Everett, Wash.
Published: Wednesday, January 10, 2007

When we have resources, government should invest

John Burbank / Syndicated Columnist

 Gov. Chris Gregoire had a field day last month laying out her spending priorities for the next two-year budget. She did so with good reason - she wants to invest in education, health care and economic development. But then, with the legislative session starting, the Republicans figured out some sound bites to cast a shadow on her proposals.

Let's start with their first volley. Senate Republicans said that the governor wanted to spend $6 million a day more than when she took office. Sounds big, but it isn't a fair comparison. They dug up this figure by looking at the 2003-2005 budget - a recession budget. That was when the Legislature had to cut programs because of the national economic downturn.

To compare the future budget with the recession budget is misleading. Think about having bacon for breakfast. When the family budget is tight, the bacon doesn't appear; when more income comes in, a couple strips appear on each plate. Now, with even more income coming in, the Republicans would have you believe that we should go back to no bacon!

The current state budget is the appropriate one for comparison. When you look at that budget, the governor's proposals for investments are quite modest, perhaps even disappointing.

Here are the numbers: The governor's proposed budget is $29.9 billion. The current budget is $27.3 billion. If you take into account inflation, the current budget is the equivalent of $30.3 billion. That makes the governor's proposal an actual drop in spending of close to $400 million. Then you have to take into account population growth. Washington is predicted to add 221,500 people in the next two years, a 3.5 percent increase. Put that into the calculations, and the governor's budget drops almost 5 percent per person from the current budget.

Can we afford this budget? The real question is: Can we afford not to make the investments that are in this budget? People tend to think that increases in personal income lead to less need for public expenditures, but actually the opposite is true. As personal income grows, more families have more and bigger cars. More and bigger cars means more roads, more wear and tear, and more maintenance costs. More families rightly expect that their children should have a place in the community colleges and university system, and that takes more public money. More parents expect high quality public K-12 education, and that takes more public money.

The fact is that there is a whole lot of opportunity that can be realized with state investments. The governor's opponents like to call her budget a $4 billion spending spree. But the parents of the students that she wants to help out with full-day kindergarten just want their kids to get a good start in school. It is a $20 million annual investment, and it covers about 25 percent of kindergartners. What we need next is not a lecture about a spending spree, but a way to fund full-day kindergarten for the rest of the kids who aren't in line to get it now.

If the governor has her way, students at Everett Community College, as well as all the other community colleges in the state, won't have to worry about a tuition increase over the next two years. That costs the state about $10 million in new costs a year. Would you label that a "spending spree"?

We are in a global competition for jobs and economic development. If we want to prosper, we have to have an educated and productive citizenry. That means investments now in our children's education, in community college programs that lead to good paying jobs, and in our university and college system to fuel the engine for entrepreneurial advancement and productivity increases. You don't get these things for free. They cost money.

Without government spending, we don't have government, which means we don't have public schools, community colleges and universities, we don't have emergency response systems in place when the next big earthquake or wind storm comes along, we don't have police to keep the civil peace, and we don't have universal immunizations from life-threatening diseases. So if we want these things and we have the resources (which we do), we shouldn't shirk at government spending. That is what a democratic government is all about.

John Burbank, executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute (www.eoionline.org), writes every other Wednesday. Write to him in care of the institute at 1900 Northlake Way, Suite 237, Seattle, WA 98103. His e-mail address is john@eoionline.org.
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