In just a few minutes, Gov. Christine Gregoire will be delivering her recession-erific inaugural address to a joint session of the legislature in Olympia. Expect lots of talk about tough times and painful choices… just as soon as they’re done introducing the consuls generals of Cambodia, Chile, Lithuania, and Germany. Must see daytime programming!
For real, actually. This speech should set the tone for the governor’s second term and, more immediately, for the legislative session that opened this week. Watch it with me here.
UPDATE: Key quote, for the many who have complained about the cuts in Gregoire’s proposed budget:
I have proposed a two-year spending plan that addresses the largest budget gap in state history. This budget contains as much care and compassion as we could muster. But it still hurts people, and with each cut I chose, I saw their faces. I don’t like this budget, but I proposed it for one simple reason — I must.
And here’s the full text. The governor, an early Obama supporter, used a lot of Obama-esque language. (“The people of Washington do not want partisan politics” and “This is our moment to act with courage — boldly and urgently — as our President-elect is doing — to speed up a recovery.”) Gregoire put forward her “Washington Jobs Now” plan, which would increase unemployment benefits for laid off workers and use road and other construction projects to create 20,000 jobs. And she tried to balance the sting of her proposed budget cuts with a call to service (another Obama echo).
Today, I want to issue a challenge. I ask every Washingtonian right now, today, to commit to at least one hour a month to help other Washingtonians in need. I personally embrace that challenge. And so does every member of my family. Will you join us? … I also want to challenge each person — if you have the means — to commit to donating four non-perishable food items each month to a food bank, or the equivalent in cash.
A sober address for a sobering time.
“Cambodia, Chile, Lithuania, and Germany”
Four states who are well aware of what it’s like to live in a dictatorship…like Washington.
@1, go fuck yourself with a chainsaw.
“But it still hurts people, and with each cut I chose, I saw their faces.”
That sounds spooky.
@1 – and not just any chainsaw, but one with a rusty blade.
And WHERE is Mr. Poe?!?!?!?!? Do Terry and Dan have him tied up in their basement as a sex slave?
I think he’s in DC licking the doorknobs at hotels near the White House, @5.
The faces she was looking into were not the low income people being losing their health benefits, the mentally ill losing GAU benefits, the students unable to attend or afford public higher education, or the non-citizens being deported back to their home countries for non-violent offenses.
She was tipping her hat to the anti-tax nuts she refuses to confront, and the conservatives in her own party who told her it’s better to screw the poor than create a fair tax system. She’d rather deepen our recession than run an emergency budget deficit based on the sound and well-established principles of counter-cyclical economics.