Emily Makings

New Brief: Legislative Congestion Shouldn't Stall Transportation Fix

Washington hasn’t increased the gas tax in eight years, but transportation system maintenance needs and demand for new projects have grown. As the 2012 Connecting Washington Task Force report explains, Fuel tax increases in 2003 and 2005 made it possible to issue bonds to pay for 421 transportation projects throughout the state. That means the […]

Repealing tax preferences is not a cure-all

Andrew Garber reports that Governor Inslee will propose “closing some tax loopholes” to fund education. (He has yet to announce which “loopholes” he’s talking about.) On TVW this morning, the governor said, I was very clear that the way we should move forward to fund our schools and improve our education is rather than from […]

May Washington's public pension system never be this interesting . . .

“Pensions are complicated, and when they are not causing huge problems, they are boring.” I’ve mentioned that Josh Barro line before, and I probably will again, because it’s pure truth. These days, pensions are certainly not boring, as the situation in Illinois illustrates spectacularly. Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the state with securities […]

More on why state pension reforms are coming

Alicia Munnell, the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, nicely frames the public pension problem in a blog post today: Public plans around the world cannot sustain today’s level of benefits in the face of increased life expectancy, two financial crises in a decade, and low expected investment returns.  Expensive provisions […]

To expand or not to expand Medicaid…

Twenty-four governors (including Gov. Inslee) currently support Medicaid expansion. Whether or not to expand is a complicated question, as Charles Blahous of the Mercatus Center explores in a new study: “The Affordable Care Act’s Optional Medicaid Expansion: Considerations Facing State Governments.” In a blog post yesterday, he wrote, Setting aside the larger question of whether […]

Public pensions and investment returns

Last week, the House Appropriations Committee held a hearing on HB 1899, which would allow first class cities to enter into agreements with the State Investment Board (SIB) allowing the SIB to “assume the duties of investing the retirement funds of the first class cities’ retirement systems.” The only first class cities with their own […]

Oregon study on workers' comp — Washington jumps in the rankings

Today the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services released the full 2012 Workers’ Compensation Premium Rate Ranking Study. (A summary was released in October.) The study is done every two years and ranks Oregon’s workers’ comp premium rates against those in other states. We have described the problems with using the Oregon study as […]

Workers' comp, cumulative trauma, and pro sports

Over the weekend, there was an article in the LA Times about athletes and workers’ compensation in California. (I wrote about this issue in August.) All states allow professional athletes to claim workers’ compensation payments for specific job-related injuries — such as a busted knee, torn tendon or ruptured spinal disc — that happened within […]

The details of the House transportation package proposal

A new “Connecting Washington” transportation package was released this week by state Rep. Judy Clibborn and others. According to the project overview, it would “raise nearly $10 billion for Washington’s transportation system.” The package has been introduced in the House as HB 1954, 1955, 1956 and 1957.

New Brief: More Reforms for Workers' Compensation

On February 4, the state Senate passed three workers’ comp bills. In a new brief today, we take a look at those bills and discuss why reforms are needed, even after the changes made in 2011.