District 34 Representatives Eileen Cody and Joe Fitzgibbon along with Senator Sharon Nelson met with over 100 citizens at the High Point Community Center on March 13 to discuss tough budget cuts ahead for Washington State in the face of a $4.6 billion revenue shortfall for 2011-2013.

A state budget update passed out to attendees summed up the problems with the following:

“The challenge is enormous: We could cut our entire public system of higher education, close down all our prisons and end all environmental protection efforts, and we still wouldn’t solve the current problem.”

“We are at 36 months (in recession), were still double the debt of most recessions and we are still scraping along the bottom,” Senator Nelson said. “This state has lost 195,000 jobs; we have recovered 20,000 to date and that is the reason local governments are having difficulty and the state. We are heavily reliant on sales tax and people can’t afford to spend and so our revenues continue to decline and next week we expect the forecast to go south even further … with an additional $500 million to a billion shortfall in revenue.”

The update also said, based on Washington voter approval of Initiative 1053 in November, “a two-thirds majority in the Legislature is needed to increase any tax, or to repeal any tax exemption.” District 34 was one of five districts out of 49 statewide who voted against Initiative 1053. Initiative sponsor Tim Eyman contacted the West Seattle Herald and said, "The vote in the 34th District was roughly 46% yes, and 54% no, so it wasn't exactly like a blowout." Eyman did acknowledge that the statewide vote was 64% opposed.

According to the Cody, Fitzgibbon and Nelson that two-thirds requirement makes many proposals at ways to cut into the budget shortfall without cutting crucial programs a near impossibility.

“We can’t even close corporate loopholes right now without a two-thirds vote,” Sen. Nelson said.

“Eileen introduced a bill that would have closed the sales tax exemption on cosmetic surgery, the property tax exemption on private airplanes … and the tax exemptions on big out-of-state banks and their mortgages,” Rep. Fitzgibbon said, providing an example of changes that will likely not get through because of the two-thirds requirement.

“The least of us are suffering the most,” an audience member said, referring to tax breaks for the rich (targeted by Cody’s bill) and cuts to social service programs that help out low-income citizens the most.

Final proposals for the 2011-2013 budget are due from the House and Senate later this month, and if a budget is not agreed upon by April 24 they will enter a special session.

“On the budget … I’m sure everybody here has something that they are dying to make sure we fund and that’s pretty much what we’re hearing regularly is everybody wanting to make sure their program doesn’t get cut,” Rep. Cody said.

“What I can say about the budget is everybody is going to feel the pain … there is no way that we are going to be able to cut the amount of money we need to cut out of this budget without people noticing,” she continued.

The town hall forum transitioned into a question-answer format, a mixture of written questions submitted by the audience and hand-raising. A few examples follow:

Regarding transportation, Rep. Fitzgibbon said they have been able to avoid significant cuts to Metro “but only for now. That’s why we are trying to get Metro some new funding options to keep getting people where they need to go.”

“There will be some cuts to community colleges,” Sen. Nelson said. “We know that right now they are the ones helping folks get back to work but the reality is the cuts are going to be deep enough that we’re not going to be able to have any program untouched. I look as Seattle Community College as a perfect example of what a community college should do and a very successful program but cuts will occur there, I don’t know how deep they will be …”

“The things that we can cut that aren’t health care and education aren’t much of the budget and they’ve already been cut a lot,” Rep Fitzgibbon said. “There is only so far you can cut the prisons before you have to start letting people out …”

Children’s Health Program, preschool aid for low-income families, cost of living increases for educators, kindergarten programs, State Food Assistance Program, mental health services … the list goes on and on and they are all potentially on the chopping block.

“This budget will be immoral no matter how we look at it and we will potentially have to vote for it,” Sen. Nelson said.