With the initial budget tussles under way in Olympia, it’s apparent that the depth of the problem facing lawmakers hasn’t fully sunk in.
House Democrats’ revised budget for the final five-plus months of the current biennium — and it is the Democrats’ bill, having passed the House Ways & Means Committee Wednesday evening on a party-line vote — isn’t balanced. It uses cuts and fund transfers to close $334 million of a $600 million gap, leaving $266 million to be figured out later.
Presumably, Democrats are hoping the next revenue forecast, due March 17, will be rosier, leaving them less to trim. If not, they may pick up on a trick proposed by Gov. Chris Gregoire, delaying $250 million in payments to public schools from June 30 to July 1, pushing it into the next budget year. (Insert sound of can being kicked down road here.)
In the meantime, they avoid some of the hard decisions that are reflected in Gregoire’s budget plan, like eliminating the Basic Health Plan for lower-income workers and the Disability Lifeline program, which provides cash and medical assistance for folks whose disabilities make them unable to work. Instead of dealing with the reality of significantly lower revenue and resetting priorities, they’re trimming around the edges of everything, including the top priority: education.
Look, we know the task is hard. But that doesn’t make it avoidable. The governor who oversaw a 31 percent increase in state spending her first four years in office has faced up to it, as lawmakers eventually must. The sooner they do, the less cutting they’ll face when they turn to the 2011-13 budget and its $4.6 billion deficit.
That’s not to say the governor’s plan is perfect. We think House Democrats are right not to cut levy equalization funding, for example — money that’s critical for keeping property-poor school districts even close to a level playing field with richer ones. That should be a high priority. But to fund it, something else must go. That’s the kind of leap lawmakers must make, many more times than they’d like, to achieve a balanced budget.
Voters have essentially taken tax increases off the table, and unlike last year, a federal bailout won’t be coming. Spending cuts are all that’s left. If department consolidations and other efficiencies can be part of that, great. But the bottom line must be met. The budget must be balanced.
Putting off the hard choices won’t make them go away.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
