During opening ceremonies of the regular legislative session on Jan. 9, House Republican Leader Rep. Richard DeBolt said the Legislature owes it to the citizens of Washington to reform state government, make it live within its means without tax increases, help the private sector create more jobs, and work together to make it happen.
“They (Washington citizens) are tired of one-party control. What they want are solutions,” said DeBolt, R-Chehalis. “So we (House Republicans) are being solution-oriented this year by bringing more and more solutions to the forefront.”
My House Republican colleagues and I worked to develop solutions to the two largest challenges of the 2012 session — high unemployment and a budget shortfall exceeding a billion dollars. We completed much of the groundwork over the past couple of years, but refined our solution-oriented agenda during the three-week special session that began just after Thanksgiving.
We decided on an innovative “priorities of government” budgeting approach used by former Gov. Gary Locke nearly 10 years ago. Locke outlined the concept in his November 2002 budget proposal: “We are looking at what matters most to Washington citizens. We are focusing on results that people want and need, prioritizing those results, and funding those results with the money we have.”
House Republicans identified three core services as priorities of government: education, public safety and protection of the state’s most vulnerable citizens.
Constitutionally, education is the state’s paramount duty. The state Supreme Court recently ruled the state must “amply provide for the education of all Washington children as the state’s first and highest priority before any other state programs or operations.” We took that seriously and proposed to fund education first in a separate budget as our state’s highest priority. We were also the first to show a sustainable supplemental operating budget could be passed without general tax increases.
We thought if the Legislature could close the budget shortfall in December, the regular session could be skipped to save tax dollars. Unfortunately, the majority party decided a $480 million adjustment was sufficient until the regular session could convene.
We also hoped the 2012 session could be used to pass economic stimulus and regulatory reform legislation that would promote private-sector job creation. Despite our best efforts to advance important job-creating bills, House Democratic majority leaders refused public hearings on nearly all of our measures, effectively killing them.
We proposed our House Republican “all-priorities budget” as an amendment in the House Ways and Means Committee. It too was struck down by the majority party. Frankly, they were not interested in our budget and jobs legislation.
Instead, House and Senate Democrats spent 36 days of the 60-day session working toward passage of same-sex marriage legislation. They waited until the final two-and-a-half weeks of the session to present a budget. When their budget plans, which were comprised of gimmicks, additional taxes and no significant budget reforms, didn’t pass muster with House Republicans or the bipartisan philosophical majority in the Senate, they drew the Legislature into a fifth special session under Democrat control in two years. And despite good-faith efforts by House Republican budget leader Rep. Gary Alexander to again offer bipartisan solutions, House Democrats dug in their heels until the last week of the special session when they pushed ahead on bills they knew were opposed by a majority of the Senate. It’s as if they never intended to reach a compromise budget so they could purposefully create failure and point fingers.
But let’s be clear — House Republicans were prepared with solutions in December, and we were the first to introduce a proposal during the 2012 session that would have provided for a responsible, balanced and sustainable budget. We provided solutions that could get Washington working again and could have ended the regular session on time without the need for a special session. We have not been the obstacle, but the vehicle toward addressing the most important needs of this session.
It’s the failure of leadership under single-party control that resulted in this budget impasse and, possibly, another special session.
Political gamesmanship is not what the people of Washington want. As Rep. DeBolt said, they want solutions. It’s time for majority Democrats to set aside egos, abandon election-year political games, and come to the table willing and ready to make compromises and negotiate a bipartisan budget. If and when they do, House Republicans will be there, ready to lead with solutions to balance the budget, reform state government, and get Washington working again.
Rep. Dan Kristiansen, R-Snohomish, serves as chairman of the Washington House Republican Caucus and represents the 39th Legislative District. Contact him at 360-786-7967 or through his Web site at www.houserepublicans.wa.gov/Kristiansen.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
