Welcome to New Visitors - Let's Help Employers Put People Back to Work

We're glad to see WashACE visitors attracted to the site by our postcards, radio spots and newspaper ads. As the Legislature goes into its final weeks, it's vital lawmakers understand one simple message: They must rein in spending, make government more efficient and let employers do what they want to do: put people back to work,

This morning's news underscores the challenges we face. Last night, the House suspended the Initiative 960 requirement that tax hikes require a 2/3 supermajority. A similar measure has already passed the Senate, which will quickly take up the House version. Here's how the AP story sees it:

The state Senate must vote again on the measure before sending it to Gregoire, a Democrat who is expected to sign the plan into law.

Democrats say they will unveil their plans for patching the budget deficit once I-960 is suspended. The scheduled 60-day session ends on March 11.

The governor also released her tax proposal yesterday. The Seattle Times reports: 

... Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday proposed raising $605 million through new taxes and by ending existing tax exemptions and credits.

Gregoire's plan contains no general sales-tax increase, as favored by some Democrats in the Legislature. Instead, the governor would focus on out-of-state companies, triple an existing chemical tax and add taxes to discretionary items such as candy, soda and cigarettes.

The News Tribune reports that the plan (rightly) concerns businesses.

Businesses that deal in those products, though, see any move to make the products more expensive as a threat. Taxes on cigarettes, candy and bottled water would be detrimental to the state’s businesses, said Amber Carter, a lobbyist for the Association of Washington Businesses.

Right now, that $605 MM looks like the opening bid in a game likely to escalate. From the Times:

...although the governor didn't propose a general sales-tax increase, the Legislature has not ruled it out.

House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, said she'd prefer a temporary sales-tax increase that would go away as the economy improves.

Legislators need to hear from you. Take Action by clicking the banner above. And for background on these and other issues, please look around the site, sign up for our weekly newsletters and action alerts, and stay involved.

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Comments

[jimvaughnforcongress]

Back in the early 90’s I was assigned to the US Army Studies Directorate as a military analyst. After the first Gulf War, the US Congress directed the Pentagon to downsize due to a recession and huge budget deficit. I worked with a group of officers and wrote a computer program that was used to downsize a $300 billion dollar budget (see block #16 on attachment).

To do that, we employed a combination of Total Quality Management and a linear programming model developed by Senju and Toyoda.
We started at the bottom of the US Army and asked everyone to rank the programs they worked on from a scale of 1 to 5.
1. Being mission critical.
2. Very Important.
3. Important.
4. Slight Important.
5. Not Important.

We then went to the next higher level supervisors and asked them to rank all of the departments under their supervision. This continued up the chain until it encompassed the entire US Army. Upon conclusion of this process, we had a prioritized list for every program. Those above the cut line were kept and those below the cut line were eliminated. The beauty of this transparent process was that it allowed the generals to look at all of the programs. There were programs below the cut line that they wanted to keep. As a result, they took cuts from programs above the cut line to fund or keep programs that were scheduled to be eliminated.

Having said that you and I know that Governor Gregoire does not have a true or transparent prioritized list. If so she would publish the list and everyone could see the prioritized list, where each program shakes out and how much each program costs. Our governors prioritized list is a bunch of spaghetti all combined together to fund the special interest groups that contribute to her campaign and our demise. I know how to prioritize budgets and I know this is not being done correctly in Olympia. I say to the governor, SHOW ME A TRANSPARENT PRIORITIZED LIST OF ALL EXPENDITURES. PROVE TO ME THAT YOU HAVE MADE ALL THE CUTS AND GOT RID OF ALL THE WASTE BEFORE RAISING TAXES.

Jim Vaughn
Citizens for Economic Stimulus
14416 168th Street
Orting, WA 98360
253.241.9645
Jvaughn50@comcast.net