Olympia – Senate Democratic leaders held a press conference today, joined by a few of their House colleagues, to announce their intention, as Josh mentioned earlier, to tighten the belt that holds up our state government’s proverbial pants.
Another way to describe the event would be to pose it as follows:
Q: How many times can a group of lawmakers use some variance of the phrase “belt-tightening” in a thirty minute press conference?
A: Considerably more than you would think.
Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown (D-Spokane), acting somewhat gubernatorial in her initiation of hard budget cuts, kicked off the afternoon presser by announcing the news that, in light of recent gloomy budget news, the state Senate would begin cutting operations in order to save money even before final cuts are made later on in the session.
Those cuts include reducing administrative budgets and freezing salaries, hiring, travel and major spending.
Brown emphasized repeatedly that the actions Democrats were taking had bipartisan support across the board, though Republicans used their position to talk some too-little-too-late smack, with state Sen. Joe Zarelli telling the Tacoma News-Tribune’s Joe Turner that “we moved from a 52-inch waist to a 51-inch waist and we desperately need to get down to a 32-inch waist.”
Zarelli also told Turner that the Senate’s plan to wait until late February or early March would further hurt the state’s ability to maximize budget savings. Brown, however, reiterated during the press conference that cuts for the sake of cuts were unwise, and that her caucus would be “deliberative as well as urgent.”
Sen. Rodney Tom (D-Mercer Island), who himself may seek greener pastures in the future, added that this move was more than just financially important, it was necessary to show the public that their elected officials have a real “sense of urgency” and that through across the board cuts the message they hoped to put across was that “we are all in this together.”
Tom also added, on multiple occasions, that the Senate plan goes above and beyond the governor’s call, citing a $78 million figure from the governor’s office compared with the $105 million that the state Senate aimed to cut.
House Democrats are also hoping to instigate some budget cuts, though they are taking the more traditional approach of calling for an early action budget bill.
“We appreciate what the Senate did in dropping an early action bill,” said House Ways & Means chair Rep. Kelli Linville (D-Bellingham), and added that the House was taking the more traditional route of creating a fast-tracked budget bill, evoking President Obama’s call for a line-by-line budget review.
“Everybody is going to share the pain,” she added.
Linville appeared tempted, but ultimately refused to give any examples of specific budget cuts prior to caucus meetings, which were set to take place after the conference. She did, however, say that they were hoping to save about $300 million from this budget, which would carry forward into $600 million during the next biennium.
Still, in spite of all the gloomy news for those on the wrong end of the budget machete, the day was not totally without cheer.
When the press conference opened up to questions from the gathered hacks, the politicians responded with the kind of comedy gold that tends to be glaringly absent from the political trail that we have been following for the last year and a half.
A couple of examples:
Asked who would be the watchdog for the coming budget cuts, Brown jokingly responded that it would have to be the seven or eight gathered journos, before immediately amending her answer to say that it would instead be the doomed P-I, which was greeted with equal amount of groans and chuckles.
Sen. Jim Hargrove (D-Hoquiam), meanwhile, did his best Dark Helmet impression when he stated that the Senate Dems would be working at, I kid you not, “ludicrous speed” in order to get the budget cuts rolling.
I suggest they go on a comedy tour with proceeds going toward paying down the budget deficit. Watch out, Paul Blart, Washington State Senate Democrats are gunning for you.
What a bunch of clowns! And these are the idiots who are running this state? Heaven help us!
Why don’t they start their cost cutting by rescinding the 25% pay increase Queen Christine gave to thousands of state workers. To pay a guy $80,000 a year plus benefits to cut grass at Western State is a joke.
@1 Cite please? I guarantee no one is paid $80K to cut grass. There are damned few state employees who make that much. The state doesn’t pay most of its engineers, accountants, and lawyers that much.
Let me explain something about hiring and pay freezes. A hiring freeze means existing employees have to do more work. A pay freeze means they have to do it for less money.
The state has never been a high-paying employer. For decades, state jobs have paid below market and a succession of legislatures have left salary surveys unfunded. Generations of legislators found it easier to shortchange their workforce than cut programs, and for as long as anyone can remember, state budgets have been balanced on the backs of state employees, who mostly just took it, although I can remember at least two wildcat strikes.
No one works for free, jackass. The state’s practice of underpaying and overworking its line employees has led to high turnover. This translates into higher recruiting and training costs, lower quality services from less experienced workers, costs resulting from higher error rates and more mistakes, and low morale that stifles productivity. There ain’t no free lunch in this world. When you underpay and overwork your employees, you pay for it in other ways.
Gregoire’s pay increase for state employees came at a time when many state positions were paying 20% to 40% below market and state employees hadn’t had a COLA for the previous two budget cycles. Without that pay raise, state employees would have gone 6 years without a COLA. This occurred at a time of high inflation and skyrocketing prices for food and fuel. Gregoire didn’t do this out of the goodness of her heart — at some point, if you neglect pay long enough, people can’t afford to work for you. Gregoire’s pay raises didn’t fully fund the salary survey or bring state pay up to competitive levels — most state jobs are still underpaid. And most state workers continue to be overworked.
If you think state employment is a cushy deal, why don’t you apply for a state job, and show us how long you’re willing to do that much work for so little pay. Frankly, I don’t think you could cut a state job.
Next time, get some basic facts before you blow smoke out of your ass.
I’ve always felt the state spread itself too thin by trying to do too many things with too few resources. The result is that everything is underfunded and nothing is done well.
This is a natural byproduct of a system that elects the people who make financial management decisions. Their motivation is to make constituents happy, not write workable budgets.
And then you have the Republican faction that perpetually wants to starve state government of funding but at the same time lacks the political courage to say “no” to constituents who want state services. This silliness reached its nadir when gubernatorial candidate Rossi pandered to his ignorant base by promising to build an 8-lane 520 bridge for $1 billion less than a 6-lane bridge costs, without explaining how he intended to do that. (The reason he didn’t is because he didn’t know how, and didn’t have a plan to make it work. All he had was hot air.)
If this recession is as severe as it’s shaping up to be, the best survival strategy for state leaders, and especially the legislature, will be to focus the state’s limited resources. Some state functions, programs, and departments may have to go. Tough decisions will have to be made about what services we must have, and what we can live without.
This is likely to involve things like releasing criminals to the streets and making sparsely populated areas of the state do without fancy paved roads. Nearly half the state budget goes for K-12 education, which by constitutional prescription is the state’s core function and funding priority. Most of the rest goes to prisons, transportation, and social spending. The biggest chunk of social spending pays nursing homes to take care of elderly indigent people who can’t live in their own homes, have no one to take care of them, and need skilled nursing care to stay alive. If you eliminate that spending, what are you going to do with those people, put them on the curb to die? I want to know what your plan for those people is before I’ll let you say that spending can be eliminated or reduced, because if you don’t have a viable plan to take care of those people in some other way, you’re just blowing empty rhetoric out of your ass.
About a quarter of the state budget comes from federal funding. When you cut the programs that money pays for, you lose the federal funding. For example, the vocational rehabilitation program run by DSHS is federally mandated and is 100% federally funded. You don’t save a penny of state funding by eliminating that program.
Many other state programs are self-funded. For example, licensing and regulatory programs typically are supported by user fees. The Horse Racing Commission, which regulates the horse racing industry in Washington state, is supported entirely by fees and eliminating that agency and its regulatory function would not save a penny of General Fund money.
The state has over 200 agencies and commissions, but most of them are too small to make a dent in the state budget, and many have self-funding mechanisms. What this means is that the constituencies that want the services those agencies provide pay for them through user fees. Eliminating or reducing the budgets of those agencies doesn’t save a penny of General Fund money.
A number of the state’s larger agencies and functions are wholly or largely funded by dedicated taxes. These include unemployment benefits, injured workers’ compensation, and transportation.
Injured workers’ compensation was a historic compromise between business and labor reached in the early 20th century. If you want to eliminate this program and end government involvement in workplace injuries, fine, then let’s reinstate the right to sue employers for workplace injuries. What we have right now is a no-fault system that guarantees medical care and partial wage replacement to injured workers and employers get a cap on awards and predictable costs, paid for by employers and employees, with the state acting as the program administrator. If you want to eliminate the agency and program, then expect to see it replaced with a tort system under which injured workers can sue employers for whatever a jury is willing to award them. The reason we don’t have a tort system, and do have the Department of Labor and Industries, is because no one wants the system that existed before the creation of workers’ comp programs.
So, you see, saving money for taxpayers by cutting state spending isn’t as easy as it looks. The truth is, the only General Fund spending that’s large enough to make a real dent in the state budget is education and prisons. You can save $6 billion by eliminating publicly-funded colleges and high schools, and cutting the prison population by two-thirds. The situation is somewhat similar at the local level. Well over half of King County’s budget is spent on law enforcement, courts, and jails, and the only way you can make deep cuts in county spending is by cutting back on law enforcement and incarceration, which means more criminals on the streets.
I was in Olympia last Monday. I spoke to my legislators about taxes. I am a low income advocate and, since the poor in this state pay more of their income in taxes than the rich, I am incensed that this fact is not even on the radar. According to the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy ( http://www.itepnet.org ) Boeing has not paid ONE RED CENT in taxes. Indeed they have gotten over $1,000,000,000.00 (a Billion dollars) back from the government!
Small business and citizens make up the bulk of Washington State’s tax revenue, and the bigger companies and the rich pay little or nothing. Furthermore, if these deadbeats did pay the same taxes as the poor ~ or even what they should pay, our so-called “deficit” would be wiped out and we would indeed have few problems with our funding. I know the rich would scream bloody murder if the percentage of their taxes were anything NEAR what the poor pay (the poor pay around 17% of their incomes), but if they even paid what they were supposed to pay, we would be in far better shape.
Do the math: 17% of a low income wage of $10,000 is $1700.00, which leaves around $675.00 per month to live upon. 17% of $100,000 is $17,000.00 and leaves about $6,750.00 per month to live on. Tell me which one would pay the rent and buy food better for even a large family if they paid what the poor pay?
Senator Darlene Fairley told me she wished that the rich would pay more. She tried to tell me the B & O tax was higher than anywhere else in the nation and it was “a myth” that the corporations were not paying taxes ~ until I pointed out to her that, yes it was the highest ~ for SMALL businesses who pay through the nose, but large coporations were getting away with paying NADA or less than half of what they should pay. We did agree as well that rich individuals pay little or nothing and their taxes should be increased.
Here are some charts as to who pays what according to the ITEP: http://www.itepnet.org/wp2000/wa%20pr.pdf
I am not sure how we can revamp this horrible inequality, but I DO know and Senator Fairley agreed, that if there was ever a time when our legislators and governor are whining about “the deficit” then now is the time to begin the conversation as to a restructuring or our taxes so that the way we raise our revenue does not unduly burden the middle class and poor.
My 2 cents,
Cat in Seattle
Addendum: Please, PLEASE would someone with some credibility other than low income people who will never be heard and who are bowing under the horrible burden of carrying the rich, TALK about TAXES and the way they are paid???? Or is it time for another Boston Tea Party???
PLEASE!
Cat In Seattle
This scene reminds me of something. Something recent. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
http://www.time.com/time/photo.....75,00.html
Rogerrabbitfucker leaps to the defense of government employees. Who says that government HAS to match private industry? Half the government fuckoffs wouldn’t/couldn’t last in the real world and that’s why they went into government in the first place. They are supposed to be “public servants” but they act like they own the fucking place.
You missed the part at the end where Lynn Kessler foolishly said that she wishes the Republicans were in charge to deal with this.
@4
“Do the math: 17% of a low income wage of $10,000 is $1700.00, which leaves around $675.00 per month to live upon. 17% of $100,000 is $17,000.00”
Who paid more taxes again?
My issue with “the poor” argument and example you present are that MOST people don’t earn $10,000/year. In fact, based on our states min wage, the min year income is ~17,000.00/yr. Secondly, the majority of people earning minimum wage are people entering the work force. It’s a starting point, not a level by which to attempt to live ones whole working career. I’m speaking about the majority, there of course are exeptions.
John425 @ 7: Please be sure to tell the state trooper that when he pulls you over for speeding. I’m sure he will appreciate your view of his efforts and qualifications.
That retarded guy John said:
“What a bunch of clowns! And these are the idiots who are running this state? Heaven help us!”
There is no Heaven Johnboy – and who is the idiot? If you don’t like how things turned out in the election – go somewhere else.
But in THIS state, Dems rule. THIS state is wise enough to know that Dems will do a better job with the economy.
Had Rossi been in power during the last four years, things would have been 10 TIMES WORSE. His asshole buddies at the builders association would have ruined our quality of life, ruined our air, ruined our pocketbooks and left tons of unfinished projects darting our landscape.
You better get down on your knees boy and be thankful we LET you stay here in this great DEMOCRATIC state.
We run things. Tough shit you don’t like it. There’s nothing you can do about it. We’re going to set the agenda. You’re going to follow it. That’s how it works.
@4 High earners don’t pay 17% of their income in state/local taxes. It’s more like 4%.
@5 We’ve been talking about tax inequity and the need for tax reform for a long time on this blog.
@7 Yes, it does take people of above-average education and intelligence, not to mention motivation and energy, to do most government jobs. Government work is very demanding, and a lot of private sector workers couldn’t do it. That’s a fact, whether you’re willing to acknowledge it or not. No one gets away with paying day-labor wages for highly skilled work. If you don’t want to pay for police dispatchers, don’t expect anyone to pick up the phone when you dial 9-1-1 because a burglar broke into your house.
If that belt tightens much more it’ll be around our ankles. The fat was cut from the state budget long ago. They’re cutting into bone and sinew now. We’re close to letting criminals out of prison because we can’t afford to keep them off the streets.
Great news. Another Bush regime policy ended. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28812519/
Read this and cry you right wing turds. Abortion is legal. Get over it!
To Right Stuff:
I hope you know that the “average” income is computed including the incomes from TWO OF THE RICHEST MEN IN THE WORLD who live here, Paul Allen and Bill Gates ~ and shall we not *even* mention the likes of the Wearhauser, United Parcels, Starbucks, and Nordstrom families, and their like.
Also you might redo your math. Before taxes a minimum wage job yields around $14784.00 per year IF they were to work a 40 hour week, which most of the time they do not. Most of those jobs are only part time.
So I would not jump to the conclusion that $10,000 per year is not a common income for We The People, the unwashed masses, which btw, I never said was average. For the sake of simplicity, I was just trying to demonstrate in an easy way what the difference between the classes pay by using round numbers.
However I still contend that 10 grand is not something that few people earn, most entry level jobs pay less because many are only part time. And please, do not assume that those jobs mean that you will “move up” sometime. They do not offer such wonderful benefits, they only take all a person’s time just to make ends meet, spending all their time struggling to put out the fires that follow not being paid enough to eat, such as homelessness, transportation and childcare woes, freezing because they cannot afford the heat, etc Nobody sees this “experience” as anything valuable, few employers see that work as valuable at all. In those jobs you *don’t* “move up the ladder” you just get more work and a new title without the pay raise, if you get anything at all.
Also as a lifetime low wage worker worker, most workers make far less in real wages to even make it to middle class, they are the secretaries, the book keepers, the food workers, the janitors~ especially government workers. Their work is hard, unrelenting and full of being the ones who take the heat from the public AND management.
Meanwhile corporate management will often take for themselves even the paid retirement money that their subordinates paid out of their wages. If anyone DESERVES 100 grand per year it is the lowly janitor, but of course they only take the heat from the likes of people from ALL sides who think they should be paid starving wages, while no one questions that they pay more taxes than the CEO of their company who pays nothing and has the right to confiscate even the pensions their workers have earned ~ it happens all the time. It happens so the CEO can use it for themselves and give themselves those golden parachutes, who cares if the company workers were the ones who made them rich?
Also I would like to draw attention to something else: State workers are usually UNION workers. Too bad that corporations and their brainwashed workers let them work for crap wages. It is largely the fault of cheap corporations who hire the workers lacking the spine and the unity to stand up and demand to have a union and decent wages and create policies and laws to make sure that our corporations and ALL citizens, including the rich, live up to commitments to their communities and their nation.
Then perhaps if people were not such idiots, letting the greedy profit while they themselves starve, maybe We The People, like other parts of the world in developed countries, would get paid decently ~ and still have a decent safety net and lifestyle as well as health care. But nope we have to worship the wealthy and equate having a lot of money as somehow more moral and deserving more than the rest of us ~ even if the wealthy do take what they have literally out of the mouths of innocent babes …
My 2 cents …
@17
This is how I calculated my numbers.
First the min wage is now $8.55/hr.
http://www.lni.wa.gov/workplac.....efault.asp
40hrs per week, x 52 weeks = 2080 hours X 8.55
Now to address the rest;
I think that we will not agree, based on philosophical differences. I do not begrudge “rich” people their wealth. Why? Because we are all free to pursue wealth if that is our priority and goal. Life is not fair. Life is not equal.
If a job is not paying well, we are free to pursue other jobs…If my job does not have a career path or room to advance, I’m free to find one that does….We have choices….
Choices to work, have kids, etc etc etc.
God, how I hate it when people don’t have enough fucking common sense to distinguish between opinion and fact. Dipshit @7 spews, “Half the government fuckoffs wouldn’t/couldn’t last in the real world and that’s why they went into government in the first place.”
When you want to argue against something that has consequences, such as pay increases for a whole slew of people, you look like a fuckwit when you base your entire argument on a “statistic” pulled right out of your ass like that.
And, speaking of fuckwits, across-the-board budget decreases are so stupid I’m embarassed for anyone who actually is ignorant enough to publicly propose them. That’s like telling an entire family they each need to lose 10% of their weight, just because the father has gotten fat. That might work great for dad, but not for his 105 pound cheerleader daughter or his 140 pound track star son.
MntLeo2 spewed:
Hmmm… I think you can thank Gary Locke and the Donkey Legislature & Senate for the Boeing Tax breaks. Remember when Boeing moved headquarters to Illinois and the state got into a tizzy over it?
Man why can’t Donkey remember anything?