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sillyNow Playing: GOP blasts budget that would raise $500 million from smokes, gambling
Topic: Lib Loser Stories
Democrats in the state Senate would raise state taxes by more than $500 million over the next two years to help pay for the $26 billion budget they rolled out Monday. Sen. Margarita Prentice (D-Seattle), the Senate’s chief budget writer, said the higher taxes are needed to increase college enrollment and make a partial payment toward state and public school workers’ retirement plans. "We can’t keep putting off our problems and pretending they’re not there," she said. Colleges expect that 22,500 additional students will want to attend state colleges by 2010. The Senate Democrats’ budget would add 8,100 enrollment slots over two years, which is 1,500 more than Gov. Christine Gregoire’s budget would fund. Republicans scoffed at the spending plan put forth by Democrats, who wrote the budget because they outnumber their GOP colleagues 26-23 in the Senate. "This budget is unsustainable, irresponsible and unstable," said Sen. Joe Zarelli of Ridgefield, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee. "It completely abandons the idea of prioritizing government services and goes straight for the taxpayers’ pockets." The level of tax hikes sought by Senate Democrats is more than double those proposed last week by Gregoire because they found more sins to tax. Not only would they go after smokers, as Gregoire did with her proposal for an $8-a-carton increase in the state cigarette tax, they also would levy higher taxes on drinkers and gambling houses. Their budget includes a $1-a-liter surcharge on liquor and a 5 percent tax on nontribal minicasinos. It also continues the 42-cent liquor surcharge that was supposed to expire in July. Prentice was almost apologetic for relying so heavily on sin taxes to balance her budget. Before she was put in charge of writing the state’s 2005-07 budget, she had consistently argued that state programs should be paid for by all taxpayers through sales, business and property taxes. But with Senate leaders promising no general tax increase, those three were off-limits. "These are the kinds of taxes I used to rail against," Prentice said. But "this is what we’ve got available." That tax on cigarettes would rise by $6 a carton this year and another $2 next year. That would boost the total state cigarette tax to $22.25 a carton. A carton contains 200 cigarettes. Gregoire’s proposal is for a $2 hike this year and another $6 in 2008. "We’re getting there quicker," Prentice said. The cigarette, liquor and gambling taxes would raise a combined $262 million over two years. The remainder of the $526 million in new taxes would come from bringing back part of the so-called death tax on estates valued at $1.5 million or more, collecting sales tax on extended warranties for such appliances as refrigerators and stoves, and reinstating a higher tax on businesses that sell canned meat products. State colleges and universities also would be allowed to raise tuition between 5 and 7 percent in each of the next two years. Half of that money would be used to give financial aid to an additional 68,000 students whose families earn less than $46,600 a year. The Senate budget also would dismantle two programs that former Gov. Gary Locke and first lady Mona Locke considered part of their legacy: the Washington Reading Corps of volunteer tutors and the Promise Scholarship program. The scholarship program gave money to students in the top 15 percent of their graduating high school class as long as their family income was under $90,000 for a family of four. The Senate budget follows Gregoire’s lead in giving pay raises to state agency workers, teachers and home-care workers. Meanwhile, the Senate capital budget proposal does not include $13 million for the University of Washington Tacoma to build an assembly hall, buy more land and clean up contaminated soil on the campus. Gregoire’s budget does. Instead, the Senate budget would spend $31.6 million on a new nursing building on the Washington State University branch in Spokane and nearly $23 million on a student services center and other buildings at WSU’s Vancouver campus. Neither of those items were in the governor’s budget. "Vancouver is the most underserved, so that’s why we’re putting emphasis there," said Sen. Karen Fraser (D-Olympia), vice chairwoman of the Ways and Means Committee. On the other hand, the operating budget would allow the UWT to enroll an additional 200 students in each of the next two years, twice the number funded by Gregoire’s budget. Senate Democrats’ state budget Total general fund budget: $26 billion Tax increases: $526 million Left in reserve: $214 million Highlights of the Senate Democrats’ proposed 2005-07 budget: • Lets the University of Washington and Washington State University raise tuition 7 percent for 2005-06 and 7 percent for 2006-07. Other four-year universities could raise tuition 6 percent each year and two-year colleges could go up 5 percent each year. • Gives state workers a 3.2 percent raise this year and a 1.6 percent raise next year. • Gives public school employees a 1.2 percent raise this year and 1.7 percent next year. • Gives home-care workers a 49-cent hourly pay increase. • Raises cigarette tax by 60 cents a pack (20 cigarettes) this year and another 20 cents next year. • Raises liquor taxes by $1 a liter. • Levies a 5 percent tax on nontribal minicasinos to pay for public defenders, breast cancer screening for poor women, methamphetamine prevention and treatment programs, and state arts commission funding. • Imposes an inheritance tax on estates valued at $1.5 million and higher. The threshold would rise to $2 million next year. • Allots 8,120 additional college enrollment slots, including 400 at the UW Tacoma. • Eliminates the Washington Reading Corps, saving $7.4 million. • Maintains enrollment in the state-subsidized Basic Health Plan at 100,000. • Adds 25,000 children to Medicaid by requiring less paperwork. • Sets a $3 co-pay for prescriptions for people receiving medical assistance, starting Jan. 1, 2006. • Limits enrollment in the home-care program to 23,450, which puts 500 people on a waiting list. • Reduces the $6.50-a-day nursing home bed tax by 30 percent. • Allocates $179 million to build a prison in Eastern Washington for 1,300 inmates. • Pays half the salaries of district and municipal court judges, starting in 2007. Washington News Tribune ** Sin taxes key to Democrats’ plan
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