Sen. Mike Hewitt's statement on the 2009-11 budget proposal

March 31, 2009

OLYMPIA…On Monday, March 30 Senate Democrats unveiled their proposed 2009-11 operating budget. Today Democrats in the House of Representatives did the same. Senate Republican Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, issued this statement in response to those budgets:  

“There are two main problems with these budgets. First, they set us up to be right back here in two years with an even worse problem. Second, I believe the priorities reflected in these budgets do not reflect the public’s priorities for state government.   

“These budgets fail to make the kinds of policy changes necessary to sustain us through a recession. Very few things in here are truly cut – programs are mostly left on the books and budget holes are plugged with 5 billion dollars in one-time federal money and transfers from other accounts. Making these temporary fixes while failing to make money-saving policy changes and resetting our spending baseline only sets us up to come right back here in two years in even worse shape. 

“The budgets also fail to reflect what I believe are the public’s priorities for state government. State government revenues over the next two fiscal years are expected to be equal to the two years ending June 30 – NO LOSS OF REVENUE. That means what’s in these budgets comes down to priorities. Unfortunately, there was virtually no prioritizing of government at work here, which creates winners and losers. The Senate budget, for example, reduces funding for smaller classroom sizes while paying more for state employees’ health care. It cuts colleges and university slots and nursing homes rather than freezing wages. It also cuts funding for state government performance audits while failing to target fraud in many state spending programs.  

“In fact, the more we look at these budgets the clearer it becomes that the cuts are those aimed at garnering the most support statewide for the tax increase proposal we expect the majority party and their supporters to put on the ballot later this year.  

“It’s really tough to give something to someone and then take it away. Over the past four years state spending has increased more than 33 percent. Many of the programs added during this spending spree are now being curtailed, at least for the time being. If that’s not the ‘budget roller coaster’ many lawmakers say they want to get off of, I don’t know what is. It’s time to make the difficult choices the Legislature should have made months ago and write a responsible budget with an eye toward our state’s future. 

“This budget also represents a huge missed opportunity. Last December minority Republicans called on Democrats to join us in tackling the budget challenges, starting with balancing the current budget that ends June 30. As we pointed out, every dollar saved in this budget through money-saving policy changes would become four dollars saved in the 2009-11 budget. Yet Democrats didn’t release a supplemental or biennial budget proposal until days 78 and 79 of the 105-day session. Had they acted earlier, it could have prevented 2.4 billion of the cuts we’re seeing today.”  

For more information contact Senate Republican Caucus Communications Director  Rebecca Japhet at (360) 786-7516 or japhet.rebecca@leg.wa.gov.