Blog

House finance committee passes tax increases

Yesterday morning the House finance committee passed a substitute version of committee chair Reuven Carlyle’s tax proposal, which we described in a this policy brief. The substitute bill (SHB 2038) eliminated increases in taxes on beer, insurance agent commissions, stevedoring and janitorial services that would have been imposed in the original bill. The removed tax […]

Revised Connecting Washington transportation package moves forward, including gas tax increase

Earlier this year, Rep. Clibborn introduced a 10-year, $10 billion transportation package called Connecting Washington. (I wrote about the details of that proposal here.) Since then, less expansive transportation budgets have been passed by the House and Senate. Last week, Clibborn introduced a revised version of her plan, which would spend $8.4 billion over 12 […]

New policy brief: House Finance Committee Considers Tax Increases

Our new policy brief on the House finance committee chair’s tax proposal can be downloaded here.

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 […]

Most western states don't tax by-product fuel

A bill before the state house of representatives (HB 2038) would require petroleum refiners to pay use tax on fuels they use that are by-products of the refining process. Bill supporters claim that Washington is unusual in not taxing such fuels. This is not true. These fuels would be untaxed in 8 of the other […]

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. […]

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.

March 11 to April 10 state revenue collections beat forecast by $28.7 million

Budget writers received a bit of good news today in the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council’s monthly Economic and Revenue Update. For the March 11 to April 10 period, collections were a bit above the amount expected under the forecast adopted on March 20. Key points from the summary: Major General Fund-State revenue collections for […]

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 […]

Incentives (Still) Matter

News today that Boeing will be investing $1 billion and creating 2,000 jobs in South Carolina over the next eight years underscores the aggressive competition among the states. And, it shows that incentives continue to play a role in corporate investment decisions. Communities and states that understand that simple fact stand to gain. While we […]