Red ink, budget blues
Published 8:58 am Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Much has been written about what will be in and what will be left out of the proposed budget Gov. Chris Gregoire will release Thursday morning.
Public education is likely to get whacked. Not funding pay raises and smaller class sizes as laid out in Initiatives 728 and 732 would save about $1.3 billion in new spending.
BTW – I’ve been hearing that the WEA is sending subtle hints to lawmakers that they rank money for 732 ahead of money for 728. We’ll see if that actually proves true when budget talks get under way.
Overall, how bad might it be?
From a headline in today’s Spokesman-Review:
“If the state were, for example, to close Washington State University, Eastern Washington Universtiy, the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, the governor’s office, the Department of Ecology, the state’s National Guard and the State Patrol, it wouldn’t be halfway toward solving the problem.”
In the accompanying articlee by Richard Roesler, Gregoire’s legislative director Marty Brown told folks at a Spokane forum to expect “cuts to everything.” He is quoted as saying:
“You can’t lose weight by clipping your fingernails.” .
