Budget solutions will require tough decisions and real reforms

Some leaders in Olympia are telling Washingtonians to shoulder a higher tax burden or the most vulnerable people in our state will suffer. This threat is built on the assumption that everything we're paying for today should be continued indefinitely, and vital government services must be delivered exactly the same way today as they were in the last century. Focusing on new taxes as the solution, however, demonstrates an unwillingness to re-evaluate which programs are in fact core functions of government and which are low-priority spending that we've grown accustomed to but can no longer afford. Complicating the debate is a failure to address the full budget problem. Though the current $2.6 billion deficit is capturing the headlines, the state is facing at a minimum a three-year budget problem . . . READ MORE