State House Appropriations Committee chair Ross Hunter (D-48) is no idiot. He may not be as smart as he thinks is (hanging out in Olympia will do that to you, because his fellow electeds set such a low bar), but he’s no idiot. I’ve had numerous conversations with Hunter over the years, and there’s no question he’s smart. Often too conventional. Sometimes dead wrong. But smart.
But state Senate Ways & Means chair Andy Hill (R-45), well, I gotta wonder. Never met the guy. Never had so much as an email exchange. So it’s hard for me to judge his intelligence for myself. But what I can say is that if Hill is not an idiot, he sure thinks you are:
But Hill labels as false Hunter’s overall depiction of a budget shortfall in need of new tax revenue.
Hill says Hunter would like you to think it’s either raise taxes or make cuts. But, Hill says, “Remember, we’ve got $3 billion of new money.
Sigh. That old line again—that if the dollar figure of revenue goes up, there can’t possibly be a revenue shortfall, regardless of the rising costs of existing government services or the added costs of meeting new demands. I mean, let’s say your rent rose 7.9 percent last year (the actual average rent hike in Seattle last year), but your wages rose 2 percent. Hey: You’re revenue is up! So quit your whining!
Speaking of which:
“And Ross will say it’s all spent, but it’s all spent on optional things, like collective-bargaining agreements,” Hill added.
Yeah, “optional things.” Like paying government workers. Which, you know, is every government’s biggest cost.
To be clear, what Hill is referring to is the collective bargaining agreement struck between Governor Inslee and the Washington Federation of State Employees. State workers haven’t received a cost of living increase since 2008, a period of time over which inflation has eaten away about 10 percent of their wages. The proposed contract would give state workers a 3 percent raise in 2015, followed by a 1.8 percent raise in 2016—a two-year period over which inflation is projected to rise about 1.8 percent a year. By the end of 2016, adjusted for inflation, state workers would still be earning about 9 percent less than they did back in 2008, even with this raise.
But Hill argues that it is an “optional thing” to ever increase state worker pay again!
Sure makes the job of balancing the budget without raising taxes easy if you can freeze one of your biggest cost drivers by never giving state workers another cost-of-living increase again. Ever.
I’ve other work to do so I can’t fisk all of Hill’s idiotic arguments. But it doesn’t bode well for budget negotiations when the Senate’s budget writer is so vehemently professing such budgetary nonsense.
Last year Hill sponsored a bill to strip part-time state employees of their health care and require them to sign up for individual ACA policies. The same bill specifically exempted legislators from that provision. I never heard Hill explain his reasoning. Most likely it was to say “fuck you” to state workers while pushing the trope that if the ACA is so great why are you complaining?
I don’t know how smart Hill is but he is a first-class asshole.
SEIU 775, last year, had a notably different opinion of Hill:
Since his election in 2010 Andy Hill has worked closely with us on a variety of issues important to our members and their consumers, including helping to protect health benefits for home care workers at private agencies, working to fund significant improvements in wages and benefits for home care workers across the state, and this year leading the effort – along with Tami Green in the House – to implement part of the Affordable Care Act (known as the Community First Choice Option) to draw down additional federal funds to improve home and community based long-term care services, including significantly reducing the waiting list for services for people with developmental disabilities. We met with and interviewed both candidates.
http://www.seattlemet.com/news.....ugust-2014
The state employs roughly 100,000 people. Some of them are Republicans. I’d like to thank Andy Hill for turning them and their families into Democrats.
Meanwhile, I’m glad I retired from state employment years ago. The pay was lousy to begin with, and I would have walked off the job long before pay cuts reached 10%.
It’s not stupidity, though. It’s venality. Don’t forget, some GOP legislators have argued for paying state workers minimum wage. Probably the same ones who want to do away with minimum wage. There’s nothing they’d like better than if all state workers quit. Then they would achieve their goal of turning Washington into a government-less and taxless paradise.
@2 “to implement part of the Affordable Care Act (known as the Community First Choice Option) to draw down additional federal funds”
Ah yes — Andy Hill, man of principle, is not above glomming onto FREE FEDERAL MONEY from Obamacare …
Also, if I’m reading his press release (5 pg pdf) right (I mostly just scanned it and decided it wasn’t worth a full post, so maybe I’m reading it wrong), by his own admission a budget where we pay for McCleary and don’t raise taxes would lead to more than a 20% increase in the category “Debt Service/Other” in the chart at the end of page 3. So I assume that means large deficit spending. I’m, in theory, more for deficit spending than I assume Hill probably claims to be. But the time for debt/deficits was like 2008-2013 or so. Unless there’s something more hidden in the Other part of it.
This is a trick question.
Andy Hill is an idiot and so is Cheap shot Bob (up @2).
he’s not idiotic. he’s starving the beast.
is he too dumb to look at those corporate tax breaks? woudl love to hear him opine on those…
Andy Hill is following in the steps of EX-Senate leader Harry Reid. Harry Reid exempted his staph from ObummerCare! http://hotair.com/archives/201.....macare-is/
Why do HA DUMMOCRETINS forget these simple facts?
If the SEIU loves Hill then he must be a great man in the eyes of HA’s buttspigot! Puddy wondered why the buttspigot didn’t pollute this thread! Wait for it…