One way of addressing the $8 billion state budget shortfall would be to cancel some of those corporate tax breaks liberal legislators are always condemning.

It's not as simple as it sounds. Ending tax breaks is apparently the equivalent of raising taxes. For example, as I reported last week, while the Sierra Club has a bill to close a $33 million tax break for the oil and coal industry, the only way they could justify doing it—thanks to Tim Eyman's I-960 rule that requires a super majority for raising taxes—is by extending equivalent tax breaks to another industry. (The Sierra Club, of course, chose to give the breaks to green technology companies that are developing renewable energy). 

So, while this revenue neutral strategy gets rid of what the Sierra Club considers bad guy corporate tax breaks, it doesn't, obviously, do anything about the state's budget shortfall. In short, it doesn't translate ending corporate welfare into filling state coffers.  

But wait, a small troupe of arguably the most liberal reps in the state House, including Rep. Bob Hasegawa (D-11, South Seattle, Tukwila, Renton) and Rep. Maralyn Chase (D-32, Shoreline, Edmonds, Lake Forest Park) have a bill in the finance committee that "clarifies" I-960. 

The bill states: "'Raises taxes' does not include repealing, reducing, or otherwise eliminating a tax expenditure, for an existing tax."

Thanks to Joe Turner at the Tacoma News Tribune for keeping me appraised of the Maralyn Chase agenda, something I was hep to last year, but had lost track of in '09.