From Our Corner

Washington lawmakers plan to spend $3 billion on an assortment of “shovel-ready” construction projects across the state — but because of our deep recession, that’s a far cry from the normal spending.  As a sideshow to the main event of writing a state budget that closes a monster $9 billion gap, Democrats in both chambers have rolled out competing construction budgets. Senator Karen Fraser, chief architect of the Senate’s plan, called it “the happy budget,” even with the pared-back bottom line, since it’s in stark contrast with…

Read More Read More

And now, the other shoe drops.  Just a day after Senate Democrats unveiled their $31.3 billion two-year state budget plan, their brethren in the House D caucus have rolled out a competing plan. They aren’t carbon copies.  Two houses have the same big-picture goals — a balanced budget that closes a ginormous $9 billion spending chasm, mostly through cuts, freezes, fund graps and Obama Bucks, and squirrels away $850 million as a hedge against further deterioriation of our whacked-out economy.  But whereas the Senate spreads the pain…

Read More Read More

The Legislature’s Democratic majorities are finally going public with their proposed budgets that close a $9 billion gap, a grim assortment of spending cuts in K-12, higher education, salaries, health and welfare, prisons, parks and agency overhead.  An estimated 7,000 state employees will lose their jobs, the Dems said. The new week was barely underway when Senate Democrats rolled out a plan that leaders called personally painful, yet “honest and responsible.” House Democrats quickly reply with their own version of an all-cuts budget on Tuesday….

Read More Read More