Tag Archives: McCleary

When it comes to taxes and spending, is Inslee insatiable?

By ericcampbell | Published on December 14, 2018

Governor Inslee had included tax increases in all six budgets he’d submitted to the Legislature during his time in office. I figured he was a lock to make it 7-for-7, in the proposal he’d be putting on the table for 2019.

Even so, I was amazed by what the governor unveiled yesterday. He’d spend $54 billion over the next two years – up $10 billion, or 22 percent, from the current budget cycle. He wants to tax personal income for the first time, plus a 67 percent tax hike on more than 175,000 employers who provide services, from health care to janitorial. He’d also set property owners up for more than double the local-education taxes they’re paying now.

The governor’s budget is so over the top that words like “staggering” still can’t capture its magnitude. Inslee has outdone himself this time, to the point of seeming downright insatiable when it comes to taxes and spending.

State government is expecting to collect $50 billion in revenue over the next two years. That’s $4 billion-plus over the current budget cycle. We have more billions in reserve than ever. Yet somehow, it’s still not enough. Besides all the naturally occurring revenue plus revenue from the huge tax increases, the governor wants to tap the reserves for another $1 billion.

I don’t know why Inslee thinks a state income tax would be constitutional. And speaking of the constitution, the Legislature just got through bringing the state’s K-12 funding system back into constitutional compliance. Why does Inslee want to undo that progress by going back to the local-education levy rate that encouraged the growth of educational inequities across Washington, and helped lead to the McCleary lawsuit in the first place?

On top of that, the K-12 reforms we adopted in 2017 are still kicking in, and they’ll lower the majority of 2019 property-tax bills across the state. If Inslee wants to discard the bipartisan levy cap we’d put on school districts, he’d better be ready to accept credit for the huge property-tax increases that are sure to follow.

It’s been more a month since Republican senators stepped forward with ideas about affordable housing/homelessness, and even longer since we shared an agenda about improving mental-health treatment. I appreciate that the governor’s budget also addresses those topics, although this is more a case of having common ground on the “what” but not the “how.”

The Legislature is free to ignore Inslee’s budget. But with Democrats controlling both the state Senate and House for only the second time during his years in the mansion, and with larger majorities than 2018, look for it to serve as a cue card instead.

School administrators look to Goebbels, Lenin for advice?

By ericcampbell | Published on May 05, 2017

Wearing a T-shirt with an image of a prominent Nazi war criminal might be enough to get a student sent home. But the Washington Association of School Administrators thinks it is OK to share public-relations advice from a prominent Nazi war criminal if you’re trying to get school administrators to be effective advocates.

The Washington Policy Center’s Liv Finne recently noted how a WASA slideshow titled “Who’s Telling Your Story?” included a quote from Joseph Goebbels, complete with photo. There was also a quote and photo from another famous humanitarian, Vladimir Lenin.

To be fair, Aristotle and George Bernard Shaw also had their own slides. But the ancient Greek philosopher and Nobel laureate were ahead of a half-dozen slides filled with quotes from the League of Education Voters, Freedom Foundation, Democrats for Education Reform, Stand for Children, the Washington Roundtable/Partnership for Learning, and Finne herself.

Goebbels and Lenin, and their observations about what happens when a lie is told often enough, followed the quotes from the various education-reform groups. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist – or a school administrator – to connect the dots.

WASA has reason to demean the groups quoted in the slideshow. They are reformers, and WASA represents the status quo. But come on.

The WASA lobbyist who posted the slideshow wasn’t foolish enough to give the Goebbels-Lenin treatment to things our Senate majority has said about our Education Equality Act – even though that legislation is all about reforming the K-12 funding system, and therefore opposed by those who are desperate to keep the status quo.

Still, WASA finds ways to take a swing at us. Like when we brought the House Democrats’ tax package (the largest tax increase in state history) before the Senate budget committee for a hearing on April 26, in the form of a Senate bill. The WASA lobbyist was right there to testify in support. Two days before, in a report to WASA members, he had described the upcoming hearing as “gamesmanship.”

Gamesmanship? This from an organization that took part in the campaign about the so-called “levy cliff.” And don’t forget the administrators (Seattle School District and elsewhere) who have eye-popping compensation packages ($354,000 in salary and benefits, in Seattle) in districts that have seen huge jumps in funding, and still plead poverty.

And people wonder why education-funding reform has been such a tough nut to crack.

McCleary and the income tax

By Laudan | Published on May 03, 2017

Published opinion pieces from members of the Majority Coalition Caucus draw the connections between McCleary and the long-running effort to impose an income tax.

Senate Majority Leader Mark Schoesler, in The (Spokane) Spokesman-Review, Jan. 8, 2017: Income tax is the real issue, not schools

“This is the cleverest campaign for an income tax ever mounted in this state. Advocates for bigger government have created the illusion of a crisis in the public schools that only mountains of money can fix. Through a lawsuit they’ve gotten the state Supreme Court on their side. They would force taxes that dig deeper into everyone’s pockets, slam the brakes on economic growth, and redistribute more of the people’s hard-earned income to state agencies and powerful special-interest groups. Ultimately the goal is an income tax. Yet supporters are bending over backward to avoid using that term – and who can blame them?”

Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, in the Valley News Herald, Jan. 13, 2017: An out-of-bounds court casts shadow over Legislature

“Over the last 80 years this state has seen has seen considerable political agitation for an income tax. This effort comes from those with the most to gain – the unions representing state employees and teachers, social-service advocates and others. But every time an income tax has been put to the people since 1934, they have said no, in the loudest possible terms. The Supreme Court’s intrusion into the school-funding debate appears part of a well-calculated strategy to back the state into a corner and force it to adopt an income tax, whether it wants one or not.”

Sen. Tim Sheldon, D-Potlatch, in Crosscut, Jan. 20, 2017: The monster lurking behind school funding – an income tax

“Advocates of a state income tax have finally realized they will never win if they put the question to the people in an honest way. So they have set up the phoniest debate since America was forced to choose between “tastes great” and “less filling.” If you listen to the proponents, our big argument for 2017 is about levy equalization and model-school formulas — magic words that have the effect of putting an entire state to sleep. But really it is the same old argument we’ve been having in Washington more than 80 years. Our big debate isn’t about education. It’s about the income tax.”

Fix Hirst ruling while work toward McCleary agreement continues

By Laudan | Published on February 10, 2017

It obviously has not been easy for lawmakers to come up with legislation that fixes the constitutional issue about school levies raised in the McCleary ruling, treats students and taxpayers in 295 diverse districts equitably and responds to long-standing compensation concerns from teachers and district officials. If it was, the Education Equality Act passed by the Senate more than a week ago wouldn’t still be all by itself on the negotiating table.

Fortunately, another Supreme Court decision looming over our state – the Hirst ruling, from October – is easier to fix than McCleary. There’s no good reason why we can’t have an agreement in place as soon as the end of February.

To put it simply, Hirst complicates the process of permitting a residential water well, and complications mean more cost – tens of thousands of dollars more, potentially, which discourages people from buying land, and property owners from building or selling. Besides derailing the dreams of families all around our state, the ruling means less activity for local lenders and the real-estate and construction sectors.

I remember how a dozen years ago, without warning, the real-estate and construction sectors got hot and began pouring money into the state treasury. In contrast, there’s been ample warning about the chilling effect Hirst is having in those areas of our economy, and what it means for state revenues.

Our children are still being schooled while work on McCleary proceeds, and whatever agreement we reach won’t have an effect on the current school year anyway. Hirst is different, because fewer homes are being built and fewer property transactions are occurring while the Legislature works on a response. The economic damage has already begun, especially in rural Washington.

I know of two bills in each legislative chamber that would address Hirst. One House bill and one Senate bill have bipartisan sponsorship – and in my opinion, represent the straighter path to a solution. The bipartisan Senate bill has already won committee support, while the House committee may push both of its measures ahead.

Not many issues hit all 39 counties in the gut the way Hirst has, and a legislative fix could start bringing relief immediately. It could, and should, be the first major bill to come out of this session.

Our K-12 plan will be out soon, then we can get this job done

By Laudan | Published on January 18, 2017

This week Republican legislative leaders had their first meeting of the session with statehouse reporters. As expected the press corps asked first about education funding – including, when will they see a plan from Republicans to fully fund our K-12 schools?

A freelance writer wondered whether the plan would come in a week or two, or would we “wait until April,” meaning late in the session. The April reference struck me as something I would expect from certain Democrats, not a reporter who is supposed to be objective and professional – so I barked at him, which was out of character.

What I should have said, being a longtime Green Bay Packers fan, was something like the line famously used by Aaron Rodgers, the Pack’s quarterback, when questioned a couple years ago about his team’s production.

“Relax. We’re going to be OK,” Rodgers said. His team, 1-2 at the time, went on to win 11 of its remaining 13 games.

My answer should have been more like this: Our plan will be ready soon — sooner than later. It’s going to be OK. We will get this job done.

Democrat lawmakers put some big-spending numbers and costly concepts on paper via the recently concluded Joint Education Funding Task Force. Some have used that to take we-did-our-homework-you-didn’t shots at Republicans. But completing the homework is not the same as passing the test. When our Senate majority puts its plan on the table, I want it to be a fully baked plan that is ready to pass the test, meaning win a majority vote.

If I wanted to fire back at Democrats, I would remind them how our situation is largely of their party’s making. Democrats controlled the state budget for the better part of 30 years before our Senate Majority Coalition Caucus began leading the Senate in 2013. Their spending choices, which favored non-education things over schools by a 2-1 ratio, created the conditions that led to the 2012 McCleary decision. The MCC-led Senate has flipped that, devoting new revenue to education at a rate of more than 3-1. We have restored K-12 to its rightful place in the budget.

I would also note how, in 2013 and 2015, the governor blocked the Legislature’s request to collect K-12 compensation data. We needed it to understand, in dollars and cents, what “full funding” of education really means. Only because of the education-funding task force do we finally have that information.

Instead, I’ll simply say that Republicans aren’t about to leave schools in the lurch. But we want a solution that lasts indefinitely, and we recognize that the Legislature really has just one chance to get it right.

As I said to the reporters, our plan will be ready when it’s ready. Let me say here that it will be ready very soon.

It’s going to be OK. We’re going to get this done.

Senators: Thank you for your service

By Laudan | Published on January 03, 2017

Legislators leave office for a variety of reasons, and the when and how of their exits generally dictates our options for saying farewell. Sometimes an announcement comes during a session, which allows us to respond in person; otherwise it happens later in the year, and that opportunity is lost. We learned during the 2016 session that a few members of our Majority Coalition Caucus would not be with us in 2017, and that number doubled after the Legislature adjourned. Each of them deserves a public tip of the hat.

Senator Don Benton’s close re-election victory in 2012 may not have been the biggest factor in creating the Majority Coalition Caucus, but it was the last piece we needed. His work on protecting property rights and controlling the growth of taxes are well-known; other accomplishments, particularly his efforts on behalf of the homeless and veterans, didn’t get enough recognition. Don served 20 years in the Senate after a term in the House. He had no equal when it came to knowing Senate rules and parliamentary procedure, and that may be what I, as leader, will miss most.
Although Senator Bruce Dammeier was in our caucus for just one four-year term, following two terms in the House, his work on K-12 education did much to put the Legislature on track to comply with the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision. Bruce also had a gift for translating complex education-policy issues into plain language, and that will be not be easy for us to replace. His leadership potential was evident, and I’m not surprised the people of Pierce County decided to make Bruce their county executive starting today. He will serve them well.
Elected in 2000, Senator Mike Hewitt became Senate Republican leader right after the 2006 election reduced us to 17 seats – a low not seen since 1965. During the next seven years, as the Democratic majority ran up state spending during the real-estate boom and then ran up taxes when the boom went bust, the number of Republican senators steadily climbed until it reached 23 and allowed the formation of the MCC in late 2012. Mike set the leadership bar high, and I appreciated his counsel greatly after succeeding him as Republican leader. Good fishing, my friend.
One of the biggest benefits of forming the MCC was that it enabled Senator Steve Litzow to become chair of the Senate committee on early learning and K-12 education. He was no one’s puppet, which meant education-policy reformers finally had an even chance of having their views considered. The 41st Legislative District has become a “swing” district if there ever was one, and Steve’s loss in the 2016 general election is no reflection on his six years as a senator. Washington’s students and parents should hope the Legislature continues to follow the course he helped to set.
Leading legislative-caucus meetings isn’t easy, with so many personalities in one room, but Senator Linda Evans Parlette did so with grace for 10 straight years, as the Senate Republican Caucus evolved into the MCC. To her, being caucus chair meant looking out for staff as well as members, and made it feel even more like one big family. Linda was a strong voice on health care and natural-resources issues and had enough energy to continue serving much longer – but after 20 years as a legislator (16 in the Senate) her desire to spend more time with her real family won out. Is there a better reason to leave?
Her 2014 re-election to a record seventh term made Senator Pam Roach the longest-serving female senator in Washington history. She will be remembered for many things, and they should include her work on behalf of children and families, and public safety, and defense of the people’s right to initiatives and referenda. As an outdoorsman I appreciated her efforts to introduce legislators to the shooting sports. Anyone familiar with Senator Roach’s devotion to her family knows that while being elected to the Pierce County Council meant giving up the 31st District Senate seat, it offered another chance to serve alongside her son Dan (a former state representative who became a council member in 2011). A fair trade, I think.

Thanks to them all!