More debate from the bill to make it easier to raise taxes

The Senate just voted to adopt Sen. Jim Hargrove’s striking amendment. That means Initiative 960 would not be changed — just suspended.

Now, onto debate on final passage:

Sen. Jim Hargrove: “This is a significant issue and we do not take lightly changing or even suspending the will of the people in this action,” he said. “I remember that when Initiative 601 was passed, it was the will of the people and I supported it,” he said, but it, too, was amended. “It was altered in a major way the following session,” he said. And then initiatives 732 and 728 were suspended several times. He said lawmakers cannot “simply vote no and go home.”

Sen. Jerome Delvin: “In 2007 or 8, we talked about the upcoming financial crisis,” he said, but it didn’t stop the Legislature from spending.” He urged people to listen to voters in their districts.

Sen. Ed Murray: “In all of our districts, we see homes foreclosed and we see the empty businesses. It wasn’t state government that got us there.” Murray said it was “waste, fraud and greed” from corporate America that ravaged the economy. “There just isn’t enough cost savings to be found” to fund public schools and other state functions.

Sen. Mike Carrell: “Some of us … didn’t vote to repeal those initiatives,” he said. “Washington state hit the budgetary iceberg, and kinda like the Titanic, it appears that the message is we need to put more coals down in teh burners to get … moving faster,” he said. “I just simply cannot support something like this.” He said if the state is going through an emergency, why is it spending $150,000 on art projects at a special commitment center? “It is simply wrong to be doing that.” He said half of one percent of every construction project in Washington — including the $4 billion Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel — has to be spent on art.

Sen. Rosa Franklin: “We are in a financial crisis,” she said. “We have heard a lot this afternoon about the will of the people,” she said. “The will of the people also has embedded in it compassion.”

Sen. Pam Roach: “We should not be raising taxes.” She said doing so will further depress the economy.

Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles said if the Legislature weren’t supposed to amend the laws, there would be little reason for a Legislature. She noted an initiative approved by more than 65 percent of voters to tie the minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index. “We’ve had 22 bills to amend that citizen initiative,” she said. “The point is, Republicans and Democrats introduce bills, they support bills, they vote on bills to amend initiatives.”

Sen. Cheryl Pflug:  “If you do this, many of you will return to a wall of rage at home.” She said people are hurting “and you are hurting them more.”

Sen. Paull Shin: “I personally am a fiscally conservative person,” he said. “I’ve been thinking of whether to vote for this or against it,” he said, over many  nights. He decided to vote for it. “What is important today? An education to compete in the global society. If we neglect education, I challenge you: Where would we be” 10 years down the road?

Sen. Don Benton: “There’s been no budgetary restraint here for a long, long time. And you all know it,” he said. He said it was “plain wrong” to suspend 960. “We don’t have to circumvent the will of the people.”

Sen. Tracey Eide: “We are in a crisis. We need to think logically. And who do the people of this state turn to when they need help? Who? You. Me. All of us,” she said, in the form of representative government.

Sen. Linda Evans Parlette: “Bottom line: It seems like there are differing opinions on whether this budget crisis stems from a revenue problem or a spending problem … many economists have warned us that we cannot tax our way out of this problem,” she said. Instead, cuts need to be made.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen said this was a difficult vote. She said she’s never voted for a general tax increase, “but I will this year … I some day will stand before my Lord and say, Yeah, I did it,” she said, her voice cracking. She said she also wanted to correct an earlier statement that transportation dollars will go toward public art. “It’s not true.”

Sen. Janea Holmquist said the bill was an attack on the Taxpayer Protection Act. She said she hasn’t seen “temporary taxes” that stay temporary, either.

Sen. Rodney Tom said to look at California if you want to see how two-thirds vote budgeting works. “We have lost 225,000 jobs in this state. We are facing a very different environment than when the voters passed this.” He said he found it laughable that people said they saw the economic collapse coming, because the world’s top investors didn’t see it coming.

Sen. Joe Zarelli, who lives in southwest Washington, said Oregon passed taxes recently and it’s driving business and high-earners into his district. “It’s not really at the end of the day government’s job to take care of people,” he said. He said it’s government’s job to help people lift themselves up.

Sen. Lisa Brown: “I respect the Constitution, and the Constitution lays out a balance of powers,” she said, referring to previous references to the Constitution and the people’s right to initiative. “Number two, I respect majority rule,” she said — not minority rule, which she said can occur when a two-thirds vote is required. “I sincerely believe that if I brought an all-cuts budget to the floor of the Senate … I don’t know if it would get 10″ votes, “and that’s why we are temporarily suspend the initiative.”

Sen. Mike Hewitt: “You’ve heard that we have a revenue problem, not a spending problem down here. Well, that’s not the case,” he said. He read from a card printed two years ago that he’s been carrying around with him about the estimated state budget shortfall. “We have been saying down here for three or four years, There’s a crash coming… and no one listened.” He said part of the current budget problem is global, and part is “self-inflicted.”

Tags: 960, Senate, taxes