Washington State, like most of the nation, has been dealing with budget shortfalls for years, and has an anticipated shortfall for the next two year period of between 1 and 1.5 BILLION dollars.
Today, the Democrats who control the Legislature put forward their plan...the biggest part of which calls for $400 Million worth of school funding to be pushed into the 2013 budget cycle.
When even the Seattle Times calls your plan a gimmick, the time might be coming to actually SOLVE the problem instead of just pushing it onto the next guys.
The plan also does SOME cutting...10 million here from the Department of Correction, 5 Million from the State Patrol over 'assumed' staffing reductions, and $26 Million from Mental Health Programs.
Finally, it bypasses the will of the people again. Because many of the cuts are expected to be felt on a local level, the new budget plan allows large counties(>250,000) to increase the sales tax rate by .1%, and small counties to increase the sales tax rate by .2%. Since this increase would be taking place at the county level, it doesn't violate Initiative 1053, which requires that taxes can only be raised at the state level by a 2/3rds vote of the Legislature, or a majority vote by the People.
Be interesting to see what they blow off in two years. Part of me wants to say Vote the Bums out, but the other part of me wants to see them all have to come back and take care of their problems.
No comments:
Post a Comment