Gov. Chris Gregoire’s announcement Thursday that she will propose new taxes to help close a yawning $2.6 billion state budget deficit drew quiet agreement and sharp criticism from two Clark County lawmakers who sit on the budget-writing Senate Ways and Means Committee.
Gregoire told Olympia reporters, “We’re at a point now where there’s no doubt in my mind I can’t live with” an all-cuts budget. “I can’t cut hospice care. I can’t cut maternity care. I can’t cut all state need grants. I can’t do that. That’s not my values, and I don’t believe it’s the values of the people of the state of Washington.”
Gregoire did not specify what taxes she would propose when she releases her 2010-11 budget in mid-December. Her statement was released by TVW, a public affairs television channel.
Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver, said he sat through a sobering presentation in the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee Thursday about what $2.6 billion in cuts would mean.
He said he found the prospect unacceptable.
Pridemore has already indicated he will support new taxes on the wealthy to help balance the budget.
The hypothetical all-cuts budget would eliminate K-12 levy equalization; voter-approved funds to reduce class size; all state financial aid to college students; all other state funding for higher education except that required to keep receiving federal funding; all in-home services for clients who need long-term care, including developmentally disabled adults; all general assistance cash grants and medical aid for the poor; what’s left of the Basic Health Plan for the working poor; and all optional coverage of prescription drugs for adults.
“All of those so-called discretionary cuts get you to $2.1 million,” Pridemore said. To get to $2.6 billion, he said, the state would also have to cut all remaining state agencies by 12 percent across the board.
“I think that members are finally realizing how dire the circumstances really are,” he said.
Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, agreed that the cuts outlined in the presentation were not feasible. “A lot of these things are basic services we can’t cut,” he said.
But Zarelli said there are other options.
“What we saw in Ways and Means was not the whole picture,” he said. “The governor has been trying to indicate that most of the budget is off-limits. What no one is talking about is the reform option.”
Rather than eliminate Basic Health, he said, “we could implement co-pays for people on those health plans. We could implement $2 prescription co-pays.” The general assistance program for the poor could be restructured to make it more fiscally accountable, he said.
He also criticized Gregoire for maintaining state employees’ contribution to their health care premiums at 12 percent, despite the budget crisis. The state continues to pay the other 88 percent.
“Is that really indicative of a government that is trying to take care of the needs of fragile, vulnerable people?” he asked.
If the state doesn’t restructure the services it provides, Zarelli said, it will face another budget deficit in the billions of dollars in the 2011-13 budget cycle. That’s because there won’t be federal stimulus funds to fill the revenue gap, and the option of borrowing from pension and other funds, as the Legislature did this year, won’t be available.
“That’s why I think we don’t have a choice except to drive down the cost of government,” Zarelli said.
