Tighten your belts or lose your pants

By Lynn Harsh, Evergreen Freedom Foundation

A significant number of legislators recently announced their intention not to run for office again. I can’t blame them.

The 2002 Legislature left a legacy that reminds me of Henry the VIII’s, except that lawmakers who lost their heads this year don’t seem to have noticed it yet. Which may answer the question most of us around here are asking: Whatever were they thinking?

It was an amazing session. Lawmakers decided, for example, that most of the voters who approved the anti-trapping initiative several years ago (I-713) understood its implications, including that beady-eyed little mammals would have free reign to tear up the lawns in our homes and parks.

But as for I-601 that limited government spending . . . well, they decided we didn’t really understand that one. So the majority party killed it for us, unlike the beady-eyed little mammals, which they decided we can’t touch.

Legislators killed I-601 because they didn’t have enough money to cover their expenditures, but at the same time, they were unwilling to tackle the billions in state spending that had been identified in audits as mismanaged or wasted.

Remember the report from our State Auditor about lots of missing taxpayer-funded drugs at Western State Hospital? Did they dog that down? No! Maybe later.

What about the millions of missing dollars paid by ferry passengers? Did they close that gap? Not yet.

And the tens of thousands of ineligible people receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded health care: Will those people get the boot? Well, lawmakers did ask nicely if the Health Care Authority wouldn’t do something about that little problem.

But the revenue that will have to be raised to pay for the big-spenders’ damage . . . that money will be tapped soon. Serious conversation about an income tax will surface before year’s end.

While leaders in the majority party for the 2002 Legislature proved inept at budget cutting and waste busting, they did exhibit other skills. Try this on for size. They said we could have efficiencies in transportation, but only if we first approved their gas tax package. They would entertain the concept of contracting-out transportation projects to the private sector, but only if no current state employee jobs are lost in the process. A polite way to describe this special legislative faculty escapes me.

Another skill displayed by the 2002 Legislature was finding and closing "loopholes" businesses were "unfairly" using. Those bad, bad businesses aren’t regulated enough and they are not paying their fair share of taxes. Sadly, the legislature’s remedies are certain to drive more businesses right out of our state, increasing the more than100,000 high-paid jobs we have already lost.

Oh, and we mustn’t forget lawmakers unique linguistic skills. Who among us plain folk would have thunk up the phrase "tobacco securitization?" For those of you who are still unenlightened about this concept, it’s big – really BIG. It’s so big that the legislature declared its passage to be an emergency; absolutely necessary for the "immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety, or support of state government and its existing institutions. . . ."

So what is it? It’s the new "public policy of the state and a recognized governmental function to assist in securitizing the revenue stream from the master settlement agreement between the state and tobacco product manufacturers. . . ."

Still don’t get it? How’s this: The legislature needed to get out of town with skin still on their backsides after authorizing spending more money than they had or will have in available revenue. So they decided to allow the sale of future revenue from the tobacco settlement – sales that will not allow us a dollar’s worth of return on each dollar we could have received. This one-time, short-sighted revenue fix will cost us plenty, but it was easier to arrange than cutting program budgets that would offend their special-interest constituents.

And we mustn’t forget Big Game gambling that our state officials decided would be a good government-sponsored industry to help put money in state coffers. Of course, legislators also decided to shift $500,000 previously marked for violence prevention and drug enforcement toward treatment for pathological gamblers. Don’t it make you feel proud!

(Just thinking about pathological gamblers makes me want to revisit the subject of lawmakers and the tobacco securitization deal.)

But I’m being pretty tough, because some legislators did behave courageously. They said so themselves. Mercy me, I hope you were paying attention to their act of courage. On the final day of session, many leaders in the majority party were pounding their chests proclaiming their courage...for adjourning on time.

The truth is, if they had spent one more day in this town behaving like monarchy, they’d have been crowned for sure, if you get my drift.

My advice to retiring legislators: Don’t tell anyone where you were in 2002.

My advice to returning legislators: You might want to choose between tightening your belts right now or losing your pants come election day.

Disclaimer: Voters have sent some fiscally conservative, free-market loving legislators to Olympia. They just don’t happen to be in the majority right now. Furthermore, the break does not always occur along party lines. Some Democrats vigorously protect free-market ideals and a few Republicans vote as if government is Mecca. Most of the "blame" for what is written above rests with Democrat leaders, Democrat followers and Republicans who "got something" they decided was worth trading. Many lawmakers are as distressed as we are about the results of this session. My hat is off to those legislators who have sorted out their preferences from their principles and, having done so, stand unbent on principle.

Living Liberty is the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's monthly newsletter. It provides updates on the issues and projects EFF is currently working on. You will also find commentary on state and sometimes federal government issues.

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Contact: Lynn Harsh, Executive Director, (360) 956-3482

Evergreen Freedom Foundation P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874 Email: effwa@effwa.org