Article by Erik Smith. Published on Thursday, December 09, 2011 EST.
Big Battles to Come in January as Lawmakers Finish the $2 Billion Job, Ponder Tax Referendum
By Erik Smith
Staff writer/ Washington State Wire
OLYMPIA, Dec. 8.—A new gameplan seems to be emerging as the Legislature begins the 11th day of its current special session – how about a few hundred million in cuts for the holidays?
It’s not the full-meal-deal that Gov. Christine Gregoire was calling for when she summoned lawmakers back to town on Nov. 28. Lawmakers say there is no conceivable way they can reach agreement on $2 billion in cuts before Christmas. But a few hundred million? Maybe $300 million, maybe $500 million? That might be doable.
To be followed by an early adjournment.
The suggestion emerged Wednesday during closed-door meetings of the Senate Democrats and Republicans. State Sen. Ed Murray, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, told his fellow Democrats that the “skinny-budget” plan would try to identify the few things lawmakers can agree on at this point. Then they can come back in January for their regularly scheduled session and finish the job.
Meanwhile, the same word was being passed along in the House from the budget-writers who remained in town while most of the House members took a break for a few days.
Speaking with reporters late Wednesday, Murray said it never was realistic to expect lawmakers to deliver a fully wrapped budget to the governor’s desk by Christmas. “I’m suddenly hearing this from reporters, and I don’t know who put what in your ears, but it is nothing different than what we started talking about before the session,” he said. “The question is how big can it be? What else might go along with it? Those sorts of things.”
Exactly what those cuts might look like, nobody seems to know. But Murray and other budget-writers agree that lawmakers most likely will pick and choose from the $4 billion list of potential cuts that the governor presented in October.
Frustrates the Governor
Gregoire essentially threw down the gauntlet to lawmakers when she called them back to town for a 30-day session and told them she wanted to see a fully fleshed out budget by the time they finished. Lawmakers have to slash about $2 billion in spending from the 2011-13 budget they passed last spring in order to make the books balance. Though Democrats hope to put a tax increase on the ballot for voter approval next spring, they concede that they must write an all-cuts budget in case voters say no. And also to let voters know what’s at stake.
But the fact that lawmakers have been slow to start has been a major frustration for the governor. It’s not as if any of it came as a surprise. The governor announced the special session in September.
Last week she told reporters, “You know, I’ve heard a lot of skepticism from lawmakers about whether they can get the job done. I am not willing to accept that. I’m not willing to accept it because it was September when I indicated we were going to go into special session.
“I then proceeded to outline for them all the cuts that would be necessary to come up with an all-cuts budget, because we have to. I have vetted 185 different ideas with respect to revenue. They had in their hands all the information that was possible.
“Now, is their job tough? Absolutely. So is getting to one vote, my vote, because I couldn’t stomach the cuts. Make no mistake about that. But it is the reality that we face today. So I’m hopeful they will get it done and I’m going to do everything I can do to make that possibility real.”
Well, so much for that.
Not a Do-Nothing Legislature
Lawmakers say things just don’t work that way in the real world. It always takes the Legislature at least a month to warm up, whether they begin in January, as they normally do, or if they start right after Thanksgiving.
Murray is saying that the early start means lawmakers will be able to turn out a budget lickety-split when they return for the regular session Jan. 9. Certainly they have been doing many of the preliminaries, going over budget spreadsheets, analyzing proposals from state agencies, and convening those enormous marathon hearings in which every interest group with a stake in state spending protests the cuts that are about to take place.
“I think the bind that we are in is that we are getting a lot of work done, but seeing the results of that isn’t going to happen before the holidays,” Murray said. “So if we can show some movement, I think that is helpful. But it won’t show the significant movement we are making behind the scenes, because it takes too long to put this stuff together.
“The legislative branch is here to question agencies’ numbers and the executive proposals, not simply rubber-stamp them. And we can’t go through these budgets in detail in three weeks or four weeks. Even if Christmas and Hanukkah were not in the way, we still wouldn’t.”
Right now there is talk of adjournment around the end of next week, on the 16th, or perhaps shortly thereafter.
Roadkillers Fine With Idea
The special session may do some good, lawmakers say. State Rep. Steve Hobbs, D-Lake Stevens, noted that some of next years big proposals are now being filed in bill form. “I will tell you, I am glad we are [having the session], because we are meeting, we are negotiating, we’re getting bills out, and so all that takes time. The bills that wouldn’t be out for a week or two in regular session are coming out now.”
For Hobbs and a moderate group of middle-of-the-road Democrats who call themselves the “Roadkill Caucus,” the session has been doubly useful, because it has given them time to ponder the sort of reforms they wish to see in state government in return for their votes on a tax referendum. Hobbs said the reform proposals will be submitted to Democratic caucus leaders when the group finalizes the list.
Meantime, a few cuts now, if lawmakers can agree on them, would be a good thing, because the more the Legislature slashes now, the less deeply it will have to cut later. “I think it’s a good idea to get ahead of it,” Hobbs said. “Any cuts now will really help us in the long term. If there’s something we can agree on, that’s fine.”
But just wait until the real battles begin in January, he says.
House Republicans On Board
State Rep. Gary Alexander, R-Olympia, the House Republicans’ budget chief, said his caucus hopes to see a full half-billion in cuts in this month’s skinny budget. In many respects it is similar to the situation in 2010, when lawmakers returned for a brief special session in December and made quick cuts to state spending – and majority Democrats invited Republicans to the table to help build consensus.
Alexander said Republicans are eager to pitch in and help with the job of cutting the budget again. It appeared obvious when lawmakers returned to town that they wouldn’t get the whole job done, he said, and the thinking is that they ought to do what they can.
“If we don’t, taxpayers are going to wonder why we’re here in special session,” he said.
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