"The wait is finally over. Now the cutting begins in earnest."
Washington state’s chief economist on Thursday tacked another $698 million to the state’s expected revenue shortfall for the 2011-13 budget cycle, pushing that biennium’s total spending deficit to about $5.1 billion.
State legislators also must act soon just to patch a $201 million funding gap through June 30, now $80 million higher.
The sobering revised estimate heightens the pressure on state legislators to further cut spending for critical Washington programs: from K-12 schools and higher education, to the Basic Health Plan and other social services support for low-income, aging or disabled residents, to state parks, highway funding and other infrastructure needs.
“The problem has become more daunting,” said Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina, chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, which is due to issue a budget plan soon.
Since they convened in January, lawmakers have mentally braced themselves for more bad budget news, he and colleagues said. That doesn’t make their choices any easier.
If one strips away previously authorized spending that’s already been suspended, the bottom-line target for fresh 2011-13 budget cuts just leaped almost 25 percent with Raha’s forecast, up from $3.5 billion, Hunter said.
Hunter couldn’t predict how soon House Democrats would issue a new budget plan (the Senate is due to release its version after the House), or whether the Legislature will adopt a final budget before its scheduled 105-day session ends on April 24.
“There are a lot of bad ideas” for cuts, Hunter said. “Some are worse than others.”
Who stands to lose, in a final budget deal?
Already, the state on March 1 cut its Basic Health rolls by 28 percent, leaving nearly 15,400 people without coverage. Gov. Chris Gregoire’s initial budget plan from December called for complete program elimination, dropping health coverage for about 66,000 low-income adults and many children of illegal immigrants.
Sen. Joe Zarelli of Ridgefield, top Republican on the Senate Ways & Means budget-writing committee and, this session, a consistent ally in Gregoire’s pronounced push for deeper reform, said the swelling deficit owes mostly to “an overabundance of spending commitments” rather than dropping revenue. |
