Washington State Budget Deficit Now $2.6 Billion in the Hole

Bad news for Washington State continues as declining tax revenues now put the state budget deficit at $2.6 billion. The November forecast by the Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council projected an additional decrease of $760 million in revenue over the previous forecast.

This $2.6 billion deficit is the decrease in revenue projected through June 30, 2011 of the current biennial budget cycle. In a press release from the State Office of Financial Management Governor Chris Gregoire comments that:

“Since the Legislature left in April, our revenues have continued to decline .... Our projected shortfall for the remainder of the biennium is an additional $2.6 billion, for a total gap this two-year budget period of $11.6 billion. That’s almost a third of our last budget. We have not seen a shortfall like this in 80 years.”

In a transcript of comments by Governor Gregoire posted on NPI Advocate, Gregoire stresses the seriousness and severity of the shortfall and states that:

"An all cuts budget is not the value of the people of the State of Washington. We must step up, do our responsibility to this State, and look for revenue to get the job done."

This will not be an east task.  First off the Legislature will have to repeal Tim Eyman's I-960 which requires the Legislature to pass by a 2/3 vote any tax or revenue increase or put it to a vote of the people. .  Under I-960 Eyman also required that the repeal of any existing tax exemption also required a 2/3 vote of the Legislature or a vote of the people. The Legislature needs to step up and do this.  The rejection of Eyman's I-1033 should give Legislators the needed courage to act to address the state's budget needs as voters overwhelming rejected Eyman's budget freeze proposal.

The Legislature has rested any real tax reform for years. We have a regressive tax structure on the state level that relies heavily on sales taxes.  Last year some 54% of state tax revenue came from sales taxes.  But as noted by Dr Arun Rahna in the press release from the Office of Financial Management:

"State revenues suffer when consumers hold back. The change in the revenue forecast is due mainly to a revised estimate of when households will regain the confidence to spend on the goods and services taat are subject to state taxes."

Meanwhile Washington State is 1 of only 7 states that do not have an income tax. Yet the conservative Tax Foundation says that we rank 8th highest in the country in terms of income per capita.

As a result we have once again been ranked as the most regressive states in the nation in terms of our state and local tax structure.  In the November 2009 Report by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy entitled "Who Pays?  A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in all 50 States", Washington State is rated as the most regressive state in the country.

As quoted on the Seattle PI blog Strange Bedfellows:

"The lack of a progressive income tax to offset regressive sales and excise taxes, as well as property taxes, is the most important factor in making the Washington tax system so regressive. Taxes ought to be based on people's ability to pay them, which means that the share of income paid in tax should rise as income grows, not fall sharply as is the case in Washington," said Matthew Gardner, executive director of the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy and the report's lead author.

As the "Who Pays?" Report notes, in Washington State, the poorest 20% of non-elderly taxpayers pay 17.3% of their income in taxes, the middle 60% pay 9.5%, and the top 1% pay only 2.9% of their income in taxes. Unless this disparity is corrected, any tax increase by the Legislature, like raising sales taxes or property taxes will only increase the tax burden on lower income taxpayers.

It's time for the citizens of this state and its political leaders to mount a real campaign for tax reform to correct the regressiveness of our tax system. Implementing a progressive income tax; while reducing regressive taxes like sales taxes; and either expanding the current Homestead Exemption now limited to low income seniors and the disabled or adding circuit breaker legislation to help low income homeowners and renters; are changes that need serious consideration and action.

The state is waiting for leadership. The question is who will step forward.  There is no better time than now to reform our tax system. If we don't reform our broken system we can expect more measures like I-1033 to continue to fill this vacuum of leadership by progressives and liberals and those in the middle.

"The moral challenge of our generation"

In advance of the December 2009 meeting in Copenhagen on climate change, the UN Environmental Program released in September a 68 page Climate Change Science Compendium. Ban Ki-moon the Secretary-General of the Unuited Nations, in the preface to the study, stated that:

The science has become more irrevocable than ever: Climate change is happening. The evidence is all around us. And unless we act, we will see catastrophic consequences including rising sea levels, droughts and amine, and the loss of up to a third of the world’s plant and animal species.
We need a new global agreement to tackle climate change, and this must be based on the soundest, most robust and up-to-date science available
Through its overview of the latest definitive science, this Climate Change Science Compendium reaffirms the strong evidence outlined in the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report that climate change is continuing apace.
In fact, this report shows that climate change is accelerating at a much faster pace than was previously thought by scientists. New scientific evidence suggests important tipping points, leading to irreversible changes in major Earth systems and ecosystems, may already have been reached or even overtaken.
Climate change, more than any other challenge facing the world today, is a planetary crisis that will require strong, focused global action.
As pressures build for an internationally agreed response, we now have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to come together and address climate change through a newly invigorated multilateralism. This will be our chance to put in place a climate change agreement that all nations can embrace – an agreement that is equitable, balanced and comprehensive.
This Climate Change Science Compendium is.a wake up call.  The time for hesitation is over.  We need the world to realize, once and for all, that the time to act is now and we must work together to address this monumental challenge.  This is the moral challenge of our generation"

The Climate Change Science Compendium is broken down into 5 sections. The first section, called Earth Systems, gives an overview of the leadup to the current situation.

The second section, called Earth's Ice, notes that "Accelerated shrinking of mountain glaciers on every continent, rapid reduction of Arctic sea-ice, disintegration of floating ice shelves, and increased melt rates of Earth’s three Ice Sheets—Greenland, West Antarctic, and East Antarctic—provide compelling evidence of our changing climate."

The third section, entitled Earth's Oceans, notes that "Over the last five decades, the world’s oceans have been subjected to fishery overharvesting, seafloor damage from bottom trawling, and habitat loss around margins from coastal development schemes. Climate change further threatens oceans with higher temperatures, increased acidification, and altered circulation and nutrient supplies."

The fourth section, entitled Earth's Ecosystems, states that "Since the compilation of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, serious and irreversible changes in Earth’s Ecosystems due to anthropogenic activities are increasingly recognized with greater confidence and better quantification of the processes."

The last section, entitled Systems Management, states that  "A variety of actions are under discussion to manage the challenge posed by climate change: Cutting emissions, reforestation, and geoengineering are a few. Current research suggests that some of the possible actions are not only important but necessary for any chance of success—but no single action is sufficient on its own.

The last section, entitled Systems Management, concludes that "A variety of actions are under discussion to manage the challenge posed by climate change: Cutting emissions, reforestation, and geoengineering are a few. Current research suggests that some of the possible actions are not
only important but necessary for any chance of success—but no single action is sufficient on its own.

The 2009 Climate Change Science Compendium is serious business.  It needs to be taken seriously. It's like the blinking red light going on in the car.  Ignoring it because you're tired of seeing it, isn't going to make it go away.  It's a warning light.  Ignore it long enough and it may just stop blinking. By then it's too late because everything will have stopped running. 

Is Congress Going to Cut Health Care Costs?

Are there serious flaws in the approach Congress is taking on health care?  Business Week estimates that some $700 billion of heath care costs each year are wasted and believes the current reform bills don't address this problem.   They state that a new Thomson Reuters (TRI) report finds that:

a sum equal to roughly one-third of the nation's total health-care spending is flushed away on unnecessary treatments, redundant tests, fraud, errors, and myriad other monetary sinkholes that do nothing to improve the nation's health. Cut that figure by half, and there would be more than enough money to offer top-notch care to every one of America's 46 million uninsured.

The Business Week article attributes the $700 billion wasted as being the result primarily of the fee-for-service system that pays hospitals and doctors based on the quantity of medical services provided, rather than on the quality of care.  Without fixing this flaw in the way we provide medical care, the article states health care costs over the next 10 years will double to some $5.2 trillion per year or about 21% of the nation's gross domestic product.

What is interesting about the article is that it is not against health care reform; in fact it's emphasis is on ideas that can be implemented now by the medical profession without legislation being required. A number of these ideas are ones that consumers and patients and the medical profession should be demanding that action be taken on because it is absurd that we have a health care system that is dysfunctional and outrageously expensive compared to that of other industrialized nations in the world.

Here is a list of their 10 ideas to cut health care costs now:

1.Crack down on fraud and abuse

2. Develop a healthy workforce

3. Coordinate care through family doctors

4.  Make health a community effort

5.  Stop infections in hospitals

6.  Get patients to take their medicine

7.  Discuss options near the end of life

8.  Use insurance to manage chronic disease

9.  Let well-informed patients decide

10.  Apologize to the patient.

Eyman Sidekick Loses Bid for Spokane City Council

Periodically it seems one of the taunts made to Tim Eyman has been to urge him to run for office and then see how he would deal with the reality of his tax cuts and the public demand for services. Well this year, one of his principal sidekicks, Mike Fagan of Spokane did just that. And he lost decisively. It's one thing to propose radical anti-government proposals like Initiative 1033. It's quite another to have to stand for election yourself.

Mike Fagan ran for the District 1, Position 2 seat against Amber Waldref. Fagan is a co-director with Tim Eyman of Voters Want More Choices which has run a number of anti-governemnt, anti tax initiatives, including this year's  decisively defeated Initiative 1033, which proposed to freeze both state and local public services.

 Amber Waldref is the Development Director of the Lands Council in Spokane. The Lands Council describes itself as a grassroots, nonprofit that has worked to protect the forests, water and wildlife on thousands of acreas of public lands in the Northwest.

 Here are the vote totals.

Amber Waldref.....6411.....62.72%
Mike Fagan.....3811.....37.28%.

Fagan lacked in the money raising department as well as the voting department.  Washington State Public Disclosure Records show that Fagan only raised $9,193 in cash and $2,749 in kind. He had a total of 53 contributions.

 Meanwhile Waldref raised some $30,935 in cash and some $9,958 in kind. She had 277 contrbutions.

Interestingly Fagan did not report any contributions from Tim Eyman but he did get $500 from Michael Dunmire and $500 from Mrs Phyllis Dunmire of Woodinville. Dunmire contributed $300,000 to the I-1033 campaign and has been a long time contributor to Eyman and Fagan's initiative campaigns. Besides the Dunmires,  Fagan also got
$2500 from Mrs Cynthia Zapotocky
$1000 from Monroe Court Limited Partnership
$500 from Leo Fagan
$500 from the Spokane County Republican Party

Waldref's largest contributors were:
$4015 Inland NW Leadership PAC
$5000 from IAFF Local 29 Political Action
$2000 from Washington St Council of County and City Employees
$1000 from Avista Corporation
$1000 from Spokane Com. for Political Education
$500 from Don Barberi
$500 from Paul Brainerd

Initiative 1033  lost decisively in Spokane County, with the latest percentage No vote slightly above the state average.  The Spokane County vote was 70,729 (57.93%)  No to .51.373 (42.07%) Yes for I-1033.

Tim Eyman's Initiative 1033 Goes Down the Drain!

Tim Eyman's Initiative 1033 is still going down the drain by a decisive margin. The latest vote count on the Washington Secretary of State's website has it 56% NO to 44% YES. Ironically its symbolically what Grover Norquist, the national anti-tax fanatic that Eyman emulates, wanted to do with government - reduce it to a size he could drown in a bathtub and put down the drain. Instead it is I-1033 going down the drain.

Grover Norquit, now with Americans for Tax Reform, had been the National Taxpayers Union Executive Director in the past. On October 28, 2009 the National Taxpayers Union filed papers with the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission for a political action committee they named "Taxpayers for 1033". No money is listed as having been contributed to the PAC in Washington State.

Taxpayers for 1033 put up a website with a blog and news links and a donation page. At the bottom of the web page were the words "Copyright Yes ON 4 2009".  Yes on 4 is the name of a political action committee that was supporting an initiative similar to I-1033 in the State of Maine known as Question 4.

Both Yes on 4 and Taxpayers for 1033 were right wing efforts by the National Taxpayers Union to help enact Colorado style legislation to freeze public services, cutting off the use of any revenue above this year's baseline spending for public services.

Question 4 in Maine was at last count also decisively losing by 60% NO to 40% YES; an even bigger number than preliminary numbers for I-1033.Voters in Maine defeated 2 previous efforts to enact TABOR measures in Maine. Question 4 lost by a latrger margin than when it was on the ballot 2 years ago in Maine. 

Like in Washington State, the people in Maine supporting TABOR raised very little money for the actual ballot campaign.  Most of their money was spent on paid signature gatherers to get on the ballot. It's pretty funny that these so called anti-government measures can't even recruit enough volunteers to get on the ballot without having to pay people to collect signatures.

The defeat of these two measures should quiet down the right wing's rabid thirst for killing taxes. They act like vampires, wanting to suck the life out of government services. But voters have seen the effects of the cuts and job loses on local and state governments due to the current recession and reject the notion that this is something government brought on itself. In Washington State this year severe cuts were made in public services without raising taxes.

 Of course the National Taxpayers Union was hoping one or both of these measures would pass to keep their fundraising going by declaring taxpayer revolts at the state level. So far out of dozens of these measures on the ballot over the years, only Colorado voters have passed one.

What people actually see today is that it is the lack of government oversight that contributed to the current recession and if anything, know that unregulated financial institutions are more of a threat than paying taxes for public services used by everyone - like parks and libraries and roads and schools and health care and public transit and much more.

There is always a need for safeguards to prevent waste and to maintain a balance between taxes and spending but the public also knows and appreciates the value of the public safety net to help those needing help and the cooperative relationship between the public and private sector needed to keep a healthy community functioning. Freezing public budgets is not an answer to efficient functioning government. Neither is requiring future budgeting by repeated referendums by the voters.

Eyman threatens to come back with another initiative next year. No surprise here. Besides 1033, he has filed some 19 other initiatives with the Secretary of State this year. His multiple filings of initiatives are his attempt to score a favorable ballot title from the Attorney General as he changes a few words each time.

 Here is a prime example of how a private interest, a business that makes money filing initiatives, is wasting public resources for private gain.  He pays the state $5.00 to file an initiative, and forces state workers using taxpayer dollars to review the measures and come up with a ballot title and summary for each separate measure. One version of a measure is reasonable; 8 or 10 diferent versions with only a few words changed is not.

A higher filing fee would at least give some money back to taxpayers for the public costs involved.  But another idea might be to do like Oregon does and require that before someone can get a ballot title at public expense, they need to also file a thousand signatures of registered voters as sponsors of the measure to show that they are serious about actually doing an initiative. .

 People also need to take their time and read and understand what it is they are signing before they commit all of us to vote on poorly thought out measures like I-1033 again.  Too many people sign initiatives based on phrases and slogans that really do not describe what happens if the initiative in question becomes law. Read before you sign and we will all be better off.

A Plethora of Blog Posts AgainstTim Eyman's Initiative 1033

We've written quite a few posts against Tim Eyman's budget freeze Initiative 1033 over the last several months. You can check them out here:

Initiative 1033 is a Freeze on Public Services

Great Grassroots Video Telling the Truth About I-1033

Initiative 1033 Transfers Tax Burden onto Lower Income Taxpayers

A Better Way to Help Struggling Families than I-1033

Are You Ready to Play a Game of TimCity 2009?

Washington State on Path to Dysfuctional Government?

No on 1033 Releases First TV Ads

Initiative 1033 is Recycled Discredited Trickle Down Theory

Washington State Democrats Oppose Initiative 1033 and Support Referendum 71

The Joke is Eyman's Initiative 1033

Initiative 1033's Fatal Flaw

No on I-1033 Officially Kicks off Campaign

No on Initiative 1033 Campaign Releases Video on Colorado's Experience

The Hidden Agenda to Radically Change Representative Government and Our Tax System in Eyman's Initiative 1033

Realtors Vote to Oppose Eyman's Budget Freeze Initiative 1033

Tim Eyman Thinks Voters are Dumb

Initiative 1033 Will Dig Us Deeper into Recession Economics

What's Wrong with Eyman's Initiative 1033?

A Better Alternative to Help Struggling Property Owners than Initiative 1033

Kemper Freeman's Shortsighted $25,000 Contribution to Eyman's Initriative 1033

A Warning on Initiative 1033 from California

Initiative 1033 Cuts $8.7 Billion from Public Services by 2015

Initiative 1033 - Abolishing Local Control of Cities and Counties

Initiative 1033 - Eyman's Sugar Coated Poison Pill

Renters Beware! Eyman's Initiative 1033 Will Rip You Off

Eyman's I-1033 Says Paying Corporate Property Taxes More Important than Educating State's Kids

Initiative 1033 Offers Taxpayers Free Lunch

Watch Video on Why I-1033 Would be Bad for Washington State

Why I-1033 Limits on Spending Growth Won't Work

Eyman Continues to Use Erroneous Information to Support I-1033 Overtaxed Rant

Did Eyman Forget to Turn in all His Petitions for Initiative 1033?

List Growing of Organizations Opposing Initiative 1033

Tim Eyman's Initiative 1033 Overtaxed Hoax

Tim Eyman's Initiative 1033 Grassroots Joke

New Report Confirms Initiative 1033 Will Make Recovery Worse for Washington State

Initiative 1033 - Eyman's Latest Wealth Transfer Scheme

Locations in King County to Drop off Ballots until 8 PM on Nov 3, 2009

Here is the link to King County Elections to see a map and locations where your ballot can be dropped off today, Election Day, Nov 3, 2009 up until  8 PM.

http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/voting/ballotdropboxes.aspx

Here are the King County locations:

•Auburn Library, 1102 Auburn Way S., Auburn, 98002

•Library Connection @ Crossroads, 15600 NE 8th St., outside of Suite K-11, 98008

•Black Diamond Library, 24707 Roberts Dr., 98010

•Covington Library, 27100 164th Ave SE, 98042

•Des Moines Library, 21620 11th Avenue S., 98198

•Earlington Business Center, 919 SW Grady Way, 98057

•Fall City Library, 33415 SE 42 Pl., 98024

•Federal Way Library, 848 S 320th St, 98003

•Kent Regional Library, 212 2nd Ave N, 98032

•Lake Forest Park Library, 17171 Bothell Way NE, 98155 near the lower level mall entrance

•Seattle, King County Administration Building, 500 Fourth Ave., 98104

•Seattle, White Center Library, 11220 16th S.W., Seattle, 98146

•Tukwila, King County Elections Headquarters, 9010 East Marginal Way S, 98108

•Woodinville Library, 17105 Avondale Rd NE, 98072


also these Seattle Neighborhood Service Center locations

•Ballard, 5604 22nd Ave NW, 98107

•Central, 2301 S Jackson, 98144

•Delridge, 5405 Delridge Way SW, 98106

•Lake City, 12525 28th Ave NE, 98125

•Southeast, 3815 S Othello St, 98118

•University, 4534 University Way NE, 98105

Latest Fundraising Totals in Seattle Races

Campaign Disclosure Information can be found at the Washington State Public Disclosure website , as well as at the City of Seattle Ethics and Election Commission website.  You can get more detailed on these races, including who gave them money, how much and how the campaign spent it. This information is what was reported as of Nov 2, 2009.

Seattle City Mayor - no incumbent
Joe Mallahan ......raised $711,205 .....spent $655,524

Michael McGinn .....raised $204,912 .....spent $166,774

City Council Position 2 - Incumbent is Richard Conlin

Richard Conlin .... raised $175,980.... spent $134,283

David Ginsberg.... raised $41,177.... spent $42,044

City Council Position 4 - no incumbent

Sally Bagshaw .... raised $224,134.... spent $172,104

David Bloom .... raised $93,907  .... spent $85,411

City Council Position 6 - Incumbent is Nick Licata

Jessie Israel .... raised $184,213.... spent $170,664

Nick Licata.... raised $138,021.... spent $128,843

City Council Position 8 - no incumbent

Mike O'Brien .... raised  $129,103 ....spent  $99,886

Robert Rosencrantz ....raised $222,022.... spent $208,794

Seattle City Attorney - Incimbent is Tom Carr

 Thomas Carr .....raised $92,006 .....spent $77,440

Peter Holmes .....raised $85,521 ......spent $78,949

Seattle School District #4 - Michael DeBell is incumbent

Michael DeBell .....raised $5,505 .....spent $3,491

Seattle School District #5 - Iincumbent is Mary Bass

Kay Smith-Blum .....raised $54,910 .....spent $48,904

Mary Bass .....raised $35,006 .....$34,377

Seattle School District #7 - no incumbent

Betty Patu ......raised $11,291 ....spent $8,275

Wilson Chim .....raised $53,513 .....spent $40,866

We're Number 37

Here's a great YouTube video celebrating our position as number 37 in the world in terms of health care.
Come on folks. It's time for a change.  Contact your Senators and Representatives and urge they act on reforming healthcare in the good ol USA.