Continuing the Saga of the Governor's Tax-and-Cut Budget

I missed a few editorials and stories over the weekend, but the governor's "all cuts" budget, which she hopes to morph into a "tax and cut" budget next month, continues.

Jerry Cornfield in the Everett Herald mines the revenue department's shopping list of taxes for an idea of what we might expect. Here's my nomination for quote of the day from his story.

“There's no idea too harebrained for us to think about,” said state Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

As Cornfield reports, and Prentice confirms later in the story, there are substantial political hurdles to be overcome before lawmakers can agree on new taxes. In another story, Cornfield makes the political implications explicit:

There is a tipping point to voters' outrage, and incumbent Democrats in Olympia may be getting closer to it than they realize. Republicans are wishfully predicting 2010 is going to turn out a lot like 1994, when they seized power from Democrats.

The News Tribune rounds up opinions from key players, including UW president Mark Emmert, state senators Joe Zarelli and Karen Keiser, and superintendent of public instruction Randy Dorn.

Seattle Times editorial page editor Ryan Blethen offers yet another Times piece on the budget. Oddly, he looks favorably, at least initially, on business services taxes - they don't work - but this is right.

... any discussion about increasing and adding taxes must come from a serious effort to adapt government spending to our leaner reality.

In one of the strongest pieces I've seen, the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin challenges Gregoire's budget directly:

The governor’s seemingly draconian budget shouldn’t be taken seriously. It was slapped together for only one reason — to build support for tax hikes.

Taking it seriously, the Herald of Everett offers some guiding principles for building the budget.

o Make any new taxes temporary, aimed only at addressing the current recession-caused crisis.

o Look for revenue sources that pose the least danger to economic recovery. That would put business and general sales taxes at the bottom of the list, along with repealing exemptions in struggling or otherwise key industry sectors.

o Keep education cuts — early learning, K-12 and higher ed — to a minimum. Education is the most important investment we can make in our economic future.

o Make needed cuts, and have them take effect, as early as possible. The longer lawmakers wait, the greater the cuts will have to be.

It's a good list, though I'd put new taxes at the bottom. The case has yet to be made.

The Olympian editorial board thinks it knows the future. 

The stage is set for a brutal budget battle with Republicans and business leaders condemning tax increases while Democrats and social service advocates label budget cuts cruel and inhumane. The final budget outcome likely will be a compromise similar to what the governor proposes in January for new taxes and program.

Pointedly missing from their inventory of combatants are public employee unions, whose refusal to open up the contract for renegotiation may well kill any chance of garnering public support for even temporary tax increases.

Still, the folks at the Budget and Policy Center think the $700 million in new taxes alluded to by the governor is just a drop in the bucket. On the other hand, as the Washington Policy Center reminds us, unemployment insurance taxes are poised to increase by 54 percent. That's not a typo. Fifty-four percent.

That's on top of the workers' comp increase announced earlier.

Enough.

Comments

[Sue Lani Madsen]

This situation should not have been a surprise to anybody, and could have been avoided if the hard questions on priorities had been faced last session. Check out my Feb 2009 Seattle P-I editorial for one suggestion to tighten belts at http://tiny.cc/MWBE It's still an option.