Tag: Special Session

Boeing, Special Sessions, Tax Policy, and Transportation

I’m in Olympia today at the behest of Governor Inslee. He called us in to, in his words:

“I am asking lawmakers to pass a package of legislation that will guarantee that the Boeing 777X and its carbon fiber wing are built in Washington state,” Inslee said at a press conference today where he was joined by a bipartisan group of legislators, Boeing’s Ray Conner, chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. In addition, Machinist union officials Tom Wroblewski, president, Mark Johnson, aerospace coordinator, and Rich Michalski, general vice president, joined the group.

“If we can do this in the next seven days, we can be certain that Washington’s aerospace future will be as bright as its past,” said Inslee.

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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 revenue outlook for Washington State has declined by about $2 billion dollars since we left Olympia in the Spring. Our budget for 2011-13 was lower than the 2009-11 budget, which was lower than the 2007-09 budget. The 2011-13 budget was my first budget as chair of the Ways and Means committee and we tried hard to have a transparent, rational, and responsible budget.

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