Perhaps its time we use the fear of the voters thing to our advantage. I won't vote for, volunteer for, contribute to, or otherwise support any dem who votes for this budget. Not a single damn one of them.

They've been telling us, and they can't do dick about it, and you're a shithead. Go get democrats elected or shut the fuck up.

Time to secede.

They fear the wrath of the voters and the republicans too much to raise taxes in case they get voted out and the GOP takes over and cuts spending, but now they've just cut out the middle man, retained their jobs, and only made it slightly less sucky for all but the rich.
They really just need to enact an emergency tax on the wealthiest 1% and a corporate equivalent of the Alternative Minimum Tax on profits so the GE's and their ilk have to pay something. But I suppose they're too scared to just suck up the abuse and name calling.

While its not out of control spending, its normal growth spending, thats become impossible to afford a massive loss in revenue and out of control inflation.

You can re-word it anyway you want, but its pretty simple, if we dont make cuts now, bankruptcy laws will make them for us. How you make those cuts, I would agree, gutting social programs, while keeping tax breaks, is a one sided way of balancing any budget.

give the voters what they asked for. a government that provides no services for its citizens. it people don't like it, they can vote differently in the future. and if no political parties offer anything different, then the state can continue to shrivel up until some party does.

We foresee that many key elected officials will howl about what they claim they had to do and moan their tortured assurances that nobody is happy with the initial budget proposal released by the State House today — and even try to wear that universal disgust as a badge of honor. But it’s simply not true: the undead, the big banks, the elective cosmetic surgery industry, and our allies are simply thrilled. See our press release for more info:

http://www.undeadolympia.com/2011/04/04/…

What @6 said. In the last session the dems tried to follow Goldy's advice and raise some taxes. There were also initiatives on the ballot to raise some other taxes. The voters much rejected them all. An all cuts budget is pretty much what the voters asked for. If rational argument can't convince them, then maybe experience will. If the voters want services, then they must approve revenue sources to fund them.

Cowards." That's all you got, Goldy? These guys are supposed to be on your team, and their selling you out with crocodile tears. They're spineless corporate sycophants, they are public servants who have shirked their duty. They're greedy fucking bastards.

They ARE Republicans. They're Democrats In Name Only. And they don't deserve our support anymore.

As long as Democrats are able to get elected using the mantra "spend now, pay later" and Republicans are able to get elected using the mantra "cut taxes now, cut spending later", there is no absolutely no reason to expect either party of have a vested interest in enacting sane fiscal policy.

Clearly the only "plan" the Democrats ever had here was to pray that revenue would somehow recover before any meaningful budget cuts were required (compare this to the Republican "plan" of hoping that that the Democrats would have to do something really unpopular before the next election). Everybody loses!

The budget fails even from an "all cuts" perspective. It doesn't contain a provision to consolidate inefficient small school districts. It also doesn't appear to streamline the bloated technology budget.

Dems will succeed in giving the voters "what they want", and the voters will then get pissed, and vote for more Republicans, who will do more shitty things, and then voters will go "oh crap" and vote Democrats back in.

Goldy's right - but there's nothing Dems can do in the short-term. They (we) have spent 30 years abdicating their responsibility to articulate the positive case for adequate taxation. Instead the played games with accounting tricks and various bonds and generally gave up the public fight for the Democratic agenda.

Hoping the other side continually screws up and sending the voters a message of "vote for us, the other guys are worse" doesn't really get anyone excited.

But on that note, thank God Republicans are so bat-shit insane (see Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida). If they weren't so bad people would never vote for Democrats (pathetic, but it's our only hope right now).

You all make me want to quit voting.

The problem is that so many of these legislators, especially among Dems in Seattle, never have to face a true accountability moment. They so rarely face meaningful opposition; their seats become an entitlement, and they kowtow to Republicans to keep their leadership gigs, rather than deferring to constituents to keep their jobs.

i should add, the other part of what needs to happen is that progressives need to follow the conservative playbook & not just support progressive candidates, but (viciously) attack democrats who are not progressive. democrats will not move left wo/ pressure to do so.

state spending per capita is now at it's lowest level since 1986

As far as I can tell, that statement is simply false. Certainly it is false under the normal intrepretation of CPI-adjusting total WA state spending and dividing it by the WA state population for each year. Under that intrepretation (according to usgovernmentspending.com), WA state per capita spending was ~$2800 in 1992 (as far back as their data goes) and rose steadily to ~$4400 now.

It might be true that state spending as a fraction of state GDP is about the same now as it was in 1986, but that is a completely different statistic.

Did you see the shrill squeals of outrage in the Seattle Times when UW responded to decreased state support by increasing non-resident admission at the expense of in-state spots? Of course the Times did their typical 1/2 assed reporting job on it as well. Guess what Washington? We're all doing it. We are all increasing non-resident admits in relation to in-state admits to reflect more closely the minimum required by these useless legislative wusses.

I'm sure these are the same readers who voted to repeal the pop tax and vote for all of Timmie's initiatives.

I looked at some of the details of the budget and the kicker on the higher education cuts includes not only the slashing of the overall state support but then also in addition to that, the further reduction of support based on each and every employee taking a 3% pay cut along with other state employees at other agencies. Except that not everyone in higher education will get that 3% cut. The institutions can implement the equivalent of a 3% across the board pay decrease in other ways. For example making staff take larger cuts or simply firing more staff to make up the cuts. Faculty can and are often held harmless in sharing the burden of higher education cuts.

Of course, the proud dismantling of public higher education is only one element of this fucked up budget. Thanks dems. You can suck it. All of you.

I seriously wonder if it would have been any worse under Rossi. I don't think so.

Do any of you understand what happened last November? 1053, that's what happened.

Suppose you are a legislator, one that doesn't come from a pretty much guaranteed progressive district, and you come down to Olympia this year knowing that your constituents voted for NO NEW TAXES -- you realize that's what 1053 did, effectively. You're voted in by those constituents, right? And you're going to propose new taxes, and try to convince your fellow legislators to get a 2/3rds majority to vote for new taxes? Sure you are, because you want to be tarred and feathered when you come home to your district, and never voted in again, and since you have a business (because legislators don't live on their part-time salaries), you'll not get any business from those constituents.

Oh come on. They were as cowardly last year before 1053. They implemented the most anemic solutions to the gnawing hole in the budget long before that vote.They twiddled and quaked and meekly did squat. SQUAT. Then more of the same. These dunderheads weren't up to the intellectual challenge of thinking outside of the box. And they certainly have never exercised any sort of courage. Not a single minute of it in 2009, 2010 or 2011

Just spoke with someone at the UW today, and she said the budget cuts mean that their top researchers are getting cherry picked by other institutions who can pay more. And the top researchers bring in most of the research money, meaning the problem gets worse.

Clearly, large corporations are not paying their fair share of taxes, especially when many are sitting on piles of cash: Microsoft, $6 billion in cash, laid off 2,101 workers in 2909; tax breaks in 2009: $36.3 million.

It's deeply disappointing that bills to reform tax exemptions, to make them more transparent and accountable (annual outcomes reports) and subject to automatic sunsetting, and to treat them just as any other budget expenditure have been stalled. If ever there was a time to address the other side of the ledger and the structural problems with tax exemptions, it is now.