New Brief: For Human Services, Cuts All Around
A policy brief from last week, So Close and Yet So Far Away, gave an overview of the spending plans and balance sheets of the House- and Senate-passed 2011-13 budgets. It also promised more details on a few key budget areas. The first of these additional briefs provides a comparison of spending on human services […]
April 25 , 2011 - Richard S. Davis
Barone on the "death of the 'defined benefit'"
Last week, we published a brief on reforming public pensions. It’s timely, then, to link to Michael Barone’s column on the last days of the defined benefit pension. This sounds right: Defined benefit policies assume a static society. But we live in a dynamic society, and defined benefit policies cannot keep up with constant change. […]
April 22 , 2011 - Kriss Sjoblom
New WRC Policy Brief Comparing House and Senate Budgets
We have posted a Policy Brief (So Close and Yet So Far Away) comparing balance sheets and high-level spending plans for the House and Senate budgets.
April 20 , 2011 - Emily Makings
New Brief: Reforming Public Pensions
In Reforming Public Pensions, we look at the current state of Washington’s public pension system and the methods of calculating unfunded liabilities in these plans. The good news is that Washington is in much better shape than most other states. The bad news is that all states are probably understating their unfunded liabilities by assuming […]
April 16 , 2011 - Kriss Sjoblom
Senate Ways and Means Committee Passes Budget
Yesterday (April 15) the Senate Ways and Means Committee passed its version of an operating budget for the 2011–13 biennium. Amendments increased total NGFS+ appropriations for the biennium by $17 million compared to the committee Chair’s proposal. Of the $17 million net increase, $7 million was the result of technical amendments correcting errors in the […]
April 15 , 2011 - Richard S. Davis
Tax Day column on assessing the tax burden
In my column in the Puget Sound Business Journal today I look at Tax Freedom Day, the level and distribution of the tax burden and how our state’s revenue structure compares with other states. It’s behind the firewall, so access is limited to subscribers. Here’s a sample. The tax discussion generally comes down to the […]
April 14 , 2011 - Emily Makings
New Brief on Senate W&M Budget Proposal
We’ve worked through the Senate W&M Chair’s (and Ranking Member’s) 2011-13 budget proposal, and the resulting brief with the details is available here. It includes comparisons to the House-passed budget, on which we also have a brief. The Senate W&M Chair’s proposal addresses the $5 billion plus shortfall in many of the same ways the […]
April 11 , 2011 - Kriss Sjoblom
Revenue Collections for March 11–April 10 Period Exceed Forecast by $5.1 Million
The Economic and Revenue Forecast Council issued its monthly Economic & Revenue Update today. Here are the key takeaways:
April 11 , 2011 - Richard S. Davis
Closing tax "loopholes" won't solve the state budget problem
Kriss and I draw on our Clarifying the Role of Tax Preferences policy brief for this article in Crosscut.In both pieces, we point out the state’s already high business tax burden and the importance of tax preferences in offsetting tax pyramiding (multiple taxation of transactions in the production cycle). We also note that many so-called […]
April 09 , 2011 - Kriss Sjoblom
House Passes Budget
The House of Representatives today (Saturday, April 9) passed its version of the 2011-13 state operating budget. The House passed budget bill differed little from the version reported out of the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday. On Friday, 11 amendments were made to the House Ways and Means bill on the House floor. […]