ImageSo now we’re at that place where what’s Right has to take a back seat to Right Now.

This was budget week in Olympia, the week when 147 legislators hit the home stretch and started really galloping toward the finish line.  Here’s hoping they all make it there.

As expected, both the Senate and House proposed budgets continue to treat Washington’s state universities like ATMs. The Senate followed the Governor in mandating a 6% and change cut to university state appropriations on top of the 23% cut to biennial state appropriations enacted last year. The House budget does a little better, keeping the new cut to around 4%. Both proposals continue the ten-year Washington tradition of robbing the Peter of the universities to pay the Paul of the community colleges, thus continuing to privatize 4-year higher education and put Washington’s citizens at a disadvantage in the competition for Washington’s best jobs.  

But, truth be told, most of us in the university business breathed a little sigh of relief on Tuesday when these budgets came out—that’s how low our expectations have fallen. In the weeks leading up to the budget announcements, there had been rumors of the senate proposing to double the governor’s cut. So, given what could have been, if the final slice turns out to be somewhere between the house and senate, we’ll head home to figure out the least damaging way to make college less available for Washingtonians with a little spring in our step. It certainly won’t be the best possible outcome and the state’s long-term neglect of public universities will continue to have long-term consequences, but we’ll live to fight another day.

Right now, everybody needs to take the same approach to the legislature’s attempts to raise new revenues. All three proposed budgets—the governor’s, the house’s, the senate’s—depend on new tax dollars. The governor needs $605 million to get home, the house is looking for $854 million, and the senate wants $918 million in new revenue.  Both the governor and the senate close loopholes and institute some new pollution and venal sin taxes, and the senate calls for a slight and temporary increase to sales tax. As of this writing, the house has said how much but not how—we’re all still waiting for the specifics of the house tax proposal.

None of this is enough none of it does anything to fundamentally reform the meanest tax structure in the country, but it is what we need right now to keep schools reasonably effective, to keep college somewhat accessible, to keep thousands of people from losing their jobs, to keep people from dying.  

Almost from the minute the budgets were released on Tuesday, legislators started getting cold feet. There have been almost continuous caucus meetings in an attempt to get House and Senate Democrats to agree on a package. Nobody has to be reminded that it’s an election year.

ImageSo right now, we here at the blog feel compelled to look away for a moment from the world we want and focus on and the world we actually live in. The tax plans on the table now are inadequate in a variety of ways, but our representatives need to hear that they won’t be punished for them in November.  

Go to this link to show them the love…