You would think that state lawmakers would like seeing quarterly revenue reports predicting more money for government. For the last four years, the state’s revenue arc has been on an upward trend, something that was confirmed again this week.
But for Democrats like Jay Inslee and Frank Chopp, such uplifting reports are a drag – because it makes it harder to raise taxes. And that’s why the newspaper of state government, The Olympian, ran a “news” story with this lead:
“Faced with the need for billions of dollars to fully fund public schools next year, the state will have only slightly more money in its coffers than expected, officials announced Wednesday.”
So even the government agency charged with providing the numbers wrote that “forecasted revenue for the current (2015-17) biennium was increased by $215 million”, and forecasted “revenue for the 2015-17 biennium is now $37.980 billion, an increase of 12.8% above that of the 2013-15 biennium,” there was no celebrating in Olympia.
Democrat legislators were left asking themselves, ‘with revenues going up by almost 13% over the last budget, how can we pass a capital gains income tax if that’s the news?’
So, the liberals who control the Economic and Forecast Council decided to add in projected spending – that has not yet been approved by lawmakers – to the forecast so that a crisis seem imminent. And that caused a Forecast Council member, State Representative Terry Nealey, on the council to cry foul:
“It is speculation at this point of what the Legislature will do to address McCleary. The Joint Task Force on Education Funding, which the Legislature is relying on for information to make future decisions, is working with significantly different cost estimates than the Forecast Council. So I believe it is a problem to build the Forecast Council’s cost estimates into a six-year outlook until we know the actions of the Legislature in the coming session.”
So, when you read the news about the forecast, and the imminent need to raise taxes, remember that is a creation of the Democrats. They need a crisis, even if they have to make up the numbers.
