In the aftermath of “heart-wrenching” budget cuts to education and health care, Washington state struggles for moral and fiscal solvency.
A demonstration at the Capitol earlier this year, protesting proposed cuts in state education funding.
The biennial budget adopted by the Washington legislature and signed into law by a subdued Governor Chris Gregoire earlier this month may be a turning point in the state’s social and political history. The narrative that Washington state is no longer committed to investing in students or taking care of its neediest isn’t explicit, but the implication is hard to ignore.
In the battle of ideas between Bill Gates, Sr., a lawyer, regent, and philanthropist who argues that wealthy people like himself should pay more in taxes; and Tim Eyman, a watch salesman and anti-tax crusader from Mukilteo, it’s pretty clear the patriarch from one of the world’s wealthiest families didn’t prevail. Instead, it appears we are fulfilling Eyman’s vision of an Evergreen state whose branches are being hastily pruned to the bark.
“I knew in December when I announced my budget that a sustainable future required heart-wrenching decisions,” Governor Gregoire said in late May. “These decisions will impact every Washingtonian—and many families will lose critical state services that they’ve come to rely on.”
Not that the effects of this transformation are best understood through the Governor’s laments, but it is telling that two days before she signed off on a budget she says she “hates,” Gregoire announced she would not run for a third term.
Gregoire’s dismay is reflected in the mirthless analysis of the progressive Washington state Budget and Policy Center which has closely tracked the state budget process.
Clearly frustrated by the legislature’s unwillingness to raise taxes or even close obvious corporate tax loopholes, the Center’s senior policy analyst Lori Pfingst predicts that
“an all cuts approach will have a devastating impact on our state.”
In its analysis of the budget that was signed into law last week, The Budget and Policy Center provided this overview:
“About 90 percent ($4.5 billion) of the budget shortfall is addressed through cuts to core public structures such as health care, services for seniors, our K-12 and higher education system and a multitude of supports for lower income families.
Cuts to public services include (but are not limited to):
• Reductions to the Basic Health Plan for low-income, working adults ($129 million). [These cuts are in addition to those enacted earlier this year.]
• Elimination of cash assistance for people who cannot work due to a disability, but do not qualify for federal SSI. ($179 million). These individuals will instead be referred for a housing and essential needs benefit.
• Salary reductions for K-12 employees- 1.9 percent for teachers and other staff, 3 percent for administrative positions ($179 million)
• Reductions to colleges and universities; increased tuition at four-year institutions expected to range from 11-16 percent ($618 million in cuts)
• Hours of care for seniors and people with developmental disabilities are reduced by ten percent ($97 million).
The remaining 10 percent of the budget solution ($459 million) consists of fund transfers.
The Budget and Policy Center’s comprehensive breakdown of the all-cuts budget can be found here.
In its analysis of the effects of the public health portion of the budget, the Washington State Nurses Association reports that the cuts in the state’s Basic Health Plan for low income families will reduce the plan’s enrollees to 34,000 by 2013. (The plan currently enrolls 52,000) Washingtonians. The 150,000 people on the plan’s waiting list will no longer be eligible for the program.
In its analysis of the legislature’s performance on the environment, the Environmental Priorities Coalition applauded the passage of bills that will tightly manage the sale of phosphorus-based fertilizers (a threat to waterways like the Spokane River) and lay out a transition that will eliminate coal-fired energy in the state. But EPC lamented the failure of the legislature, for the third year running, to pass a “Clean Water Jobs” bill that would fund the cleanup of the state’s most polluted waterways, including the Spokane River.
“To ensure our state legacy, different choices could have been made,” the Budget and Policy Center’s Lori Pfingst lamented. “Throughout the legislative session, lawmakers could have chosen common sense solutions to balance the budget, including:
• Eliminating millions of dollars in tax breaks that benefit large corporations at the expense of average Washingtonians;
• Expanding the tax base to include specific services, such as pet grooming, day spa services, teeth bleaching, and cosmetic surgery; or
• Temporarily increasing the sales tax until we enter a sustained period of economic growth.
The failure to include any revenue alternatives in the budget severely weakens an already fragile economic recovery. Necessary investments in public structures that would support job creation and ease the pain of the recession on Washingtonians won’t be made.”
If there’s a silver lining in such dark clouds, the statewide progressive lobbying group FUSE notes that it could have been much worse. In a June 1st message to supporters, FUSE Executive Director Aaron Ostrom pointed out that the Governor’s original budget proposal “would have entirely eliminated Basic Health coverage, Disability Lifeline support (the state’s disability benefit for disabled adults who do not qualify for federal disability) and the Children’s Health Program.” Although each of the programs was cut, none was eliminated.
The intensive grassroots campaign to close corporate tax loopholes would have succeeded, Ostrom notes, were it not for Initiative 1053, the Tim Eyman led-measure that imposed a two-thirds supermajority requirement on the legislature for any state revenue increase, including closing tax loopholes.
For example, Ostrom noted, the 54 to 42 vote in the state house to end tax breaks for banks (and put approximately $41 million a year toward public education for the state’s youngest students) just wasn’t enough to overcome the I-1053 supermajority requirement.
In FUSE’s win column, Ostrom includes the bill to expedite the closure of the TransAlta coal plant in Centralia, and a bill establishing a mediation process to help level the playing field between banks and homeowners in foreclosure proceedings.
–Tim Connor & Jamie Borgan
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