatives. Even though it’s not money we’ve actually ever spent, she still counts it as a “cut.”
So a contracting economy reduces a revenue stream because people are not spending as much? Duh!!! What is really stupid is Olympia’s reluctance to implement a state income tax. It will happen anyway – it is stupid to put it off. He11, a 4% tax on Bill Gates’ net worth would wipe out that $2 billion right away.
I think 4.5% growth is a pipe dream, we should plan for flat growth.
It would have been helpful if the politicians in Olympia had been honest about the care givers initiative that was on the ballot. In reality, it is nothing but a forced unionization of care givers for the SEIU and the state becomes the dues collector, but deducting the dues from the medicaid /medicare pay that the care givers receive from the state.
These workers don’t earn that much money and the SEIU wants to take $30/month from them to fund their political activities, even from those care givers who taking care of a family member.
Most of those care-givers have already received training, this is just a scam on both the care givers and the tax payers.
The SEIU took the state and Gregoire to court to force the funding the last time it was passed, and lost. The court said that the initiative did not have to be funded if the money wasn’t there. Well, it’s still not there.
Did you know that the state motto is “By and By?” We could change it to “Buy and Buy…”
@Walter, is it “Olympia’s reluctance to implement a state income tax”? No, it’s the voters’ reluctance. They’ve voted it down four times, including just last fall with 64% voting no.
Let’s increase average class size to 70. How long does that allow us to avoid taxing adequately?
“@Walter, is it “Olympia’s reluctance to implement a state income tax”? No, it’s the voters’ reluctance. They’ve voted it down four times, including just last fall with 64% voting no.”
Implementation of an income tax does require a Constitutional amendment.
It’s not going to happen.
The state could take all of Bill Gates’ money, but the way things have been going in Olympia, it wouldn’t last long.
1. Provide the Governor discretionary authority to cut spending.
2. Adopt performance-based Priorities of Government budgeting to control the rate of spending growth.
3. Restore the legislature’s ability to amend collective bargaining agreements.
4. Direct state managers to use more competitive contracting.
5. Repeal unaffordable programs instead of suspending them.
6. Bring state employee health care premium contributions in line with those of the private sector.
7. Ask state lawmakers to set aside a 5% reserve when adopting the next biennial budget.
http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/pages/open-letter-governor-gregoire-washington-policy-center
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Some of AFY’s points have some good logic, but…
“competitive” contracting refers to the right to work for less and less money.
“amend” bargaining agreements, means : Let’s not have e-verify on government projects, and just go ahead and hire foreign migrants for $4 per hour, because we could reduce the state budget.
Do Americans ask for too much, wanting a 40 hour work week and enough money to pay the bills? Now we are in a global economy competing with Chinese factory workers, and India phone rooms, and impoverished work forces who live in dirt floor shacks. We must lower our standards in order to be more “competitive”.
AFY, is there really no other solution than Americans accepting less wealth for their work?
[To make the governor’s figures work, state employees will have to go without a pay increase for nine straight years. Kastama’s numbers assume that state employees will get 2 to 3 percent annual pay raises after 2013.
“Telling state employees that they will get no salary increase for the next six years probably would not go over very well,” Kastama says drily. “I think that will turn them into some of the greatest advocates for reform that the state has ever had.”]
That’s mildly hilarious and probably true. Kudos to Gregoire for agreeing to chop employee pay when projecting, but not actually in budgeting.