Morning Fizz
All Cuts Edition
Caffeinated news & gossip. Your daily Morning Fizz.
1. The 30-day special session starts in Olympia today. Gov. Chris Gregoire has asked legislators to make $2 billion in cuts to deal with a $1.5 billion budget shortfall (the extra $500 million is earmarked for reserve funds).
Legislators already made $4.5 billion in cuts earlier this year to pass a balanced $32 billion budget. The new round of proposed cuts includes $652 million from human services; $97 million from education, including $5 million from early learning programs; $17 million from the Department of Natural Resources; $73 million in local assistance dollars; and $30 million from corrections. The $44 million Basic Health Plan (health care insurance for 35,000 low-income people) would disappear in this batch of cuts.
Gregoire has proposed "buying back" about $500 million worth in other cuts on her list, though. She's asking legislators to send a temporary half-penny sales tax increase proposal to voters. The tax, lasting three years, would raise a half billion dollars to stop a 17 percent hit to four-year colleges, save adult day health services for 1,000 Medicaid clients, maintain the school levy equalization account which helps fund poorer school districts, stop the early release of prisoners, and maintain parole officers among other saves.[pullquote]Gregoire rejected repealing many other tax breaks, such as a $30 million B&O tax exemption for farmers with gross incomes at more than $200,000.[/pullquote]
Don't expect legislators to pass the tax during the special session, though. Democrats are torn up over the regressive nature of a sales tax (some want to add a rebate for low-income people), and they don't necessarily agree with Gregoire on which programs to "buy back." (She tried to cut the Basic Health Plan last time, for example, and the Democrats restored it.)
Meanwhile, the Republicans are calling for more reform before counting on a set of "buybacks." Republicans, for example, are focused on making state employees pay a greater share of their health insurance. In a testy press conference last week, Gregoire said state employees had taken enough cuts, though her budget proposal does include a smaller state monthly payment into the state workers' health care plan. This weekend, The Seattle Times editorial page called on the legislature to declare an emergency and reopen state employee contract talks and demand that workers increase their contribution to health coverage premiums from 15 percent (which reflects the three-percentage-point hike workers agreed to earlier this year) up to a higher level, 25 percent.
Gregoire does propose closing a few tax loopholes—including the break for big banks on mortgage loans, which she estimates at about $18 million, though it falls on a list of separate long-shot proposals that would require a two-thirds vote of the legislature. She also rejected repealing many other tax breaks, such as a $30 million business and occupation tax exemption for farmers with gross incomes of more than $200,000.
Legislators are likely to pass an updated $30 billion budget (down from $32 billion) with their own set of $2 billion in cuts and then deal with the buy-backs and the revenue proposal in January when the regular session starts. Gregoire had wanted her half-penny tax proposal to go to voters in March, but would set up an April election.
Occupy Seattle has announced that they're sending a busload of protesters down to Olympia from their encampment at Seattle Central Community College this morning "to occupy the Capitol building to voice our opposition to the more than $2 billion attack on the 99%."
The Washington Education Association, the state teachers' union, is staging a separate demonstration today at the Capitol to protest any more cuts to education. The WEA says they've been hit with $2.5 billion in cuts in the last three recession budgets. Their figure includes about $700 million in voter-approved cost-of-living increases that the state has ignored.
While Gregoire's tax proposal would restore the two biggest cuts to K-12 education in her $2 billion package ($152 million in levy equalization and $100 million for five school days) her buyback recommendation would still leave about $334 million on the floor, including $8.5 million in teacher bonuses.
(Speaking of counting planned spending increases such as cost of living increases to teachers as budget cuts, AP reporter Mike Baker fact checks Gregoire's sound bite that the state has "cut" $10.5 billion in the last three years of budget emergencies. Citing "cuts" such as failing to go with cost of living increases or halting new recipients to the Basic Health Plan, Baker's math puts state cuts at $7.7 billion. Fizz would bring that back up to at least $8.7 billion, though, given that Baker scoffs at $1 billion in cuts to higher ed which he says legislators made up by authorizing tuition increases. It's hard to discount $1,800 a year more for UW students as anything but a cut to higher ed. Nonetheless, Baker's article is good reporting in general from the AP.)
2. After all the court rulings and appeals on procedural issues, the state and Legal Voice, a women's rights advocacy organization, go to Federal District Court in Tacoma today to defend the state pharmacy board rule that requires pharmacies to fill emergency contraception scrips.
The legal issue is whether a state regulation that requires all pharmacies (but not pharmacists) to dispense all medications on site without discrimination or delay violates the plaintiffs' First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. Legal Voice says the rule is neutral because it applies to everyone, and the state can regulate the marketplace to protect patient health. The plaintiffs, including Olympia-based pharmacy Stormans Inc., say the rule targets religion.
Religion in not mentioned in the rules.
Start here for our ongoing coverage of the case.
3. Looking to find something to be thankful about in a year that offered little more than a repeating loop of grim political choices, we asked Cola readers to point us to political developments from the past year that give them hope.
We ran a batch of responses over the holiday weekend. We'll be running a few more.
One thing we weren't thankful for over the weekend is the technical glitch we've been having with our photos. We're aware of it, and we are working on the problem.
1. The 30-day special session starts in Olympia today. Gov. Chris Gregoire has asked legislators to make $2 billion in cuts to deal with a $1.5 billion budget shortfall (the extra $500 million is earmarked for reserve funds).
Legislators already made $4.5 billion in cuts earlier this year to pass a balanced $32 billion budget. The new round of proposed cuts includes $652 million from human services; $97 million from education, including $5 million from early learning programs; $17 million from the Department of Natural Resources; $73 million in local assistance dollars; and $30 million from corrections. The $44 million Basic Health Plan (health care insurance for 35,000 low-income people) would disappear in this batch of cuts.
Gregoire has proposed "buying back" about $500 million worth in other cuts on her list, though. She's asking legislators to send a temporary half-penny sales tax increase proposal to voters. The tax, lasting three years, would raise a half billion dollars to stop a 17 percent hit to four-year colleges, save adult day health services for 1,000 Medicaid clients, maintain the school levy equalization account which helps fund poorer school districts, stop the early release of prisoners, and maintain parole officers among other saves.[pullquote]Gregoire rejected repealing many other tax breaks, such as a $30 million B&O tax exemption for farmers with gross incomes at more than $200,000.[/pullquote]
Don't expect legislators to pass the tax during the special session, though. Democrats are torn up over the regressive nature of a sales tax (some want to add a rebate for low-income people), and they don't necessarily agree with Gregoire on which programs to "buy back." (She tried to cut the Basic Health Plan last time, for example, and the Democrats restored it.)
Meanwhile, the Republicans are calling for more reform before counting on a set of "buybacks." Republicans, for example, are focused on making state employees pay a greater share of their health insurance. In a testy press conference last week, Gregoire said state employees had taken enough cuts, though her budget proposal does include a smaller state monthly payment into the state workers' health care plan. This weekend, The Seattle Times editorial page called on the legislature to declare an emergency and reopen state employee contract talks and demand that workers increase their contribution to health coverage premiums from 15 percent (which reflects the three-percentage-point hike workers agreed to earlier this year) up to a higher level, 25 percent.
Gregoire does propose closing a few tax loopholes—including the break for big banks on mortgage loans, which she estimates at about $18 million, though it falls on a list of separate long-shot proposals that would require a two-thirds vote of the legislature. She also rejected repealing many other tax breaks, such as a $30 million business and occupation tax exemption for farmers with gross incomes of more than $200,000.
Legislators are likely to pass an updated $30 billion budget (down from $32 billion) with their own set of $2 billion in cuts and then deal with the buy-backs and the revenue proposal in January when the regular session starts. Gregoire had wanted her half-penny tax proposal to go to voters in March, but would set up an April election.
Occupy Seattle has announced that they're sending a busload of protesters down to Olympia from their encampment at Seattle Central Community College this morning "to occupy the Capitol building to voice our opposition to the more than $2 billion attack on the 99%."
The Washington Education Association, the state teachers' union, is staging a separate demonstration today at the Capitol to protest any more cuts to education. The WEA says they've been hit with $2.5 billion in cuts in the last three recession budgets. Their figure includes about $700 million in voter-approved cost-of-living increases that the state has ignored.
While Gregoire's tax proposal would restore the two biggest cuts to K-12 education in her $2 billion package ($152 million in levy equalization and $100 million for five school days) her buyback recommendation would still leave about $334 million on the floor, including $8.5 million in teacher bonuses.
(Speaking of counting planned spending increases such as cost of living increases to teachers as budget cuts, AP reporter Mike Baker fact checks Gregoire's sound bite that the state has "cut" $10.5 billion in the last three years of budget emergencies. Citing "cuts" such as failing to go with cost of living increases or halting new recipients to the Basic Health Plan, Baker's math puts state cuts at $7.7 billion. Fizz would bring that back up to at least $8.7 billion, though, given that Baker scoffs at $1 billion in cuts to higher ed which he says legislators made up by authorizing tuition increases. It's hard to discount $1,800 a year more for UW students as anything but a cut to higher ed. Nonetheless, Baker's article is good reporting in general from the AP.)
2. After all the court rulings and appeals on procedural issues, the state and Legal Voice, a women's rights advocacy organization, go to Federal District Court in Tacoma today to defend the state pharmacy board rule that requires pharmacies to fill emergency contraception scrips.
The legal issue is whether a state regulation that requires all pharmacies (but not pharmacists) to dispense all medications on site without discrimination or delay violates the plaintiffs' First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. Legal Voice says the rule is neutral because it applies to everyone, and the state can regulate the marketplace to protect patient health. The plaintiffs, including Olympia-based pharmacy Stormans Inc., say the rule targets religion.
Religion in not mentioned in the rules.
Start here for our ongoing coverage of the case.
3. Looking to find something to be thankful about in a year that offered little more than a repeating loop of grim political choices, we asked Cola readers to point us to political developments from the past year that give them hope.
We ran a batch of responses over the holiday weekend. We'll be running a few more.
One thing we weren't thankful for over the weekend is the technical glitch we've been having with our photos. We're aware of it, and we are working on the problem.
