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The impossible task of cutting $2 billion from state spending
has been made possible. A radical exercise inside the state's Office
of Financial Management shows how a no-new-taxes budget might be
made to work. Gov. Gary Locke is right to embrace the new process
and should keep on pushing it.
The usual, political way to handle a projected deficit is to take
last year's budget and cut. It is like taking last year's family
car and reducing its weight with a blowtorch and shears. But cutting
$2 billion from this vehicle does not make it a compact; it makes
it a wreck. What is wanted is a budget designed from the ground
up.
Conceptually, that is what OFM has done. It took top people from
the Locke administration and from the private sector and had them
list the 10 top goals for state government — stronger achievement
from students in school, higher productivity of workers, healthier
citizens, the condition of vulnerable persons, the safety of people
and property, and so on. This was the shopping list. Then the OFM
teams started "buying" the most valuable things first until the
money was all spent.
They "spent" more on early-childhood education but less —
presumably hundreds of millions less — on reducing class sizes.
They bought more slots in colleges but 2,000 fewer in prisons and
parole programs. They bought a smaller Basic Health Plan, presumably
by slimming the benefits or disenrolling childless adults. They
had not funded many advocacy groups and commissions or the licensing
and regulation of some of the professions.
Exactly what they recommended is not revealed. Locke is looking
it over, and may make some changes. He has to present his budget
— balanced, and with no new taxes — on Dec. 17.
He said he will do this straight, and he must. The budget will
be painful; it cannot be ridiculous. The no-new-tax budget has to
be made as palatable and as smart a choice as possible — because
we might have to live with it.
Of course, legislators will write their own balanced budget. Locke
hinted that he might accept "gambling or sin taxes or things like
that." But sin revenue would add little to the package he offers.
The taxes that would make a big difference toward bridging the $2-billion
chasm are precisely those that would be too heavy to bear. There
is a recession on, and judging from the recent election, there is
also a strong resistance to tax increases.
People keep saying that government should spend wisely what it
already has. That is what Locke now promises to do. We await the
details.
Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company
The Public Strategies Group designed and guided this effort. Through
hard-work and collaboration the State of Washington has transformed
its budget process. Citizens are guaranteed a budget that does not
trade a balance today for future long-term problems.
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