1. As you read this, Morning Fizz is driving South on I-5 to Olympia on our way to Gov. Chris Gregoire’s 9 am press conference where she’s expected to release an all-cuts budget in response to the $2.6 billion budget shortfall.
From the reporting we did yesterday, (talking to low-income health care advocates and the governor’s office) it sounds like Gregoire’s budget is going to eliminate the state’s Basic Health Plan, which provides inexpensive health care to the “working poor”—people making 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or $36,000 for a family of three and $21,000 for one person. Eliminating the BHP would immediately leave about 65,000 low-income people without health care.
BHP enrollment was already scaled back from about 100,000 people earlier this year during last session’s $9 billion budget crisis when the plan took a 43 percent hit (a $255 million cut), eliminating 35,000 people and bringing the $593 million program down to a $340 million program.
Higher education, K-12 funding, state prisons, long-term care, and economic services are among the other things on the chopping block along with the BHP—totaling $7.7 billion in discretionary dollars .
Of course—and the governor’s office told me this yesterday—the all-cuts budget is exhibit A in Gregoire’s case to raise taxes. (She’s coming back with an alternative budget in January that will propose new taxes to restore today’s dramatic cuts.) The governor is required to propose a balanced budget within currently available revenues.
The Republicans, who we also checked in with yesterday, are wise to Gregoire’s tax increase game plan. They are dead set against tax increases. Unlike Democrats who believe cutting government services will create a recessionary spiral, the GOP believes increased taxes will create a recessionary spiral.
The Republican’s mantra to ward of tax increases: Don’t cut the budget. Reform it.
No, the GOP isn’t calling for a progressive tax system. (Footnote: A recent study found that Washington state has the most regressive tax system in the country—meaning the poorest people pay the biggest percentage of their incomes on sales, property and excise taxes; the middle class pays a smaller percentage of their incomes on taxes; and the rich pay the smallest percentage of their incomes on taxes—17.3, 7.6, and 2.9 percent respectively.)
The GOP leadership is calling for more efficient programs—a fuel efficient car rather than a gas guzzler, they argue, is a better way to balance the budget than junking the car altogether. One GOP staffer asks rhetorically: “Do you take a machete to the budget or do you look at different programs and reform them and get them to run more efficiently?”
Republicans say:
•Put a time limit on the availability of General Assistance for the Unemployable (GAU).
•Re: the BHP: Eligibility requirements should be tightened. (Again, the BHP is currently available to the “working poor,” people making 200 percent of the federal poverty level.)
•Rein in union-mandated pay increases. State Sen. Joe Zarelli (R-18), for example, says even though Gov. Gregoire pledged to freeze state employee salaries, she has made $83 million in pay raises thanks to timid bargaining with the state employees unions.
Finally, the GOP tells PubliCola the governor should follow the “Priorities in Government” approach developed by former Democratic Governor Gary Locke and then-state Sen. Dino Rossi, which creates a priority list of government programs. The theory: You look at available revenues and, checking off each item, you fund as far down the priorities list as you can go.
The problem, as Gov. Gregoire will likely lay it out this morning, is that when available revenues can’t even get you as far down the list as prisons and the Basic Health Plan, you’re in trouble.
2. There were two big stories yesterday re: national health care reform.
A) In muddled news for liberals, a compromise among bickering Democrats turned the public option (the holy grail for liberals) into a third string back up if private insurers failed to provide affordable plans through a federally regulated system.
Huffington Post has a good mash-up of all the articles, including news about Sen. Maria Cantwell’s leadership role extending federally funded coverage to people making 300 percent of the poverty level through state-run plans by giving states more negotiating power with insurance companies. Sen. Cantwell’s key amendment—which we noted a few weeks ago—is modeled on Washington state’s, um, Basic Health Plan.
B) Liberal Democrats scored a clearer victory earlier in the day when the senate voted 54-45 for a measure to table conservative Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson’s (D-NE) amendment to ban federal funds for health plans that cover abortions.
Here’s the roll call. A ‘yea’ vote means yes, I want to table Sen. Nelson’s anti-choice amendment.
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Republican caucus should offer their own budget, detailing the cuts they’d make.
But they won’t. Because they don’t have a plan. All they have is the Reaganomic fantasy of tax cuts for the rich and trickle down spending.
At this point, I’m not sure they have the time or the resources to streamline all these programs, though I have to agree that every program in WA could use some serious tightening up. Dems know how to spend but they don’t really know how to use their money as a real investment, rather than just throwing it at programs.
Washington state has one of the lowest tax burdens for business in the US and most regressive tax burden for individuals.
Business lobbyists regularly and successfully argue that taxes to business need to be cut. Individuals end up picking up the tax burden relinquished by business. I am beginning to think that our elected officials just don’t understand tax policy at all and that they never validate the statistics that business lobbyists give them.
The elephant in the room in WA state tax reform is business. Due to the highly favorable climate that they currently enjoy, they are unlikely to support any changes to the system we have.
The cited study re: percentage of income paid into taxes at various income levels almost mirrors exactly the Gates study done in the early 2000′s (although I believe then the high-end earners were paying 3.3%…they’ve gotten a tax cut!)
It really is a shame the people of the State (who would be required to support an income tax due to the constitutional question) don’t really get it – most of them would benefit from a progressive income tax. *sigh*
And if the health care reform bill is going to open up the FEP for non-federal employees, then they really need to get some Mahler and Thiringer language into the bill.
The GOP is all criticism, no action. They won’t come up with a plan because they know its a no-win situation and they want to keep their hands clean so they have fodder for the next election. It’s much easier to sit on the sidelines and lob grenades about unions and waste and Democrats and government than it is to come up with a comprehensive budget package. Then there are the national GOP idiots like Hatch who say that if the GOP had control of the country, this never would have happened, conveniently forgetting that BECAUSE the GOP had control of the country for 8 years, this happened.
The Republicans have a simple plan – criticize whatever the Democrats do.
They say the state spends to much – but they won’t point to $2.6 billion worth of spending that they would cut, because they can’t. They’re simply devoid of real ideas.
All the Republicans ever talk about is some amorphous “waste, fraud and abuse” that should be eliminated, and they can’t even identify enough of that to cover 1/10th of the shortfall we’re looking at.
Meanwhile, they’re totally opposed to having a serious discussion about real tax reform. Whenever taxes come up, their Tourette’s kicks in and they yell “no new taxes!”
All of the short-term solutions are ugly – and the only long-term answer is to totally reform our revenue system to a more reliable progressive model.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen…
Why even talk about the GOP in this State? They’re nearly extinct, and until they are able to field a legitimate candidate with good ideas, they should be.
Let’s move on. Criticizing the GOP takes us away of asking hard questions of our actual State leaders and moving them toward solid and progressive solutions to the difficulties we face.
edit: “takes us away FROM asking hard questions…”
The fact that Washington is the most tax-regressive state has been the case for years and has been known by everyone for years; the “recent study” wasn’t needed. The elephant of tax reform has been in the room so long it’s died and people have moved out of the room in order to avoid it. With that kind of refusal to take action among both Republicans and Democrats, we no longer have a situation where we can simply reform our expenditures or streamline programs (and how do you “streamline” the Basic Health Plan except by cutting people off?). There is nothing to cut except things which will directly hurt people. People, not “unions”, not bureaucrats. Us, and people in our families, and people living next door (unless you live in Medina), and our friends. Show me a sector of Washington society that won’t be hurt by whatever we do now.
We are where we brought ourselves. No one else to blame.
@7 -
The reason we still have to talk about them, and worry about them, is that while the State and County Parties are terribly conservative, some districts manage to field palatable GOP candidates for the State House and Senate. The Eastside is still vulnerable, as are many Democratic seats in SW Washington, Snohomish and Pierce Counties, and NW Washington. We did just lose two seats in Eastern Washington this last November.
7. Because 40-50% of the state is still Republican?
No, because 40-50% of the state is still “Independent”. Look at Reichert’s district.