Thanks Goldy for one of the rare bits of budget analysis on the Senate budget from any type of media. There was a day when Olympia reporters like Joe Turner would tear through budget proposals looking for the inevitable bullshit. Today, the main street Olympia press seems to be able to only read press releases and note whether a budget includes tax increases or not.

And, by the way, here are two more imaginary numbers from the Senate budget. It calls for raising $72 million from beefed up tax collection (in other words: after hitting the few obvious tax cheats, they are going after the marginal cases that usually result in lawsuits) and another $65 million from implementing lean management without ever explaining: 1. what that means, 2. how to do it, 3. where to do it. These are just two more areas where this budget is fraudulent and unsustainable.

Great analysis. The Republican Senate budget also cuts $87 million in health benefit funding for part-time school employees. That reduces the Senate's net increase in K-12 spending to $500 million. That's not enough to comply with the Supreme Court's McCleary decision. And if the Legislature fails to restore the voter-approved COLAs, teachers will go six years without a state-funded COLA or salary increase.

Doesn't it seem likely that the entire Toms takeover is going to come down to him bargaining for other bills that he will pass in return for agreeing to a slightly revised version of the House budget? It just seems to me we are waiting for the negotiations to find out what bills Litzow, Toms and Sheldon demand be passed to gain their grudging acceptance of something like the house and Inslee proposal. My guess is Litzow really wants principals to be able to fire teachers (mutual consent), and toms wants the permanent repeal of I-732.
In any case I think that is the end game that is being set up. And that endgame is what this entire senate takeover is all about.
So the only reason to care about the senate budget is to guess which parts they see as their must haves in the negotiations.

Tom is going to demand to fuck over state workers' retirement in exchange for revenue on education. This is his mission, to screw over future state employees. You watch.

Hard to imagine how these liars look at themselves in the mirror. It has to be that
they really do believe their own bullshit.

I have to mention one agenda item, and pose a question. I have heard from the local beer industry that the State (House not Senate) Legislature plans on not only making the current 'temporary' bump in beer taxes permanent, but they plan on changing it to only tax beer made in Washington. This is a major tax hit for smaller breweries and a windfall for Megabrewers.
Are you aware of this, Goldy, and... is the state actually spending its' tax dollars on and for the reasons the taxes were collected?
I guess this is running long, but, is every dollar of, say Gas Tax in a separate account to actually be spend on transportation infrastructure and maintenance (and only on that), or does it all go into the General Fund where anyone with access can make a withdrawal for their pet project?

@7 There are two different proposals to extend the beer tax. Both would extend it to some extent to small brewers, but it would be on all beer DISTRIBUTED in Washington, not just made.

As to your second question, some taxes are dedicated and some just go into the general fund. The largest revenue sources, the sales tax and B&O tax, goes into the general fund.

Would this bear any resembleance to the Democratic governor's lie about vetoing any tax increases?

Sue them for both libel and slander. ----- http://www.aclu.org , http://www.brennancenter.org , http://www.uspirg.org , and --- http://www.publiccitizen.org (and contact the National Lawyers' Guild:good luck getting any help from all the aforementioned faux-prog groups whose Web addresses I posted and the NLG!!!)