Brad Shannon asked: What’s wrong with letting the voters decide?

Rep. Gary Alexander: “The question of any kind of tax increase, to me, does not make any sense. To go out and ask the voters … is only for one reason: Because they don’t have the votes to do it here.” He also said he was elected by the voters to lead, and that he thinks passing the package to voters isn’t leadership.

Shannon asked if that was a philosophical change, citing previous referenda that Republicans have voted on in the past to send to the public.

Rep. Richard DeBolt said the issue is that it’s “offensive” to put healthcare to voters because it’s the item that polled the best.

Tags: tax

Now, I’m at the press conference for the House Republican response to the tax package.

“Today as we just saw, the Democrats passed a $1.1 billion tax increase out of committee,” said Rep. Doug Ericksen.

Rep. Gary Alexander: “You heard me be very consistent: This is not the time to impose aditional taxes on the citizens in this state. They are not in the position budgetary wise. We ask every citizen in oru state to live within their means … but we don’t require that for government? Government can and should live within its means.”

Alexander said the majority party hasn’t used the priorities of government. He cited GAU — General Assistance Unemployable — as a program that could go. “It is time when we just have a more responsible position.”
Rep. Joe Schmick: “We’re taking in more dollars this year than we did last year… that’s more revenue than we took in last year but when we’re facing these times, here’s some practical things that we should be considering,” he said, including a 3 percent rollback for every state employee and more employee contributions to healthcare. “We’ve not talked about delivery of services and how we can do these things differently.”

Mike Lawrence, a safety management consultant for the trucking industry (and I’m guessing on spelling): “The trucking industry is being hit extremely hard right now … the state and federal government is taxing us to death.” He said “every time we turn around, somebody in government has got their hand out.” He said the trucking industry has been upset at “trying to generate revenue for the state through enforcement tools.”

Tags: tax

Rep. Eric Pettigrew, continued from post below: “If you had asked me, I’d rather have tax reform. But, given that and given that people need us — htey need us right now. I’m not talking about 10 years from now,” he said. “With that, I urge this body to vote for this so we can move it on to the public and they’ll decide.”

The committee then voted on the bill: 8 yes, 7 no. It passed.

(The first time the clerk announced the vote, she tranposed the numbers: 8 nay, 7 aye. There was an audible gasp in the room before several representatives pointed out that she flipped the numbers.)

Tags: healthcare, tax

The House Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee is back from caucus and is now working on the bill to increase the sales tax by .3 percent to cover healthcare.

Now, for debate:

Rep. Joe Schmick: “Well, it seems here we are in Olympia and it’s the same old story: We’re going to have to raise taxes,” he said. “These taxes are scheduled to go away in a few years but the spending never does.”

Rep. Eileen Cody: “We have really gone over this budget and I do believe that providing healthcare … is one of the priorities of government,” she said. “The way we have our healthcare set up now, tied to employment, is a problem — we all know that.”
(more…)

Tags: healthcare, tax

I just arrived at the hearing in the House Health & Human Services Appropriations Committee for Rep. Eric Pettigrew’s proposal to increase the sales tax by .3 percent temporarily. The money would go toward health care.

They just went over a few amendments and now they’re breaking for caucus. The hearing is live on TVW and tvw.org and I’ll be here the whole time.

Tags: healthcare, tax

Over the weekend, there was quite a lot of talk about will-they-or-won’t-they pass a tax. All we know: Tomorrow at 8 a.m., the House Health and Human Services committee will meet for an executive session on the proposal to increase sales tax by 0.3 percent in order to fund health care.

The hearing will be live on TVW.

Tags: healthcare, tax

Tune into TVW right now to hear the House debate on a bill that would allow early tolling on 520.

And from earlier today, don’t miss the hearing on the .3 percent sales tax increase.

Tags: tax, tolls

The plan to create an income tax for high earners in Washington is taking shape.

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown told TVW’s Jennifer Huntley that, under her plan, those who make more than $250,000 per year would pay between 1 and 3 percent of that to the state.

Brown gave the figure in an interview this morning that will air tonight on TVW at 7 and 10 p.m.

Brown has been publicly mulling an income tax for high earners for the past week or so, though she’s revealed few details.

Tune in to watch The Impact at 7 and 10 p.m. to find out the latest.

Tags: Budget, income tax

The Senate managed to do what didn’t work out on Saturday: Pass both the bill bringing the state into conformity with federal laws and a bill to create a worker training program.

The conformity bill addresses the way employers are charged for their unemployment insurance versus how unemployed workers are paid: The employees receive benefits based on the highest two wage periods in the last year, while employers are charged at the four-period average. Changing that was necessary: The Federal Government gave Washington a deadline to get into conformity or lose funding.

The retraining bill is a program to retrain workers who are leaving low-demand careers. The program would allow those enrolled to receive unemployment benefits while they attend qualifying retraining programs for high-demand careers, like healthcare.

The previous bill would have diverted money from the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, but that was ruled an effective tax increase under I-960, the voter-approved initiative that requires lawmakers to pass tax increases with a two-thirds vote or send them to the public for a vote.

The compromise retraining program will come from existing funds from the Employment Security Department and the Federal Workforce Investment Act.

For all our coverage on unemployment, check here.

Tags: unemployment

This morning, Gov. Chris Gregoire had a media availability to discuss the new statewide sex offender database.

After the unveiling, she answered a few press questions. On the subject of taxes, here’s what she had to say:

“If they are looking at alternatives, I say more power to them. That is their job … that’s their prerogative.”

“I do find it a little bit interesting how we now talk about a billion or two as if it’s not that much money,” she said. She added that sin taxes — or taxes on things that are unhealthy — has been discussed. “Sin taxes don’t raise very much money.”

She said she is interested in asking voters to raise the bonding capacity of the state, which would “allow us to put people to work” by borrowing money.

Tags: Budget, Gregoire, sex offender, taxes