There’s a lot to ridicule in this Freedom Foundation blow-job from the Seattle Times editorial board, but for the sake of brevity, I think I’ll just focus on this single sentence:
These agreements are among the reasons for the disastrous run up in state spending during the bubble years of the 2000s.
Forget for a moment the editor’s ridiculous assertion that our public employee unions are somehow to blame for our state’s budget woes. Instead, I’m just going to rip into the underlying premise. For in fact, there was no run up in state spending during the 2000s, disastrous or otherwise. And unlike those lying liars at the Seattle Times, I’ll show you the data to prove it:
The chart above was copy and pasted directly from the pages of the Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM), and while it does show a modest rise in spending from a low of $187.73 per $1,000 of income in 2000 to a mid-decade high of $205.75 in 2004, it only comes on the heels of a steep eight-year decline from a peak of $224.37 in 1993, followed by an immediate drop to $196.41 by 2006. Viewed through any reasonable time frame, this is nothing more than a blip.
But in fact, the “disastrous run up” the editors are really referring to is the 2007-09 biennial budget, in which Governor Christine Gregoire briefly restored voter-approved teacher COLAs, as well as COLAs for other state workers who hadn’t seen a raise in years. Squint closely and you can see it on the chart. That’s what the Seattle Times has been bitching about all these years.
Indeed, if there’s anything remarkable about the 2000s, it’s that state spending remained relatively flat compared to the more erratic oscillations of the previous two decades. State and local expenditures pretty much track the 50-state average (though slightly below) throughout the decade, fluctuating right along with the economy.
Seriously, take a look at that chart, and show me the “disastrous run up in state spending.” You can’t. Because it’s not there. And it’s not there for a very good reason.
The OFM chart above tracks Washington state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income, and not surprisingly, tells a similar story to state and local expenditures. Because, you know, one pays for the other.
In this case, taxes peaked at just below $125 per $1,000 of personal income in 1989, settled to about $119 over the next few years, before falling into an eight-year decline that bottomed out at $98.91 in 2002. Tax revenues did recover over the next few years to $109.43 in 2006, before falling off the cliff during the great recession. By 2011, the latest year for which OFM provides data, taxes had dropped to under $95 per $1,000 of personal income, the lowest effective average tax rate in the 31 years charted!
And again, throughout the 2000s, Washington’s state and local taxes largely track fluctuations in the 50-state average, if quite a bit below it. In 2011, Washington’s tax “burden” ranked 37th nationwide.
Now I know what some of you right-wing skeptics are thinking: lies, damn lies, and statistics, amirite? Goldy’s talking state and local expenditures and taxes as percentage of personal income in an effort to obscure some inconvenient truth.
Well, no. Taxes and spending as a percentage of personal income is a metric that inherently incorporates the impact of both economic and population growth, as well as inflation, thus presenting the most accurate picture of relative taxes and spending over time. And if you’re worried that OFM’s inclusion of local taxes muddies the picture, considering that the editors were only talking about state spending, well, you’re kinda right. When you break out just state taxes, the decline per $1,000 of income becomes even starker:
There’s your run up in state taxes for you—from a half-century low, up slightly mid-decade, and then off the cliff again. Disastrous! Just not in the way the Seattle Times implies.
And if you’re still not convinced that there hasn’t been some sort of secret hidden run-up in state spending that would prove the editors’ claim, just take a gander at this:
State workers are in fact the state’s largest expense, but do you see any sort of run up in state hiring during the 2000s? No you do not. In fact, the gap between population growth and state FTEs widened slightly throughout the first half of the decade before the state started madly shedding government workers during the Great Recession.
Go to the OFM website. Look at all of the charts. By any reasonable metric the “disastrous run up in state spending” that the Seattle Times has been pouting over for years, simply did not happen! The entire premise upon which the paper has built its relentless attack on public employee unions—that state spending is out of control—is entirely unsupported by the data. Indeed, what these charts actually show is a structural revenue deficit that has left state government unable to grow state services and investments commensurate with our needs.
McLeary, anybody?
And while none of these charts speak directly to the editors’ claim that public employee unions are bankrupting the state by extorting extravagant contracts through secret negotiations, given the context, where exactly are all these overpaid state workers? More than 45 percent of state general fund spending goes toward K-12 education, and yet the National Education Association reports that Washington state teachers—already paid well below the national average—actually saw their inflation-adjusted wages fall by 8.5 percent from 2002 through 2012. Are they really arguing that we should cut teacher pay even more?
And if it’s not the dastardly teachers union that is to blame, then who? Is it our state troopers who are overpaid? The men and women risking their lives fighting fires in Eastern Washington? The evil, evil members of perpetual Seattle Times boogeyman SEIU 775 NW, who now earn an extravagant starting wage of $11.06 an hour to wipe the poop off your grandma—a modest pay hike earned not through some secret back room deal, but through binding arbitration?
As I have said for years, there is a legitimate debate to be had over the proper size and scope of government, but the Seattle Times editorial board refuses to engage in it honestly. Instead, they obstruct debate through dog-whistle attacks on public employee unions and the relentless repetition of an out-of-control-state-spending meme that is entirely contradicted by the facts.
It is not state spending that is the problem, but state revenue. You could bust the public employee unions, convert their pensions to 401Ks, slash their health care benefits, and freeze their pay, and you still wouldn’t have enough money to fully fund McCleary. Even worse, in another ten years or so, we’d be right back to where we started. Because that is the nature of a structural revenue deficit. And no amount of lying or union-bashing can ever change that.
Based on your (usual) clear-eyed and well supported arguments I will expect a retraction from ‘Fairview Fanny.’
But I won’t hold my breath.
but, but, but…
Please don’t confuse the conservatives with facts, it just confuses them and pisses them off.
Look at all of the charts. By any reasonable metric the “disastrous run up in state spending” that the Seattle Times has been pouting over for years, simply did not happen!
One reasonable metric might be, um, expenditures per capita. Since the Times mentioned the marked increase during the bubble years it makes the most sense to look at the bubble years. In the late 90s, after the Long-Term Capital meltdown, expenditures per capita were around $7,000. At the end of the bubble, fiscal 2009 or so, expenditures per capita were around $8800.
http://www.ofm.wa.gov/trends/revenue/fig507.asp
Those dollars are inflation-adjusted, BTW.
That’s a 25.7% increase in per-capita spending over about 10-11 years, after adjusting for inflation.
By THAT ‘reasonable metric’ the Seattle Times has a point, Goldy. I used the same web site you did, but a different metric.
Who has the time for all these charts, numbers, and diagrams when it’s so much easier and emotionally satisfying to get hysterical about unchecked government spending?
I’m really, really upset about all this crazy spending — and I’m lovin’ it!
As Roger Rabbit astutely noted, in a spam-heavy comment thread over at (un)SP, “The conservative solution to every problem is cutting someone else’s wages.”
@4 No, expenditures per capita is not a very useful metric, even adjusted for inflation, because it fails to adjust for how the population is changing—for example, the spike in medical assistance caseload starting near the end of the last decade, or the wild fluctuations in health care costs over the past 20 years.
Furthermore, for whatever reason, OFM uses the Implicit Price Deflator for Consumer Expenditures to measure inflation rather than the more appropriate IPD for State and Local Governments. For reasons I’ve explained repeatedly (having to do with types of services government provides) the cost of providing most government services inflates faster than the consumer prices (for example, health care, which consumes over 20 percent of the general fund, and has a historically high inflation rate). And finally, the most accurate metric for tracking growth in demand for public services is growth in GDP, certainly not population plus inflation.
Finally, keep in mind that the expenditures per capita chart OFM provides tracks state and local expenditures per capita. In fact, many expenditures have been shifted from the state to local governments over the past couple decades as state revenues have fallen as a percentage of GDP. I have yet to find a chart similar to the one that broke out state tax revenue, but if there is one, it will surely show a similar pattern for obvious reasons.
@4 Oh, and I almost forgot, everything else I wrote regardless, expenditures per capita does not show a “disastrous run up” in spending during the housing bubble of the 2000s. It’s a fairly straight line that largely tracks the 50-state average, just like every other chart. There’s nothing remarkable in that chart.
Another issue hidden in the numbers is the cost of deferring maintenance on public infrastructure (roads, bridges, mass transit, etc.) Delaying that will eventually produce a large increase in expenditures. because of the money not spent in the short term, followed by the increased cost of rebuilding decayed infrastructure. My then-state representative, Ed Murray, was warning his constituents about this almost twenty years ago, and now we’re seeing it in spades, replacing the SR-520 bridge and SR-99 tunnel at the same time.
@ 7
Medical assistance expenses climbing beginning at the end of the last decade are irrelevant if you are taking issue with what the Times called disastrous spending increases during the bubble years. Bubble was over before those costs climbed, Goldy.
I’ll certainly acknowledge the contribution of health care expenses to overall state spending although during the bubble years there were not wild fluctuations in these costs, but rather a movement within a range of increases between about 7 % and 12% (your link).
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when one looks at the bubble period and spending changes in WA during it, it is very hard for anyone who is not a hard-left liberal to overlook the early 2006 decisions of the Dem-controlled legislature and Gregoire to dramatically increase state spending over a biennium.
OLYMPIA — As much as anything, Gov. Christine Gregoire’s first term in office is notable for one number: $8 billion.
That’s how much state spending has increased since Gregoire, a Democrat, was elected in 2004.
Another way of looking at it: The two-year general-fund budget has jumped 31 percent, to $33.6 billion. That’s the largest percentage increase in the past 16 years.
http://seattletimes.com/html/l.....g20m0.html
Whether the state spending was justified or not is irrelevant when the point you made is that the Seattle Times is a bunch of lying liars for saying that a large spending increase occurred during the bubble years and was disastrous. As history subsequently may have shown (same link as last):
Already, the state Senate Ways and Means Committee projects a $2.7 billion shortfall when the Legislature meets in January to write the next two-year budget. If the economy weakens even more, that number could go higher.
You may have your preferred means of calculating and justifying state expenditures, and that’s fine. But a 31% jump in spending over a biennium followed by a major shortfall only a couple of years later?
Yeah, pretty disastrous. Imagine if decisions about budget changes in a red state
http://horsesass.org/whats-the-matter-with-kansas/
turned a surplus into a shortfall that quickly. You might even find time to write about something like that.
@ 8
So, because every state chowed down at the housing bubble revenue gravy train, it’s OK?
If your daughter claimed she really wasn’t at fault because all the other girls she was with shoplifted, too, would you buy it?
C’mon. The end of the bubble was a global meltdown, due to many causes, with numerous entities at fault. You don’t dismiss Citibank’s woes because BofA was in trouble, too.
“That’s what the Seattle Times has been bitching about all these years.”
What it boils down to is ST wants state employees to work for 2004 pay in 2014.
“That’s what the Seattle Times has been bitching about all these years.”
What it boils down to is ST wants state employees to work for 2004 pay in 2014. Just because. Well, just because conservatives in general hate workers, and Frank Blethen harbors a particular hatred of unions, although I don’t think this editorial would be all that different if there were no state unions.
In fact, state employment largely follows the “right to work” model, under which union membership is voluntary, and the Scott Walker model, under which unions don’t get to negotiate much of anything and aren’t allowed to strike under any circumstances.
So, the union chimera painted by this and other ST editorials is really a mirage or hallucination, because the state employee unions are so ineffective salaries probably would be the same if there were no unions at all.
From the second chart it definitely looks like Washington is trending toward becoming a low-tax state. Of course, our public services and public education are suffering as a result; but tax-haters can’t legitimately complain that we’re a “Taxachusetts” run by free-spenders. And despite all the “Left Coast” jokes and digs at Kshama Sawant, we’re certainly not a state run by socialists; we have the most regressive tax system in the country. In our state, we take from the poor and give to the rich, who pay very modest state and local taxes compared to most places, and enjoy relatively good public services that are partly paid for by heavily taxing people much poorer than them.
@4 Even in your cherry-picked chart, Washington tracks the national trend, and our state’s per capita spending has been steadily declining relative to the national average since the early 1990s.
@10, @111 — What you’re really complaining about is the volatile nature of a sales tax-dependent revenue system that dangles windfalls in front of legislators in good years and forces them on a starvation diet in lean years. That’s a hell of a way to pay for schools, prisons, law enforcement, child abuse prevention and intervention, grain inspection, public health, and forest fire fighting.
Of course, we could always be like Texas and defund our firefighters, than beg for federal assistance when our state is on fire. Or, we could just tell our eastern Washington residents they’re on their own.
I guess ultimately this editorial raises the issue I discussed in the previous thread, that is, whether the Seattle Times editors are too stupid to be guilty of lying. You know, Judge Costanza’s dictum.
“The OFM chart above tracks Washington state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income, and not surprisingly, tells a similar story to state and local expenditures. Because, you know, one pays for the other.”
FUCK YOU. Income is not taxed at the state or local level. “Personal income” does not pay for government expenditures.
This hard-on that the Times has for the public to be involved in contract negotiations with the teachers unions is bogus. Does this extend to other contract negotiations that affect state spending such as bond purchases for state treasury investments or highway construction contracts?
Or, we could just tell our eastern Washington residents they’re on their own.
Roger, a few years back the Eastern small countyeers were talking about passing a State Amendment prohibiting spending tax dollars collected in one county being spent in another. Their state reps pushed back to be careful, for none of counties operating in the black in terms of state tax dollars were east of the Cascades. Poor farmer Jones in Asotin County would not be driving on paved roads except for tax dollars coming from Sno-King-Pierce counties.
@19 Of course personal income pays for state expenditures, if indirectly. I mean, where do you think the money comes from to pay all the other taxes?
Whether its sales tax or property tax or the cost of business taxes passed through in the price of the goods and services you consume, your tax “burden” is always measured as percentage of your income, because that is the only measure of your ability to pay.
Well NoBalls@16,
If the legislature could demonstrate some spending restraint in the fat years, they would have revenue to expand services and repair infrastructure in the lean years! That’s forward thinking NoBalls and we haven’t seen any that in WA State since Puddy moved here in the very early 90s. Think Joseph going to pharaoh and creating the storehouses of grain in Genesis!
Even if we had a income tax-based revenue stream do you actually think the legislature would operate any differently when the Obummer ” economic expansion” began? Wait a minute… there hasn’t been an Obummer economic expansion yet! When people are laid off where does the state replace that lost income tax revenue stream? Oh yes they would income tax you on your unemployment paycheck you receive right?