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House decides simple
majority vote is enough to approve tax hikes
To aid the approval of
more than $500 million in tax increases and a proposed 12 percent jump
in state spending, the House of Representatives narrowly voted today to
suspend Washington’s citizen-initiated government spending limit and
allow tax increases with a simple majority vote.
Rep. Gary
Alexander
said the 50-43 vote on Senate Bill 6078 effectively means the end of the
law created by Initiative 601 in 1993.
“This is the most fiscally
irresponsible bill this body has ever entertained – and I hope will ever
entertain,” Alexander, R-Olympia, told his House colleagues. “I-601 has
been a good model for fiscal responsibility. The limits it put in place
allowed the Legislature to go from budgets with double-digit growth –
15, 16, 17 percent – down to budgets with 7 or 8 percent growth, and at
the same time build up a billion-dollar reserve for the proverbial
‘rainy day.’”
Alexander said SB 6078 was
approved partly to do away with the statutory spending limit but partly
because the I-601 law requires a two-thirds majority vote to raise
taxes. That provision stood in the way of the tax increases needed to
fund the majority party’s new $26 billion state budget.
“Revenue for state
government is expected to increase by $1.7 billion, but that much new
spending isn’t enough -- the majority party wants an additional billion
dollars in new spending,” said Alexander, the lead Republican member on
the House Appropriations Committee. “That kind of overspending requires
a tax increase, but apparently there aren’t enough votes on the other
side of the aisle to meet the two-thirds majority requirement. This bill
would allow a simple majority vote instead, and it seems that is what
the majority party needs.”
It took two votes to adopt
SB 6078. The bill failed on a 49-47 vote, then one of the six Democrats
who voted on the prevailing side called for a revote, claiming she had
mistakenly pressed the wrong button.
“Yes, the I-601 law has
been sidestepped some over the years, but the legislators on my side of
the aisle have never amended that law to allow a simple majority to
raise taxes, and we never will,” said Alexander. “It’s interesting to
see how the folks across the aisle react when we get to these tough
decisions, and for that reason I’m not unhappy to see this bill on the
floor tonight. If there is any bill this session that will change the
makeup of the majority party in 2007, this is it.”
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For more information, contact:
Brendon Wold, Public
Information Officer: (360) 786-7698
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