Costly denial
by Bob Williams

For more than a year, state lawmakers have known we face severe budget problems. For the past six months, ongoing bad news has placed our state’s economy on the critical list. The response by our elected leaders has been to deny the severity of the problem, therefore delaying remedies. Their inaction may mean an income tax in our future.

You’ve seen it in the media: Washington faces a $2-2.5 billion deficit in the 2003-05 budget, not counting another $552 million deficit in the Health Services Fund. Largely unreported and unnoticed is that the state is currently spending $1.5 billion more than it will bring in by the time this budget year is over (next July). This is laying a disastrous foundation for 2003-05.

This problem can largely be attributed to Governor Gary Locke. Had the governor complied with the Budget and Accounting Act (requiring a balanced budget) when the problem first became apparent—ordering across-the-board cuts and calling a special session of the legislature—we would not be in today’s fix.

Instead, the governor has tried to satisfy his political allies—the teacher union and public employees—and has allowed the crises to grow daily.

Amazingly, the governor still travels the state, talking tough and giving speeches that sound as if he is on top of this. But we have heard this talk with little corresponding action for six years now. One year ago, we said, “The real problem is, while Governor Locke has given us a lot of rhetoric, he has not taken any decisive action. This is in keeping with his habit, over the last five years. . . . He intends to study the problem, wait until the regular session starts, talk about solutions and perhaps implement some cuts by July of next year.” Unfortunately we have been correct.

For example, at a September 2002 speech to the Association of Washington Business (AWB), the governor made no mention of higher taxes to help fill the deficit. In an interview after his speech, the governor said his plan is to balance the budget without raising taxes.

If the governor meant what he said, he would take action now, not wait until next year. Doing so would save money for the rest of this two-year budget period (November 2002-June 2003) and all of the next biennium.

Governor Locke must be counting on the fact that most people have short memories. Last year the governor spoke with great conviction and said:

It has always been my motto that we should do a few things very, very well instead of doing so many things in a mediocre fashion.

I think the time has come in which we’ve got to rethink that [across-the-board-cuts]. Better to eliminate whole lines of businesses and keep core functions in place much as the private sector does. What are your core missions? What are your core business functions – keep those in tact, support them. Make those strong and get rid of the other things.

Governor, we are still waiting for you to act.

Then, in his 2002 State-of-the-State, Governor Locke said, “If we don’t act, who will? These problems won’t fix themselves. We must rise to the challenge. We must accept risk. We must act.”

Yes, so what are you waiting for, governor?

Legislators seem to have the same denial problem. Key legislators on the budget committees decided the state was not in a crisis. Simply put, that is denial of reality, unless they believe taxpayers can be counted on to post budget bail. A $2-2.5 billion deficit, accompanied by more than $500 million in deficit in the health services fund is a huge problem that should agitate them into immediate action.

But, then, there’s the November election...and the “other guy” who can be blamed. Right now, we are cherished as the electorate, but scorned as taxpayers.

Solutions
Failure to make certain cuts now will cost taxpayers billions in the very near future. And it will unnecessarily hurt innocent people. Now is the time to make tough decisions. We urge our readers to pressure legislators to begin seriously addressing the state’s budget deficits before year’s end. If they say they want to wait until January, tell them it is too late.

1. The governor should implement a freeze on all new state hiring and spending. Had Governor Locke frozen spending at the June 30, 2001 level, which we recommended last year, taxpayers would have saved $1.7 billion. Every day the governor waits, the deficit grows.

2. The governor should request that each caucus (House Democrats, Senate Republicans; House Republicans, Senate Democrats) send their budget writing legislators to Olympia to work on an emergency task force with the governor’s Budget Director. The Task Force should review agency mission statements, goals and objectives and the ranking of programs for the largest 15 agencies. This will yield a gold mine of important budget cutting information.

This task force should then examine the delivery system for K-12 education, transportation, higher education, health care, and the Dept of Social and Health Services. In every case they will find the delivery system is dysfunctional, with money appropriated by the legislature not getting to its intended place.

3. The governor should direct his agencies to implement the audit reports from the State Auditor and the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.

It is clearly time for the governor and legislative leaders to act.

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