Thursday, Jul. 10, 2008

Gregoire talks deficit, Sonics, negative campaigning

Gov. Chris Gregoire spent a few minutes fielding questions on an array of subjects this morning from press corps reporters and, not having done so for some time, there predictably were more questions than she had time for.

Such pent up demand almost always occurs when the governor doesn’t meet with the press regularly. Pearse Edwards, Gregoire’s Communications Director, said this year’s legislative and then campaign schedule has prevented her from staging regular media availabilities this year. But he said the office is planning to get back to doing them.

Gregoire was asked most about the state’s budget outlook and the recent Senate Ways and Means Committee staff analysis indicating the deficit awaiting the Legislature now stands at about $2.7 billion.

She said her own budget office, the Office of Financial Management, hasn’t done its own analysis and that she’ll wait for the one it'll produce later this year (after the election) that she’ll write her budget proposal off of.

“That’s the one that really counts,” Gregoire said.

She generally dismissed such talk of budget deficits, repeated what she’s said before about deficit projections being merely projections and about the national economy dragging down Washington while expressing confidence in the state’s economy.

“Now is not the time to panic,” Gregoire said.

She called the prospect of raising taxes to help cover the gap a “moot issue” because she doesn’t believe the needed two-thirds majority of the House and Senate could be mustered.

When asked about any blame directed her way over the loss of the Seattle SuperSonics, Gregoire called any such talk “laughable” and that it’s being exploited for “election-year politicking.”

Asked about negative campaigning, Gregoire said “I am chagrined at how ugly it has started,” referring to her race against Republican challenger Dino Rossi. She said she was offended by the Democratic Party’s anti-Rossi YouTube ad that played theme music from “The Sopranos” that was pulled after the Italian Club of Seattle objected to.

When asked about negative ads her campaign or interest groups supporting her campaign have run, Gregoire had this to say: “I will support any ad that is truth, that is fact based.”

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