A recent Elway Poll, according to the Seattle Times, found that 71 percent of those polled think the budget could be balanced simply by reducing waste and fraud.  This is wishful thinking.  While reducing waste and fraud can certainly contribute to the budget solution, the magnitude of the problem ($4.6 billion) is such that it will not be enough.

Helpfully, the League of Education Voters has put together an interactive feature in which you can close the 2011-13 budget shortfall.  Patterned after the New York Times federal Budget Puzzle, the tool certainly drives home what a difficult job the legislature has ahead of it.

You can choose from a list of possible spending cuts, based on the governor’s proposed budget (more on that here), as well as options to increase taxes, make fund transfers, and lower the size of the ending balance (which the governor proposed be high as a precaution–in case revenues end up being less than expected, again).

Tax increases will be next to impossible this session, given the voter-approved requirement for a two-thirds majority for any new/increased taxes.  Fund transfers, while included in the governor’s proposal, are hardly a long-term solution.  And even if you pick all the tax, transfer, and ending surplus options, you still can’t close the shorfall.  Massive spending cuts are inevitable, and they will go well beyond “waste and fraud”.