Gregoire proposes huge State budget cuts

By Evan Rohar

Gregoire has put out an initial plan for making the cuts necessary to balance the State's budget. The Seattle Times published an article today on her plans. Here are two excerpts:

"The governor's office, along with agency staff, reviewed state programs and ranked them by priority. About 200 state programs and services, worth about $2.7 billion, top their list for cutting or eliminating entirely to help close a gaping hole in the state budget."

"On the chopping block: more than $900 million over two years that funds an initiative approved by voters to reduce class sizes; $342 million that aids school districts with small property-tax bases, and about $20 million that pays for gifted-student programs." (Seattle Times, "Gregoire looking at massive state budget cuts," 11/30/08)

Also on the chopping block is $404 million for higher education.

There are two things especially to note about this initial proposal. First of all, it is about half or perhaps less than half of what will need to be cut to balance the budget (Gregoire admits that the budget deficit may reach $6 billion in this deteriorating economy). This first shot at identifying programs to be cut is meant to soften the blow of what truly lies ahead: a much more aggressive reduction of spending. The $404 million for education will almost certainly grow back to the $600 million cut that educators have been told to prepare for. Cuts to cost of living pay increases for State workers will almost certainly be part of the plan (a modest 2% per year which at this point does not even cover inflation).

The other very interesting point to note is that this plan looks very similar to the Seattle Times' plan laid out in their editorial published on Nov. 23rd (article and analysis in a post below). Going right down the list, you have a $1.3 billion from public schools (which is actually $400 million more than the Times' proposal), $572.5 million from social services (cutting health care for the children, the poor, and the elderly), and the $404 million from higher ed. The Seattle Times is the principle newspaper for putting forward the opinions and program of big business in Washington State. Gregoire still has not set a course that would avoid hurting students and working people. Her request of $100+ million fromt the federal government is still just a drop in the bucket compared to the massive deficit this State will run. We have to organize to put our program forward, because we don't have a newspaper, staff writers, or a governor to do it for us.