Veep Drinking Game

Washington State Budget Deal

The state legislature have released the budget for the next two years, and big surprise they are cutting budgets for those who need it the most, and not cutting where they should.

And the list of cuts are:
  • 1.9 percent cut for teachers and 3 percent cut for school administrative staff totally $179 million
  • 1 billion cut from K-12 education spending
  • 600 million cut from higher education spending (and increasing tuition)
  • 670 million cut from state-subsidized health care services
  • $230 million cut from mental health and long-term care programs
  • $127 million cut from the state Department of Corrections
  • $274 million cut from "other human services"
  • 344 million by eliminating automatic cost of living increases for retired workers
  • 3 percent pay cut for state workers - This pay cut I'm actually okay with, especially of those cuts affect the DMV.  

What I don't see on the list of cuts:
  • Modifications to the tax codes so that large companies can't keep getting tax benefits that don't trickle down
  • Various pointless road projects across the state being cut
  • Police salaries, who spend most of there time sitting at Starbucks or writing BS speeding tickets
  • No cuts to politician salaries by 1.9 or 3%

Voters need to take some responsibility for this budget as well.

Voters approved Initiative 1107 that ended a tax on soda and candy. That tax generated 130 million per year for the state.

Voters in this state voted down Initiative 1098 in the last election that would have allowed an income tax on those making over 200K a year. The estimated 2 billion dollars a year from that would have gone to educating the children of those who voted against it. And would have effected roughly 2% of the states population.

I'm no math wiz, but I'd say if both these had gone differently, they would cover pretty much all the cost of the budget cuts.

So if you are one of the jackasses who voted down 1098 or approved 1107, you better not be complaining about the budget from Olympia because it's partially your fault.