OLYMPIA — Legislation introduced Wednesday would ask voters to hike the sales tax for three years to fund health-care and social service programs facing cuts in the next state budget.
The measure put forth by Seattle Democratic Reps. Eric Pettigrew and Mary Lou Dickerson would boost the sales tax three-tenths of a penny and steers the new revenue to hospitals, nursing homes, public health clinics and medical care for children of low-income families.
The House and Senate are looking at slicing hundreds of millions of dollars from health care and social services because of a projected $9 billion shortfall in the next two-year state budget.
Aspects of the proposal have been batted around for much of the session by members of a coalition of labor unions and health-care providers. This group recently ran commercials on television aimed at educating the public to looming cutbacks.
Getting it into legislation had been expected. To get it on the ballot requires it pass the Senate and House by a simple majority.
Though most lawmakers had not seen the bill Wednesday they anticipated its arrival.
“I really appreciate the issues he’s targeted because those have been the most difficult to cut and will have the most deleterious consequences,” said Rep. Mary Helen Roberts, D-Lynnwood, who serves on the House Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee.
“My biggest concern with this is that it is a sales tax. While it may be our only option it’s my least favorite because it is the most regressive,” she said.
“It’s the wrong tax at the wrong time,” said Rep. Barbara Bailey, R-Oak Harbor, a member of the House budget committee.
She pointed out the bill was introduced the same day as a major anti-tax rally at the Capitol.
“We had over 5,000 people in Olympia, tens of thousands of people across the state and hundreds of thousands across the country who are not inclined to vote for any kind of tax increase,” she said.
Under the bill, the state’s share of the retail sales tax would climb to 6.8 percent from 6.5 percent, an increase of three cents on every $10 purchase. This increase would take effect Jan. 1 and could generate up to $1 billion.
The bill details $483 million worth of spending on specific programs. About 80 percent of the sum covers cuts proposed in the House budget. The rest is for a new program that would give rebates to low- and moderate-income families for a portion of what they pay in state sales tax.
The biggest sum, $167 million, would go into the Basic Health Plan that provides subsidized health care for lower-income families. Up to 45,000 people could be left out of the plan because of slashed funding in the proposed House and Senate budgets.
Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623, jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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