I noted Marty Brown the Governor's Legilslative policy advisor on IMPACT over the weekend stated the "privatization of the state liquor buisness has been studied many times. Other than the recent study from the auditors office showing the potential for a 300 million dollar profit, It has never been shown to make fiscal sense, the Governor will not support it."

Yep she is really cutting to the bare bones. Of course Marty represents a $125,000 of salary overhead, we can get a $30,000 a year communications major from Evergreen to read a talking points memo.

Cuts will have to be made. The Democrats are just postponing the inevitable. A sophomoric way to govern. This time next year, the state shortfall will be between 5 and 9 BILLION dollars.

Interesting piece. Yes, Republicans are understandably reluctant to develop an alternative all-cuts budget because they know what the public reception would be. It would damage their hopes of gaining back some of those moderate swing districts, such as in the King County suburbs.

Yes, Republicans raised taxes in 1982 in response to the Reagan Recession, but the GOP was a much different party in those days -- it had some bona fide moderates among its members in the Legislature. Its caucuses were not limited to the "all taxes are evil" people that populate them today, people like Rep. Alexander who view every tax as a penalty.

Oh yes that Reagan Recession, what were the interest rates back during the Carter years? Unemployment rates? Who did we have in charge of congress during the Reagan Recession? Is the statement really that the Republicans raised taxes 28 years ago in Washington State, so nobody should complain as the Democrats do it for the next three decades? You run with that in November.

Maybe the question should have been, "What would the Republicans in the Legislature have suggested had they been dedicated to the well being of Washington State to the exclusion of political concersn?" I read better comment in the Seattle Times than what I hear coming from Republican leaders.

Demand for programs like BHP and GAU are virtually guaranteed to exceed projections. They create their own self-generating constituency, beneficiaries and providers, that legislators apparently cannot resist.

If the Republicans had been in power in the last few sessions, and they had returned tax revenue to the people when the Treasury was flush, they would be justified in now saying "share the wealth == share the sacrifice". The problem is, all that the Democrats in Olympia want from taxpayers is more and more sacrifice, and what do the taxpayers get in return? Calls for yet more and more sacrifice. Government isn't an important enough part of most productive people's lives (at least "important" in a positive way) that they will be willing to sacrifice themselves on its fiscal altar indefinitely.

"Don't raise taxes. Cut the budget."

A no brainer.
If our elected leaders don't get it by now, they deserve to be thrown out next election day.

Forbes has a story today: Bluest States Spilling the Most Red Ink

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/25/democratic-states-bad-financial-shape-personal-finance-blue.html

The most salient sentence in this article is "Without a formal budget proposal, it’s hard to calculate whether the Republican proposals add up to enough savings to close the budget gap." I would like to see the author at least try to quantify how these cuts would stack up to the current deficit. Without such specificity this article is just empty wind.

The comment that "Government isn't an important enough part of most productive people's lives..." is a shallow and misleading statement. I believe that most of the state budget goes towards educating children and incarcerating criminals. Both of these functions are important, even to "productive" people.

Also, many comments act as if the state government hasn't cut the budget at all. This is misleading - the state government has already made very extensive cuts.

Sez you. Government has been educating children and incarcerating criminals in this state since the 1800s, but only a fool would suggest that those functions all that these tremendous increases in the burden of state government in the last decade have been directed at. In fact, many of these core functions of government are getting short shrift as the all-intrusive "nanny state" insinuates itself into the lives of people in increasingly parasitic ways.

Should have read "...those functions are all that these tremendous increases..."

The perception that the State has made "extensive cuts" is in fact false. First, the State delayed cuts and/or reductions with the support of Federal Stimulus monies. Second, cuts and/or reductions trumpeted by the State only served to RESTRAINED the growth of State government. I suggest those confused by the difference look at the ACTUAL expenditures, rather than talking about the gap between EXPECT tax receipts and ACTUAL tax receipts--the "Deficit" is nothing more than poor forecasting; however, total expenditures have essentially REMAINED the SAME as "extensive cuts" were being made.

It's weird, Austin (may I call you that?), that you don't acknowledge that Governor Gregoire has already proposed a worst-case scenario balanced budget that does most of what the Republicans propose and cuts a whole lot more.

It's convenient for the Republicans to pretend that the budget can be balanced by cutting welfare to poor people, kids, and immigrants, but there's very little reason to believe that.

Balancing the budge while maintaining services demands quite simply cutting the average compensation per state employee to a level that balances the budget. It's really that simple. Start with a graduated 5% reduction in salaries for a 5% reduction overall. Do this by cutting salaries 10% and adding performance bonuses equivalent to 5%. That way you start to put in place a performance reward system instead of a monopolistic entitlement system.

Next, implement a 5% reduction in average healthcare costs by providing less medical coverage per employee or through increased co-pays. I bet this more than balances the budget. If government employees think this too draconian, they might start by looking at what's happened and is happening in the private sector.

The fundamental problem with the public sector is not lack of taxes but lack of performance monitoring and improvement over time. Witness the public school system for evidence of the failure to monitor the quality of teachers, of teaching performance, of student performance, and of school performance. Same with the criminal-justice system: who is monitoring the quality of inmates produced by our prisons? The quality of justice by our judges and prosecutors? and the quality of policing by our police departments?

Unfortunately, we don't pay for outcomes, but for staffing levels at fixed salary levels. A secondary effect of good government seems to be sometimes adequate government. Maybe we ought to reward for performance instead. That will happen only when compensation is tied to performance and not taking up space in a bureaucracy until the bureaucrat can collect a pension for enduring the bureaucracy, a feat that may be quite difficult and challenging, but in and of itself, produces no output that citizens value.

I highly value the services that government intends to provide (unlike many Republicans), but am unwilling to pay (unlike many Democrats) for monopolistic and ineffective government bureaucracies that have no handle on how to be effective and efficient in what they're doing. This leaves me in a quandry since the demand for services is unceasing and the inertia of ineffective government is entrenched. Mostly I try to vote for anything that smacks of actual reward for performance, and vote against anything that looks like hoggish behavior (as in pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered).

Stuka -

THANK YOU!

You wrote the best and most lucid explanation of what's wrong with the public sector and how to fix it that I have ever read. I'm going to keep this. More than that, I'm going to share it with others.

It is very difficult to get the actual details of the problem. Is there a $12 billion drop in revenue and spending is flat? Is there a $12 billion increase in spending and revenue is flat?

It never seems to come up in any reports for example in comparing where the budget was in the last biennium, $X in Revenue, $X expenditure, bottom line surplus or shortage to what the current budget is. We need an ability to see what is trending where, instead we get "$12 billion shortage". This is like me claiming I'm short $50,000 in my income and I must have a raise without disclosing that I have a new Ferrari to support or conversely that I have had a $50k decrease in other income.

We need some context in this discussion.