After Republicans and three Democrats successfully brought the budget up for a vote using a procedural maneuver, the Senate is now beginning to vote on about three dozen amendments to the budget. Watch live on TVW.

“If you support economic development, support this amendment… if you think that helping small businesses export their products is a bad idea, vote no,” said Sen. Derek Kilmer, of amendment 238.

“I urge a no vote,” said Sen. Don Benton. He said if legislators supported K-12 education, they should not support the amendment, which he says sends money to oversees offices.

The amendment failed. No amendments have passed so far.

“I’m sensing a pattern here folks. Amendment after amendment highlights a real pattern of cuts,” said Sen. Karen Keiser, speaking in favor of an amendment on public health funding. She says the cuts affect those who are the most vulnerable in the state, including the mentally ill, poor working families and more.

“My dear friend, you are seeing a pattern here,” said Sen. Cheryl Pflug. She said Republicans aren’t willing to make trade-offs that will put the state one billion dollars in the red next January.

Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe said “these are not trade-offs, these are people.”

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen delivered a tearful speech, saying she believes we have an obligation to take care of those who can’t care for themselves. She said she was raised very poor and depended on public health nurses. “I guess I’m just really feeling very bad tonight,” she said.

After several hours of amendments, the Senate took up final passage of the budget.

“It is my hope that we will work together on many things that were brought up tonight,” said Sen. Joe Zarelli. He said “differences have arisen” but Republicans will continue to try.

“Congratulations, Mr. Minority Leader, you fooled me,” said Sen. Lisa Brown. She said week after week, they were told they’d see a proposal from Senate Republicans, but now she knows she was duped. “This is a promises broken budget,” she said, citing programs for the most needy that would be cut. “If you are a poor woman, let me just say, tonight is not your night.”

Sen. Mark Schoessler said the budget “moves the ball down the field” and should get a yes vote. He said if Democrats’ amendments would have been proposed, it would have spent too much money — meaning a summer special session.

Sen. Jerome Delvin said this is a “good, sustainable budget,” and that the state is “finally not kicking the can down the road.”

Sen. Steve Hobbs said he and other members of the “Roadkill caucus” worked hard on reforms this session. “We agreed to this,” he said, “and the pledge was that we would not pass a budget until these reforms go through,” he said. But he said tonight has been “unfortunate.”

“This budget cripples education, taking $44 million from K-12 and $30 million from higher education,” said Sen. Kevin Ranker. “I believe this budget is a back-room deal … this doesn’t represent who we are.”

“This is not a bipartisan budget. This is an old-time politics budget,” said Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen. She said people hate this type of thing. “Your constituents will not be proud of you,” she said to her colleagues. “We’re going to be here a long time. Mr. President, what do you think, a month?” she said, referring to special session.

“We’ve been sitting at basically a 24-24 standoff,” said Sen. Joe Zarelli. “For all the rhetoric … this thing was poised to go the other way if another vote showed up” for Democrats, he said.

Sen. Craig Pridemore said no one knows whether this budget is sustainable. He said he’s searching for a word to describe what happened tonight, “and I find hypocrisy.”

Sen. Michael Baumgartner thanked everyone for the “good, hard fight” tonight and said he thinks after being “mad for a few days” everyone can come back together and work on the budget.

The budget passed, 25 to 24.

Tags: Democrats, Republicans, Senate

This week’s Q&A is with Rep. Andy Billig, one of 11 House Democrat freshmen who introduced a bill yesterday to close certain tax exemptions to fund smaller class sizes for Kindergarten-3rd grade classes. Here’s what Billig had to say this morning about the bill, its prospects and what message voters really sent in the last election.

Q: First, tell me about the proposal you unveiled yesterday to cut tax exemptions to fund education.

Billig: Well, we — the 11 freshmen Democrats along with the support of a total of 48 colleagues — really feel that we need a balanced approach to solving our revenue crisis and that’s what this bill is about. It’s about making the investments in kids that we need over special interest tax breaks.

Q: It would take a two-thirds vote to get this through, and I think for that reason some people have written it off. Was this just a statement?

Billig: No, we think that this has a good chance to pass. I think most of our colleagues will agree that we should put the interest of young children first and invest in their academic achievement and invest in their future over special interest tax breaks.

Q: Tell me more about what specific tax breaks you’re targeting. There’s the end to the out-of-state sales tax exemption …

Billig: Yes, out of state shoppers, and then the other one – it’s not closing the bank tax exemption but limiting the mortgage B&O tax exemption for banks to $100 million. We’re the only state in the country that has this tax exemption so we want to limit that to $100 million so that most of the in-state banks wouldn’t be affected.

Q: I think that’s one exemption you hear about but it’s very confusing. Can you explain it further?

Billig: Banks have revenue from different sources. One of the sources is from mortgage interest. So when you pay your mortgage, part of what you’re paying is interest and that is revenue. So all businesses – I have a business, and I pay B&O tax on all of our income, and the banks don’t. They don’t pay B&O tax on the interest that they get on first mortgages. So this would basically cap that exemption so that they would be paying B&O tax just like any other business. (more…)

Tags: Billig, Democrats, House, taxes

Thursday at 7 p.m. TVW’s Inside Olympia will look back at the last time the budget was this bad.

Host Austin Jenkins will talk with then-Gov. John Spellman as well as Republican House Speaker Bill Polk and House Minority (Democratic) Leader Wayne Ehlers. It ought to be a very interesting conversation.

Background: In Nov. 1979, Washington voters approved a Constitutional amendment to require the Legislature to meet annually. (Before then, it was a once-per-two-years affair.) According to the official legislative history, the following session, in Jan. 1980, was virtually a non-event.

In Nov. 1980, Republicans took control of the House, Democrats had a 25-24 lead in the Senate and Gov. Dixy Lee Ray was defeated.

And then: The state suddenly faced a budget shortfall of $1 billion.

If session this year has been stressful for you, reading this could give you heartburn (speaking from experience): In the middle of budget negotiations, a scale-tipping Senate Democrat switched parties, (more…)

Tags: Budget, Democrats, Inside Olympia, Republicans, taxes

Yesterday, Microsoft announced its first major layoffs in the software company’s history. KUOW reported the hit to the economy is even greater than it sounds: Each Microsoft job supports, on average, three other local jobs.

But something CEO Steve Ballmer said relates to state government budget discussions: Microsoft, he said, is making cuts because they don’t see the economic downturn as a recession, they think the economy is resetting to a lower level of consumer spending.

It’s not just semantics: The difference is at the heart of the public budget-related disagreements between Republicans and Democrats here.

Republicans say state spending grew to an unsustainable level and should be reset to a lower level.

Democrats say we’re in a recession, the state’s economy will bounce back, and with that will come increased revenues from sales and property tax.

And that’s why Democrats have been open to using federal stimulus money to patch the $6 billion-and-growing budget hole, whereas Republicans say they don’t: One group thinks they’re building a bridge, the other thinks they’re lengthening the plank.

Tags: Budget, Democrats, economy, Republicans

I just got back from a press conference with Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and a half dozen other Democrats in the Senate. They were announcing a package of bills aimed at creating jobs across the state in high-demand areas, like healthcare and “green” jobs.

How do they plan to do it, particularly in a tough budget year? Many of the measures focus on using programs that already exist in a different way. For example: There is currently a program that helps low-income households pay their utility bills. One of the proposals would free up that money for home energy audits, which would help identify and correct energy inefficient areas throughout the home. The idea is that jobs and a long-term drop in utility payments are achieved simultaneously.

Another example, courtesy of Sen. Karen Keiser: There are currently 12,000 vacancies in healthcare-related jobs across the state. By partnering with community colleges, she said, and using some of the $4 billion of state unemployment insurance money for workforce training (Note: $4 billion, not $400 million, which was the figure cited at the press conference), more workers could be trained for those jobs — either current healthcare workers moving up the chain (LPN to RN, for example) or new workers moving into the field.

They estimated the efforts could produce 24,000 jobs, though there wasn’t an estimate on what time frame it would take to get there.

Tags: Democrats, Jobs, Senate

The 2009 Washington state Legislature starts on Monday. In the 105 days that follow, state lawmakers will need to put together a budget that addresses a projected $5.7 billion deficit.

Here’s Inside Olympia host Austin Jenkins talking to Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and House Minority Leader Richard DeBolt:

And here’s the City Club of Tacoma’s annual legislative preview, which was earlier this week:

Now go get some rest and get ready for Monday.

Tags: Democrats, House, Legislature, Lisa Brown, Republicans, Richard DeBolt, Senate, Washington

Yesterday, lawmakers gathered in Olympia with dozens of reporters and editors from around the state for the annual Associated Press legislative forum. Their message: The budget will dominate this 105-day session.

Another message: This session will end in 105 days. To paraphrase Marty Brown, Gov. Chris Gregoire’s Legislative director: Budget decisions won’t get easier with more time. There’s no way to predict whether Legislators will be able to agree on a budget by the end of regular session, but several said it was an important goal.

Watch the entire forum here:

On the budget:
(more…)

Tags: Budget, Democrats, Governor, House, Public Policy, Republicans, Senate, Ways & Means