It’s all about jobs.
That’s what nearly every candidate for the Legislature, Republican and Democrat, claimed last year as a campaign theme. And for good reason – more people working means more people paying taxes, and fewer people drawing social services. That, in turn, means less stress on the state budget, and more money for key needs like education.
Since businesses provide the vast majority of jobs, our representatives in Olympia should be doing everything they can to help them do so. They took refreshing steps in that direction in 2003, when the possibility of Boeing building the 787 elsewhere sparked some long-overdue reform, especially in the area of unemployment insurance.
Now, just two years later, some Democratic leaders are working to scale back that reform. They claim that the legislation was rushed through and that labor got a raw deal.
Yet even with these modest reforms, which struck a fairer economic balance between business and labor, Washington employers still paid the highest unemployment insurance taxes in the nation last year. And unemployed workers here rank fifth in the average weekly benefit amount. The system still tilts against employers.
Business costs, now more than ever, dictate the health of the job market. Why? Chiefly because cheap Northwest electricity – which used to mask the fact that other business costs were higher here than in other states – is a thing of the past. Drought conditions that will keep dams low this summer will only make matters worse, forcing businesses to cut back.
There’s enough negative pressure on job growth without the Legislature adding more.
Just the discussion of undoing UI reform could make employers thinking of moving or expanding here think twice. If such a broad-based agreement has a shelf life of only two years (heck, the UI changes haven’t even been fully implemented), how can other reforms be taken seriously? When is a deal really a deal?
Democrats control both houses of the Legislature, as well as the governor’s mansion. Moderates in the party must step forward before it’s too late and demand that leadership live up to the rhetoric of the campaign.
It is, truly, all about jobs.
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