PUYALLUP… The budget leader for the state’s Senate Republicans says the “significant” shortfall anticipated in the next state operating budget by Gov. Bob Ferguson’s administration was completely predictable.
Sen. Chris Gildon, R-Puyallup, offered this reaction to budgeting instructions sent to state agencies that call for reductions without acknowledging Olympia’s chronic overspending:
“Republicans repeatedly warned the majority party that their new budget was like a house of cards built on a shaky foundation. We showed proof that more reckless overspending would lead to a massive deficit. They wouldn’t listen. This is the result. No one can say it’s a surprise.
“Governor Ferguson has signed off on billions and billions of dollars in new taxes since taking office. Taxpayers were told those tax increases were necessary to stabilize the budget. Yet Washington is now facing another projected shortfall — the third in as many years. Inflation and population growth are factors, but the governor’s administration is leaving out the fact that state spending has doubled in the past decade alone. As former Democratic Governor Gregoire recently pointed out, the budget went from $33 billion when she left office in 2013 to over $80 billion now. Even she agrees with Republicans that state government doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.
“Higher taxes did not fix the problem because taxes were never the problem. The answer is to get spending under control, and make government live within its means just like Washington families must. That will take the kind of fiscal restraint we advocated in the Senate Republican ‘$ave Washington’ budget year before last, which preserved core services without needing more taxes. The majority rejected our proposal twice, in favor of higher taxes and another big increase in spending.
“The people deserve the full truth about why these deficits keep happening, but they aren’t getting it from the Ferguson administration or from the legislative majority. We need a change of attitude in Olympia.”