Washington state, like so many other states in the union has huge budgetary problems. An OpEd opinion in the Seattle Times recently asked leaders in the state for their advice to our legislature.   There were two opinions showcased, one of which appeals to the peoples emotions with little regard for financial responsibility.  The other co written opinion was dead on the money about everything wrong with general government spending habits, and Washington state’s specifically.

Richard Davis, the president of the Washington Research Council and Kriss Sjoblom, the council’s economist and vice president of research offered up these choice words.

…What’s been called the state’s structural deficit — an enduring mismatch between revenues and spending — may be better understood as a durable legislative appetite for betting on windfall revenues to bail out overextended budgets. To a remarkable degree, budgetary gambles have paid off over the past decade, as the tech, housing and construction bubbles swelled state coffers.

In 2007, lawmakers raised the stakes, writing a two-year budget that increased spending at twice the forecast rate of revenue growth. Because of the Great Recession, however, 2007-09 revenues came in well below forecast. Only the 2009 federal stimulus windfall averted an even greater budget disaster. The federal monies will be gone in 18 months.

The National Governors Association estimates state budgets will be in the tank through at least 2014. Recent statistics from the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank peg Washington’s economy as the fourth-weakest in the nation at present.

It is past time for lawmakers to reset spending and focus on economic growth…

That pretty much sums up the root of our problems.  When additional spending is desired beyond the projected revenue levels, the quick and irresponsible means to achieve additional spending is to just raise the revenue projection numbers – whether achievable or not.

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