Two Research Council Policy Briefs to Help Sort Through the Budget Endgame

On the last day of the regular legislative session, lawmakers remain far apart in their tax and spending plans. And at this moment, it's hard to tell how quickly they'll close the gap.

The Washington Research Council has just published two reports. Yesterday, the released this assessment of the House and Senate tax plans. This morning, they followed with a comparison of the spending proposals, including a useful table showing cuts and adds, distinguishing "maintenance" (cost of continuing current programs) spending from "policy" spending (resulting from programmatic changes made by legislators). 

In the Seattle Times this morning, Andrew Garber writes that state spending is on track to rise, despite budget cuts, noting the use of some $500 million in federal money. The WRC spending brief provides more detail on that.

A couple of things in Garber's report stand out. This snippet shows the divisions within the House Democratic caucus.

House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, said lawmakers in her caucus who wanted more cuts in state spending "sort of got run over" by members from districts considered safe havens for Democrats.

"I think a majority of our caucus is from very safe districts where voters are very different from swing [districts] and rural areas," she said. "As a result, they just feel like we don't want to reform..."

And in the Senate, Rodney Tom, D-Bellevue, the operating budget vice chair of the Ways and Means Committee who voted against the Senate budget expresses his frustration to Garber.

Tom said he is especially troubled by proposals to spend millions to maintain health benefits for state workers instead of asking them to bear more of the cost.

"We're going to be dumping more money into that to maintain a level of service, and then we're cutting BHP [Basic Health Plan] and we're cutting nursing homes. I think that sends a mixed message of where our priorities are," he said.

Not only that, but one-time fixes such as the use of reserves and federal money set the state up "for a complete disaster next year," he said.

Opportunities lost.