Session Reviews Offer 2010 Previews

Although there's no special session, the legislative battles of 2009 remain alive. In particular, the budget will likely be back. If, as many expect, revenues continue to deteriorate, even the austere spending plan adopted last month may require additional tweaking. Conversely, freed from the I-960 requirement that new taxes require voter approval, lawmakers in 2010 may opt to raise taxes on their own. That latter scenario would ordinarily be risible - a tax hike in an election year! - but Democratic lawmakers may conclude that their constituents would rather see higher taxes than endure further cuts in education and social services. That calculus works better for them if the tax increases fall more heavily on higher income taxpayers, bringing more progressivity to the existing tax system.

Jason Mercier notes that at least one lawmaker wants to see I-960 disappear. Given that it can now be amended or suspended by simple majority, I'd expect more finesses. Even if they do end 960, tax hikes won't be easy, as Joe Turner writes in his TNT blog.   

You think Democrats would be any more likely to raise taxes on their own going into a November election? Hardly. They couldn't even get the votes in the House to put a tax proposal on the ballot this session...

About the only thing you can count on is that next session there will be lots of pressure on Democratic majorities (62-36 in the House; 31-18 in the Senate) to change I-960. And then?

Already, we can see the debate shaping up. Sunday's Seattle Times spotlights impending teacher layoffs. That front page story stokes the no-cuts-to-education flame. Note, this is a paper that editorially recognized that tax hikes were properly off limits this session. It's not clear yet just how many layoffs will be required.

Because districts tend to be conservative, a number of those laid off will probably be hired back by this fall. Issaquah, for example, could recall 60 or 70 of the 158 teachers. Still, the Washington Education Association has called it the worst teacher cutbacks in the state in 30 years.

With employees accounting for more than 80 percent of most school-district budgets, teacher cutbacks are an obvious place to go to trim the budget. Still, not every district will be sending layoff notices. Some districts expect to receive federal stimulus money. Others will need to make fewer cuts because more of their staffers are retiring, resigning or going on leave.

While some will look at the education cuts as reason to promote new taxes, John Barnes points out some spending cuts lawmakers did not make.

Further problems come as agencies respond to revenue grabs, as noted in this TNT blog post by Joe Turner. Already, the liquor commission voted to raise prices to replace lost reserves. And swiping money from performance audits has brought a lot of opposition, most recently in this piece by Ted Van Dyk in Crosscut. 

The Legislature's proposed gutting of the performance-audit program is inexcusable. The audits, thus far, have saved taxpayers millions more dollars than they have cost. Among other things, they have uncovered practices by WSDOT, the Port of Seattle, Sound Transit, and other agencies which required correction. Without the audits, they would not have been exposed.

Meanwhile, although California will possibly be broke by July, voters remain opposed to tax hikes, sending a strong signal that taxpayer bailouts remain highly unpopular.

It's not all about the money here, though. In the Puget Sound Business Journal, Deirdre Gregg reports that unions are "bitter" about the treatment they received this year. Their disappointment is shared by environmental groups, as reported by Phuong Le for AP.

In Olympia, legislative debate never ends, it's just suspended for a bit.