Emily Makings

Prioritizing education spending

Last week, Brian Rosenthal of the Times wrote a story about the amount of education spending in the budget proposals. He writes, You may have heard that lawmakers are proposing to dramatically increase funding for public schools in response to a state Supreme Court order. You may not have heard that some of them plan […]

Transportation regulatory reform: streamlining and expediting

In addition to the “bare-bones” transportation budget bills that were passed in the House and Senate last week, the House passed (by a vote of 93 to 1) a transportation regulatory reform bill (ESHB 1978) “that expedites the delivery of transportation projects through a streamlined approach to environmental decision making.” ESHB 1978 “recognizes the opportunity […]

The Columbia River Crossing and the House- and Senate-passed transportation budgets

This week, both the House and Senate passed 2013–15 transportation budgets. They are both “bare-bones,” as Sen. Eide said of the Senate version. (In a policy brief last month, we wrote about the importance of funding transportation.) The House-passed budget, ESHB 1864, passed April 16 by a 68-28 vote. 2013–15 spending would total $8.480 billion. […]

Regulations as protectionist policy

Trade is a big deal for Washington, where 40 percent of jobs are trade-related. Often people think of tariffs when they think of trade barriers, but regulations can also be protectionist. A new paper from the Cato Institute looks at this issue. As its authors (K. William Watson and Sallie James) write, The practice of […]

New Brief: House Would Tax and Spend Over $1 Billion More than Senate in 2013-15

In a new policy brief, we describe the House-passed 2013-15 operating budget and compare it to the budget passed by the Senate. Overall, the House budget spends more, taxes more, and leaves less in reserves than the Senate. But both make significant appropriations for education.

Washingtonians spend the most in the nation on dental services

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported on 2009 health spending numbers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In Washington, personal health spending per capita was $6,782 in 2009 — 28th highest in the nation, and slightly below the national average of $6,815. That total number is also broken out into categories: Dental […]

Epstein on the long-term consequences of paid sick leave

In a good column today, law professor Richard Epstein writes about paid sick leave mandates: The unintended consequence of paid-sick leave legislation, whether in New York City or elsewhere, will be to block the creation of new jobs by limiting the deals that employers and employees are lawfully allowed to make with each other. . […]

The R&D tax credit and the budget

In the Washington Technology Industry Association blog, Lewis McMurran writes about the Senate budget and the very-soon-to-be-released House budget. On the House budget, he says, It will likely look more like the Governor’s than the Senate’s.  We can anticipate at least $1 billion in new taxes or reducing tax incentives. We fully expect there will […]

Senate-passed budget would spend $15 million more than originally proposed

On Friday, the Senate approved the budget proposed by the Ways and Means chair earlier last week, by a 30-18 vote. The final product is very close to the original proposal, which we detailed in a policy brief last week. As approved, near general fund-state plus opportunity pathways (NGFS+) appropriations for 2013-15 would total $33.349 […]

New Brief: Increasing Education Spending in 2013-15: New Taxes or Re-Prioritization?

In a new policy brief, we compare Gov. Inslee’s “budget priorities for a working Washington” to the 2013-15 budget proposal from the Senate Ways and Means Committee chair.