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House Republican fiscal leaders say Senate budget
lacks vision, ignores economic realities
Democrats
continue trend of new spending over savings
The $1.3 billion
supplemental operating budget released by Senate Democrats today would
raise state spending by 17 percent and continue the upward spiral of
recent legislative budgets while ignoring the economic realities
illustrated by today’s state revenue forecast, say
Reps. Gary
Alexander
and Ed Orcutt.
“The Senate budget was described more than once today as being the
result of ‘pent-up demand.’ I’d agree. There are no big, bold, visionary
policy initiatives here, no real theme. It looks like a bunch of wish
lists cobbled together to satisfy people who haven’t gotten what they
wanted out of the treasury in recent years,” said Alexander, R-Thurston
County, who is House Republican budget negotiator.
“The Senate proposal goes way beyond the ‘mid-course correction’ intent
of a supplemental budget, and what really concerns me is how it raises
the ante on spending. The governor, for all her talk about frugality,
has asked for about $500 million in new spending. This would be an
increase of more than 16 percent over the previous biennium. But that’s
not enough for the Senate, which wants approximately $200 million more
out of the state’s general fund,”
Alexander said.
“Does the governor have the desire and the clout to keep the House
Democrats from setting a new high-water mark? What message will she send
them having seen the lack of discipline in the Senate’s plan? It’s as
though they can’t help themselves from coming up with bigger and bigger
budgets,” Alexander said, adding that a House budget plan could be
released next week.
“All this new spending is no surprise considering there’s more revenue
than expected, no more voter-approved limit on spending, and a majority
party that knows how to spend better than save,” said Orcutt, R-Kalama.
“The Senate needs to reckon with a simple economic reality: you can’t
keep outspending the revenue.”
The quarterly state revenue forecast adopted today estimates the state
will collect another $107 million more than anticipated when the 2005-07
budget was written, said Orcutt, who serves on the state Economic
Revenue and Forecast Council and is tax policy leader for House
Republicans. But the state’s chief economist, Dr. Chang Mook Sohn, also
noted the first tangible evidence that construction and real estate
activity is slowing.
“The forecasted revenue for 2007-09 is more than 29 billion dollars, or
nearly 10 percent more than in this biennium. That’s encouraging, but if
Democrats continue the trend of increasing spending by 16 or 17 percent
per biennium, they’ll just be back looking for more tax increases,”
Orcutt explained.
And don’t buy the Senate’s line about a budget reserve, the two fiscal
leaders say.
“The Senate talked about how it put more in reserve than the governor.
The size of the reserve is important, but what matters most is the
definition of ‘reserve.’ To protect taxpayers we need a reserve that’s
secure – one that can be tapped only with a two-thirds majority vote.
The reserve in the Senate proposal could be accessed through a simple
majority vote. That’s not secure,” Orcutt said.
“The Senate budget is another reminder of why we need to have a
constitutionally protected spending limit and a constitutionally
protected ‘rainy day’ fund,” said Alexander. “The constitutional
protections are for taxpayers, and against the political winds like the
ones that are blowing the governor’s and Senate budgets together in the
absence of sound fiscal policy.”
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For more information, contact:
Brendon Wold, Public
Information Officer: (360) 786-7698
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