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Budget “down-payment” will be heard today
OLYMPIA – A bipartisan plan to take a big bite out of the projected $2 billion state budget shortfall will be heard Monday by the House Ways and Means Committee. The bill, sponsored by Chair Ross Hunter, D-Medina, makes $479.7 million in cuts to the 2011-13 budget, which was initially adopted last spring. Since then,…
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Slow-Motion Default in Wenatchee
I’m disappointed that the Legislature failed to address the slow-motion financial default in progress in Wenatchee. 7 cities and 2 counties got together and agreed to build an arena in Wenatchee. They used a stream of money from the state plus the expected “operating profits” from the arena to get a construction loan in 2008,…
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K-12 Funding Proposal – Additional Data
I am posting CSV versions of the two data tables as several people have requested the data in searchable formats. We are typically careful about doing this as people can manipulate the data in ways that say different things than the original presentation did, and I’m hoping people are careful with it. The proposal will…
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K-12 Funding Proposal – Local Levy Swap
I’m stepping outside my role as Ways and Means chairman to put out a personal proposal for comment. The idea described below is a big one, moving around about a billion dollars in property taxes that are used for the support of public schools. I’m giving a speech on this topic Saturday morning at the…
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WA Budget – Proposed Agency Cuts Explanations
I used this document in a caucus discussion of the proposed agency cuts and thought it might be interesting to people. It’s a long PDF with a duplicate copy of the spreadsheet referenced in my last budget post. To understand the spreadsheet you need to read the earlier post first. There are 6 pages here…
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Good Washington Post Op-Ed on Federal Budget
Rep. Alan Simpson (former GOP senator from Wyoming) and Erskine Bowles (former Clinton budget director) produced a difficult but rational plan for dealing with the pernicious federal budget/debt/economy problem. It’s difficult because it asks people to leave their sacred cows at the door and discuss real problems like adults. An op-ed in the Washington Post…
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WA State Budget Update – Special Session
The papers today are reporting that Governor Gregoire is calling us (the legislature) into a special session, most likely in late November after the next revenue forecast. This is a good idea, as doing so will give us about 3 more months of traction on whatever changes we make. As you may have heard, the…
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Washington State Revenue Forecast
I don’t comment much on the “other Washington” but I have to say that I’m a little frustrated at the game of “chicken” we’re seeing played, and the impact we expect it to have here in “our Washington.” The foodfight they had about the debt limit had drastic impacts on consumer and investor confidence, and…
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Continuing Economic Distress
This is a fascinating chart that shows the difference between the current recession and everything after the Great Depression. As you go further back in time the data become less and less comparable to today’s situation, so we can’t really look at the craziness in the 19th century. I’m reading a lot of economics these…
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Healthcare cost reduction: non-obvious solutions
If you’re interested in how to reduce healthcare costs you might want to watch this Frontline video from PBS. http://video.pbs.org/video/2070853636/ It’s about an article Dr. Atul Gowande wrote in the New Yorker in January that is an amazing look into non-obvious cost generation. It’s a long read, and a solution that tries to deal with…