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

Rep. Richard DeBolt just took the stage at a Republican press conference to offer their opinion on the Governor’s inaugural address.

He said he was recently talking to someone in his community who asked what the state was going to do since it’s out of money. He told the woman that the state actually has 5 percent more than last year.

Sen. Mike Hewitt, Republican leader in the Senate, said the state is largely to blame for the budget crisis because of overspending. He said his caucus supports Gregoire’s plan for sparking private sector business and reform the government.

(Gregoire, for her part, has said the state is mostly the victim of the national economy. “We all know our state didn’t make this economic crisis, and we all know we can’t unilaterally solve it,” she said today.)

“Those are things that we’ve talked about for years.”

Next up: Rep. Gary Alexander, a Republican from Olympia.

“I expected to see more dialogue in terms of reducing the budget,” he said. He said the Legislature needs to get to work cutting from the supplemental budget because every dollar cut from the last six months of this budget saves more in the long term. Read more on that in a post to come very soon, or here.

Sen. Joe Zarelli says: “The message that I’ve been trying to take to Sen. Brown and others in the majority is, even if you do decide to pursue more revenue, you’ve still got a sizable problem,” he said.

Zarelli said that Republicans look forward to working with Democrats to solve this problem, but “in the end of the day, they’re the majority party and they can choose the direction,” he said.

Tags: Budget, Governor, inauguration, Republicans

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