If you missed last night’s edition of The Impact, watch it here while you wait for the next committees to start.

Today:

- The Senate held a public hearing on the bill to require all pharmacies to track cold medicine sales in real-time, courtesy of a program paid for by drug companies.

- Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the bill to suspend most of Initiative 960. House Democrats were originally going to introduce their tax package but it wasn’t in the cards.

- Jessica Gao posted on some interesting things she’ll have in her show tonight, including a robust debate on taxes, a proposal to combine natural resources agencies and a primer on marine resources and biomass policy.

- Senate Ways & Means held the first public hearing on the three tax bills.

Tags: Day 45

Sen. Margarita Prentice is kicking off the Ways & Means committee meeting on the tax bills. Her message: Do not read your testimony and do not repeat something others have already said.

Up first: The cigarette tax. The Senate would increase the tax per pack to $3.25 — from $2.25. The extra money would go into a “Basic Health Plan stabilization account.” The tax would go into effect June 1. The bill only makes the appropriation to the stabilization account for 2011 — meaning the Legislature could use the money for other purposes beyond that, according to committee staff.

Then: The sales tax. It increases the sales tax by .3 between June 1 of this year to June 30, 2013. The money goes toward the state need grant, all-day kindergarten, levy equalization and the Working Families Tax Credit, which would offset the tax increase for low-income people. Like the tobacco tax, the money is required to go into the listed programs through this biennium, then it would go into the General Fund and future Legislatures could put the money to other purposes.

Then: The reduction of $500 million in tax loopholes and exemptions.

Patrick Connor with the National Federation of Independent Business: said his organization is opposed to all three bills. He said agricultural producers are “price takers” not “price makers” and would be negatively affected by ending a tax exemption for some agricultural products. As for the cigarette tax, he said people will go to other states to buy cigarettes, which will drive down revenues here and hurt small businesses. He said a sales tax will undermine already low consumer confidence.

Nick Federici with the American Cancer Society said that increasing the cigarette tax will drop smoking rates in children by about 11 percent. “The decrease in smoking would save 17,000 lives here in Washington state.” He said some have been concerned that tobacco taxes are regressive — they hit poorer people harder. But, he said, applying the cigarette tax increase to the state-subsidized Basic Health Plan would help negate that.

(more…)

Tags: taxes

I’ve just finished taping interviews for The Impact. First, I did a compare and contrast of the Senate and House budgets and then talked with Rep. Kelli Linville, the House’s main budget writer, and Sen. Joe Zarelli, ranking Republican on Senate Ways & Means. With the delay of the House Finance Committee’s proposed tax package, we don’t know exactly how the House plans to raise $857 million in new revenue. But I did learn that Rep. Linville would support a temporary sales tax versus the “menu” approach of cobbling together tax exemptions. For his part, Sen. Zarelli said neither chamber has done enough in the reform department.

As for government reform, we examine a number of ideas:  GA-U (temporary assistance for the disabled who can’t work), liquor store conversions, Department of Printing closure, DSHS abolishment, and natural resource agency consolidation.  The governor’s legislative director, Marty Brown, sat down with me to explain her stance on these issues.  While Gov. Gregoire proposed a more modest version of  natural resources reform, you should tune in to hear what the governor thinks of Sen. Rodney Tom’s more ambitious proposal.

Finally, in our weekly committee segment, we have senators from the Natural Resources, Ocean and Recreation committee.  The discussion brought into focus new ideas on how to manage state marine resources, a plan to turn forest biomass into energy (we’ll explain biomass in the show), and the pros and cons of increasing some permitting fees.

You can watch The Impact Wednesday nights at 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.

Tags: natural resources merger, taxes, The Impact

The House was originally planning to unveil their budget today, but a spokesperson for the House Democratic caucus just let me know that will not happen today. I’ll update the blog as soon as I find out when the package will come out.

In the meantime, the Senate Ways & Means Committee will hold a hearing on their tax bills today at 3:30. Here are those bills: 6873, 6874, 6875.

Tags: taxes

Here’s a short look at what’s in store for today:

- At noon, Republican leaders will hold a media availability.

- At 3:30, both House and Senate Ways & Means committees will meet. In the Senate, they’ll be considering the revenue bills — 6873, 6874, 6875. In the House, they’ll be considering amendments to the budget introduced yesterday. I’m posting the videos from yesterday’s Ways & Means hearings below the jump in case you missed them.

- At 4 p.m., Gov. Chris Gregoire will sign the bill to suspend most of Initiative 960. As soon as that happens, the Legislature can pass a tax increase with a simple majority vote.

- At 4:45 p.m., Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown will hold a media availability.

- At some point to be announced, the House will release their revenue package.

- At 7 and 10 p.m. tonight, The Impact will air — host Jessica Gao has already interviewed Rep. Kelli Linville and Sen. Joe Zarelli. I’ll post the show as soon as it’s available online.

(more…)

Tags: 960, Budget, taxes

Just up in the Senate Health and Long-term Care Committee was Rep. Tom Campbell’s bill to require electronic tracking of pseudoephedrine sales. Campbell said the system would be paid for by the companies who make the cold medicine — and they’ve done similar projects in other states.

The real-time, electronic database would allow pharmacists to deny sales to “smurfers” — people who go store to store, trying to purchase as much pseudoephedrine as they can to make meth.

Currently, the state writes down the name and address of anyone purchasing cold medicine. There is a legal limit — but because stores don’t share information in real time, it makes it difficult to stop anyone, Campbell said.

“The current paper laws have helped,” said Don Pierce with the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. But, he said, the paper logs also make it very difficult for the police.

Tags: meth

Today:

- The Senate unveiled its supplemental operating budget. It includes $918 million in taxes: $518 million in exemption rollbacks, $1 more per pack for cigarettes and 3/10ths of a penny more on the sales tax for the next three years.

- Sen. Rodney Tom said they judged cuts based on their economic impact. Sen. Margarita Prentice said there were some things they just couldn’t cut. And Sen. Phil Rockefeller said they’re looking at budgeting differently in the future.

- Senators addressed some questions about the budget — is it a jobs killer? How will the Working Families tax credit work?

- The House held a public hearing on the bill to allow WSU, UW and Western to set their own tuition.

- The House unveiled its budget. Their budget includes $857 million in revenue — though they’ll release that package tomorrow — $653 million in spending cuts, $641 million in federal funds and the use of reserves and fund transfers.

- Rep. Kelli Linville said the budget includes cuts to education and the require furloughs — or temporary layoffs — for state employees.

- Representatives answered questions about the budget. Will university need grants be cut? How many jobs will be lost?

- I made some side-by-side comparison charts for House and Senate proposals.

- And you can watch the press conferences here. Also today: Both operating budgets had their first public hearing. You can watch one live on TVW now.

Tags: Day 44

Here’s the Senate:

And the House:

Tags: Budget, taxes

Here goes. I’ll be updating this as I go.

This shows how the Senate and the House come up with the cash to fill the $2.8 billion budget hole:

Question: How can they be counting on different amounts of federal money? The short answer is, these are their best guesses. Some of the money has been pledged, and other parts of the money are based on “conversations” they’ve had with federal legislators.

Here’s how the Senate and House would treat the higher education budgets:

Here are the differences in how much federal money each expects to get. Dollars are in millions. (more…)

Tags: budgets