Legislators must once again contend with a persistent, two-sided thorn: Washington’s revenue system remains unduly regressive (as the tax burden falls most heavily on those people and businesses who can least afford to pay), and the meager revenue growth currently possible precludes writing any budget based on sound fiscal or human policy.
The need to replace our over-reliance on the regressive sales and B&O taxes is a separate issue from the one addressed in this column: the fact that absent the enactment of significant new taxes, insufficient state revenues will necessarily produce yet another budget that is not sustainable – one that will harm thousands of our citizens yet cost taxpayers even more in the near future.
To cite but a few of the dilemmas legislators now face if there is no tax increase:
* We do not have the money to provide mental health services to the 11,000 Washington youth at risk of developing serious mental disorders.
*We do not have the funds to reasonably reimburse the private agencies caring for children too disturbed to stay in foster care.
* We may lack the dollars to provide early intervention services for all infants with developmental disabilities (even though we know from our own experience that as much as 20 percent of this population will live a normal life and not be in need of special education support and public dollars if early intervention were provided).
* We do not have the capacity to help Community Action agencies and others meet growing basic human needs through food banks and emergency shelter.
* We do not have the wherewithal to help maintain and create Children’s Advocacy Centers, or one of the most progressive best practices for the investigation of child abuse and neglect allegations – a central, multidisciplinary approach that best serves the needs of child victims and their families while also best assuring the accused a fair, accurate investigation.
* We may have the ability to provide employment support services to only a small fraction of our high school graduates with developmental disabilities, even though these youth could with a minimum of assistance become taxpaying members of our work force (rather than remaining unemployable and having to consume much greater tax dollars in lifelong services).
* We may even have to further starve the community mental health system to the tune of $41 million a year, when organizations such as Compass Health in Everett already turn away an average of 80 mentally ill people a month due to a lack of resources.
All of this – and much more – is to say that if legislators do not currently have the means to address these issues within current revenues, they had better raise the necessary money through some combination of sources and get the job done.
First, does anyone really think that a budget can be “balanced” by ignoring the needs of thousands of children and adults with mental health issues? By failing to help infants and high school graduates with disabilities become gainfully employed rather than consumers of various forms of public assistance? By running out of business those nonprofits that care for children too disturbed to stay in foster care?
Some may think that well, yes, these are all desirable objectives and it is simply unfortunate that we cannot afford them. Guess again. Untreated mental illness, for instance, necessarily comes back to taxpayers most expensively in terms of ever-growing criminal justice, psychiatric hospital and emergency room costs. These skyrocketing costs alone are one of the primary drivers of the current deficit!
Likewise, how can it possibly be even remotely cost-effective to budget for ongoing assistance to people with developmental disabilities rather than helping them become self-sufficient when we know very well that we can do so?
Lastly, when it comes to populations such as disturbed youth currently in residential care, the state will have a legal obligation to assume the care of these children (at considerably greater expense) if it continues to under-pay and thus drive out of business those charitable agencies that currently contract to efficiently provide these services. (After all, what business runs any component at a loss for any length of time?)
Given these harsh economic realities, conservative fiscal policy demands that the current $2 billion deficit be closed in large part by the enactment of new revenues as well as significant spending reductions – unless we want to continue conducting the public’s business in ever-deepening red ink.
More important, a government that says it cannot afford proper care for its most vulnerable citizens or to reasonably assist them in becoming fully productive workers with quality lives (and that must instead consign them to a lifetimes of expensive, stunted human potential) is a government that had better address its inadequate revenues. Starting now.
Cliff Bailey, a former Republican state senator from the 44th District, is board member emeritus for Compass Health.
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