It’s been quite a ride! After months of work and a total of 3 legislative sessions, we are now adjourned after passing a balanced budget.
First I want to say how glad I am that it’s over. Although legislating is important and necessary, it keeps me far too many miles away from the 15th District!
Were the 3 sessions a success?
Although the final outcome was certainly not all that I wanted, here are 5 of the major successes of the budget:
1: Avoided major tax increases:
We passed the first budget in 15 years that largely used existing revenue, yet we were also able to prioritize our spending choices and put more money into education. Our budget will remain balanced over the next 4 years, assuming no major changes to the economy occur.
The Governor as well as many Democrats in both the House and Senate pushed for new taxes and fees to meet the State Supreme Court’s ruling that the Legislature needed to pour more money into education. But due to increased money from existing taxes and a decrease in social service case loads, there was an additional $2 billion dollars available to spend in this budget without raising any taxes.
2: Reprioritized tax dollars:
Why raise taxes on hardworking Washingtonians when they’ve already given us $2 billion more than we expected to have?
Using the available revenue, the budget spends an additional $1.6 billion on K-12 education and higher education receives an additional $140 million, allowing tuition rates to freeze for two years.
3: Kept our word to the voters:
We also were able prevent the gas tax from going up and saw to it that several temporary taxes expired as promised.
4: Allocated $130 million for Yakima Basin integrated water plan
We invested in the much talked about Yakima River Basin project. Let me emphasize that this is just a step in what is a 30 years or more project. But it was a necessary step because it’s time to do something to get more water into the Yakima Basin.
5: Avoided a government shutdown
While I did not believe this would happen, there was a chance that the Legislature and Governor could not come to an agreement in time to pass a budget. That would have resulted in numerous agency shutdowns and loss of work for many government employees. While the process was not pretty, in the end a shutdown was entirely avoided.
Weigh in on the new budget
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