Don’t wait. WA legislators should buck Gov. Inslee and fix budget now | Editorial

Higher taxes and deeper cuts — that’s the discouraging forecast for Washington state.

With the coronavirus pandemic forcing an economic shutdown, a nearly $9 billion loss in state revenue is expected over the next three years.

It would have been helpful if Gov. Jay Inslee had called a special session so legislators could manage the devastating shortfall earlier rather than later to soften the pain.

As it is, waiting until the regularly scheduled session to begin in January likely means more severe cuts and more drastic tax hikes because there will be fewer months to spread out the adjustments — and the blows.

All summer legislators, political pundits and newspaper editorial boards — including this one — urged the governor to let the third branch of government do its financial job.

But instead, Inslee continued to shut the Legislature out. He alone has made what budget changes he could.

Even as neighboring governors in Oregon, Idaho and California called their legislators back to work, Inslee continued to dismiss the idea of doing the same.

Now, with an election just a couple of months away, it looks even more unlikely that Inslee will call lawmakers back to make budget cuts and consider tax increases.

Although, there are some lawmakers who would welcome the opportunity to weigh in on the state budget, regardless of the terrible political timing.

Sen. Hans Zeiger, R-Puyallup, wrote a letter to colleagues Aug. 27 urging lawmakers to call themselves back since the governor won’t.

“We cannot merely rely on officials in the executive branch to piece together proclamations, directives, and stopgap measures while the legislature is unavailable to act,” he said.

“In the face of an $8.8 billion three-year budget shortfall, we should take swift action to enact a supplemental budget that slows the growth of state spending in order to prevent steep cuts during the 2021 legislative session. There is absolutely no advantage in deferring to the governor to make unilateral across-the-board cuts. It would result in devastating reductions to our most vulnerable Washingtonians,” Zeiger wrote.

We would be impressed if enough legislators bucked Inslee and called a special session on their own.

It would demonstrate that they care more about doing what’s right than getting re-elected, which takes political guts.

Unfortunately, it isn’t easy to pull off. The required number is 33 senators and 66 representatives to hit the 2/3 super-majority threshold to call a special session.

If we had to predict, we would say that nearly all Republicans would go for it, as well as some Democrats. Our own Tri-Cities legislators have been supportive of a special session since the COVID-19 crisis began.

Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, was addressing the issue back in June, saying that “for every dollar you save in June, you avoid having to find $1.50 in savings come January.”

But we imagine there are many Democrat legislators who won’t want to go against Inslee, and some may see a political advantage to waiting to deal with the budget next year.

In a telling interview with the Washington State Wire, Sen. Jaime Pedersen, D-Seattle, said that lawmakers are going to “get very important signals from the voters about what they want …. I think we’re going to have a larger majority after the election, and that we’re going to have, essentially, a blessing from voters to proceed with progressive tax reform and a balanced approach to the budget.”

That could be code for new or higher taxes.

Regardless of what legislators decide when they meet next year, the measures they take will be far more drastic than if they could have met this summer in a special session and addressed the looming budget deficit early on.

There is still time, but if Inslee hasn’t called lawmakers back by now, he likely won’t. The only chance is if enough lawmakers decide to heed Zeiger’s call and reconvene themselves.

We would like to see them try, and see voters push them to do it.

Most people, if they know they have a huge bill looming ahead, would rather start planning to pay for it months ahead instead of waiting for it to come due. The same should be true for politicians planning for the decimated state budget.

This story was originally published September 6, 2020 at 5:00 AM.