Yesterday, Erica linked to the Washington Policy Center’s Politics Blog post about Governor Gregoire’s new “Transforming Washington’s Budget” site.

The governor has joined the blogosphere. Except she’s not doing the writing—she’s asking you to. Once you register to the site (it took me all of four seconds), you’re invited to write up an idea for balancing the budget. (It's a lot like Mayor Mike McGinn's "Ideas for Seattle" site, where the top suggestion is currently "Legalize marijuana and tax it.") Once the ideas pass moderation (no vulgar suggestions allowed), they go live. One of the site’s functions allows casual browsers to agree/disagree with ideas that have already been listed.

So if you’re like me and you have no real suggestions, but a lot of opinions about others’ suggestions, you can “disagree” with as many as you want.

Ideas with the most votes rise to the top. Highlights?

• Putting an end to the retire and re-hire phenomenon for state employees (which enables them to “double dip” in pension funds and salary);


• Cutting all state funding for the governor’s ball and snacks and light refreshments at state meetings and functions;


• Lots and lots of suggestions (should there be a redundancy moderator?) that welfare recipients be required to submit to a drug test;


• A state employee salary cap of $250,000. I was about to comment that I can’t think of a single state employee who makes $250,000 (the governor herself doesn't make that much), but four or five people beat me to the punch. (Someone else suggested reducing Gregoire's salary to minimum wage).


• “Stop giving tax money away to the international coal company TransAlta.” Cola regulars might remember that Josh covered the proposal to end the TransAlta tax break (which went down this session) because of the governor’s closed-door negotiations with the coal corporation.


• And finally, a particularly vitriolic commenter suggests we “stop spending on tepid and saccharine public art.” In the comments thread, the author goes on to say that

“The fact of the matter is that the only JOBS it creates are for marginal artists at best who live off the teet of the state because it's a kush job. You don't have to be particularly creative because the state doesn't want anything bold on the off chance that it might offend someone so for an artist it's an easy task to just toss something off.”

Submit your own suggestions or comment on others' here.