Senate Dems say hike sales tax, close loopholes

Here we go with the budget rollouts. Oh, how many trees will be felled before this process is done.

Senate Democrats today put out their budget proposal the fine print of which can be found in Senate Bill 6444. A public hearing on this bill is set for 3:30 p.m. today.

It won't have the revenue punch line. There will be three punch lines in the form of legislation:

-a bill to raise the state portion of the sales tax by three-tenths of a penny for three years starting June 1;
-a bill to boost the cigarette tax by another $1 per pack.
-and finally what the Washington Policy Center has been calling the ghost bill for closing tax loopholes and erasing tax preferences. Senate Dems are counting on as many as 26 changes to net $518 million though the bill that has been the vehicle for change is empty.

Jason Mercier at WPC is quick on the draw on the blog by extracting these tables from the overview of the Senate Dems proposal.

There are things you won't see in the plan like a tripling of the hazardous substance tax and things you might need to look hard to find like lottery dollars going into higher education.

Here's the official public memo on the budget posted online by the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Up next, at 12:15 p.m. is the House Dems budget.

More paper, more trees and, some think, more taxes.