Article by Erik Smith. Published on Saturday, April 14, 2011 EST.

Glenn Anderson Cements His Reputation as a Maverick – Even Democrats Were Going to Vote Against Him

State Rep. Glenn Anderson, R-Fall City.

By Erik Smith

Staff writer/ Washington State Wire

OLYMPIA, April 9.—All session long, people have been asking the question – is there a tax increase the Republicans can support?

            The answer to that one still seems to be a pretty firm no. But at least we can say this.

            We’ve learned there is a tax increase a Republican can support.

            State Rep. Glenn Anderson, R-Fall City, cemented his reputation as a maverick Friday when he introduced an amendment to the state budget that would require an increase in the state business and occupations tax for the state’s largest corporations. The $167 million he would have raised would have been directed at reducing tuition at the state’s public colleges and universities.

            Not that the idea got anywhere. Members say there was a rather heated discussion when House Republicans met behind closed doors to discuss their strategy on the upcoming budget vote. It’s not easy finding members willing to say one of their own has a horrifying idea, but let’s just say Anderson was the only Republican likely to vote yes.

Even Democrats were ready to shoot this one down.

            With a solid vote-count of exactly one, Anderson withdrew his proposal before it came to the floor.

            But hey, he says – he likes the idea.
            And whatever anyone else thinks of it, his proposal calls attention to a kinder, gentler proposal from business that hasn’t gotten much traction this year.

            One Republican Vote

            “Everything’s falling apart, and as long as we stay in our trench-warfare boxes, it’s going to stay that way,” Anderson said. “The way we’re locked down, the way we’re going – somebody’s got to break the ice.”

            Right now lawmakers in the state House are poised to pass a budget that makes about $3 billion in cuts to existing state programs – the lingering, time-delayed result of the recession that hit the country in 2009. There just isn’t enough money to pay for everything, and last year’s Initiative 1053 makes it all but impossible to raise taxes. A two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature is required, and while Democrats might be willing, Republicans aren’t about to offer any votes.

            But you might call Anderson a different kind of cat. Early this year he backed a bill that would have bashed together some of the state’s smallest counties as a cost-cutting move – basically taking aim at Eastern Washington counties where his own party dominates the ballot. And now here’s a tax increase he would have voted for, if he could have just gotten anyone to vote with him.

            Higher Ed a Victim

You might call Anderson’s proposal sort of a one-man protest. The state’s colleges and universities are among the worst-hit of any area in the state budget. Under the plan that comes up for a vote in the House today, higher ed gets a 14 percent cut. The only area of the budget that fares worse is natural resources, at 18 percent. 

The idea is that at least the state colleges and universities have a way to make some of that money back. They can raise tuition. The House budget plan gives them permission to raise tuition between 11 and 13 percent.

If you look back over the last 30 years, you can see that the Legislature has made the same calculation every time the state budget has had a hiccup. You can say that parents of college-bound children have been paying a hidden tax to keep other state programs hale and hearty. It’s the same with their kids, who increasingly have been forced to turn to student loans that linger for years. For Washington residents, undergraduate tuition at the University of Washington in 1980 was $663 a year. Today it is $8,122, and additional student fees bring it up to $8,701. The higher it goes, the more likely it is that students will be priced out.

            Yet state support for higher ed keeps declining. For the last couple of years, leading executives of the state’s largest corporations have been arguing that the state’s colleges and universities ought to be able to raise tuition on their own, without the Legislature’s permission. It’s the only way to keep the state’s higher-education institutions from crumbling, they say.

            “All I’m saying to these big-business heavy hitters is that if they’re that concerned about higher education, they can put some skin in the game,” Anderson said. “If they’re going to come up with a proposal that sticks middle-class taxpayers with debt so that their kids can have a better future, they need to pony up, pick up the tab, and not just walk away.”

            A Little More Complicated Than That

            As usual, there’s quite a bit more to the argument. The big-business executives have come up with a proposal in which they really would pony up and pay part of the tab. It’s just that in a year like this one, when the cupboard is bare, they’re the only ones talking about it. The idea is being pushed most articulately by the Washington Roundtable, an association of the state’s largest businesses, and it was one of the recommendations of the governor’s task force on higher education last year.

            What business is urging is a rather more flexible plan that would raise money for college financial aid, but wouldn’t damage the state’s business climate the way that a tax increase would. They suggest that the state build a billion-dollar endowment for the state’s public colleges and universities, using tax credits to leverage private contributions. Starting in 2013, they suggest the state ought to offer dollar-for-dollar credits on the state business and occupations tax in return for contributions. Essentially it would redirect a half-billion that now goes into the state general fund – but it would leverage a net new half-billion dollars from the private sector. And it would force the state to earmark the entire pot for higher ed.

            In a meeting with reporters last month, Microsoft senior vice president Brad Smith explained, “If we can do that, it basically gives us the opportunity for individuals, for foundations, for companies, and for the state itself to build an endowment that would offer the promise for more students that in the future, they are going to have the opportunity to get a college degree.”

            Ought to Dig Deeper

            Anderson’s proposal essentially says business ought to pay 100 percent of the bill, in a rather inflexible way, without requiring the state to match the funds. For those who pay attention to specifics, his proposal entailed a .025 percent surcharge on the B&O tax, and it would have applied to the state’s 180 biggest corporations. And there were all sorts of provisions that would have ensured that the money went directly to offset tuition hikes. Anderson said he envisioned it as a one-time tax.

            Not that it matters now. Not even Democrats were willing to back him on this one. They might have had the votes to tack it onto the budget, but then the entire budget bill would have required a two-thirds vote, because it included a tax increase. And that would have stopped the entire state budget dead in its tracks. So Anderson’s amendment was a dead duck the moment he laid it on the bar of the House.

            Maybe in 2013, Anderson says, after I-1053 expires.

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