Senate Suspends Supermajority Requirement for Tax Increases; Small Businesses Struggle

The Senate just voted to suspend the I-960 supermajority requirement for tax increases. We wrote about this last week. Sunday, the Columbian editorial board acknowledged the likelihood, but urged lawmakers not to do it.

Democrats, to their great credit, proved last year that they can overcome a budget shortfall without increasing taxes. ...

This year, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, has said: “Continuing to cut deeply into essential public services at a time when the public needs them the most will do damage to our communities and our long-term economic future.” But rephrase that warning from the aspect of the average family: Grabbing more money when families need that money more than ever will damage those families and their long-term economic future.

Calculated Risk points out the continuing problems confronting small business owners, citing a recent NFIB poll.

It appears that small business hiring has been very weak during the current "recovery", and this survey suggests the reason is weak end demand, a "shortage of customers".

At The Entrepreneurial Mind, Jeff Cornwall sums it up concisely.

The engine of any recovery -- small business -- is still in a survival mode.

Many Washington small businesses have already been hammered with increased UI and workers' comp taxes. At Olympia Business Watch, Don Brunell has interesting information from the Harris Poll, and brings it back to the Legislature.

In Olympia, they need to connect the dots and do the math.  It is the cumulative impact of costs of the federal, state and local governments which must be considered before each separate set of elected officials goes about increasing taxes and fees.  It all comes from the bank account.

Which finally leads me to this remarkable comment from the head of a major public employees union here, as quoted in a good Seattle Times story on why it's so hard to cut state spending. Remember, this group still enjoys extraordinary health care benefits, has many members getting pay hikes this year, and is vigorously fighting modest "furloughs."

"I'd like to know of corporations that have done all the things we're either doing or contemplating," [Greg] Devereux [executive director of the Washington Federation of State Employees] said.

Don Brunell, president of the Association of Washington Business, said many companies are making similar cuts.

"All you have to do is look around," he said. "Microsoft is laying off people. Boeing is laying off people. I think Greg is maybe not paying attention to what's going on outside."

Clearly not.