A Roadmap to a Better Washington
The new budgets from state Democrats correctly identify ordinary people as the center of Washington’s economy. That’s a big deal.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of a budget as an Excel spreadsheet — impenetrable columns of numbers that lawmakers in Washington have to balance every session, like a really dull video game. But a government budget is a roadmap for the future, a moral document explaining which people, causes, and policies should be prioritized in the next year or two years.
Washington state’s budget has for too long been balanced on the backs of the working poor. Our upside-down tax code requires the poorest households to pay up to six times more of their annual income in taxes than their wealthiest neighbors, while programs that benefit communities often get slashed at the last minute in order to line up the revenue and expense columns.
That’s why I’m thrilled to see the two-year budgets proposed by Washington Senate Democrats last Thursday and by Washington House Democrats last Friday. Both budgets take progressive revenue (including a tax on extraordinary capital gains profits of the super-rich) into account, going a long way toward rebalancing our tax code. And second, both budgets invest in the communities that have been hit hardest during the pandemic, creating an equitable economic recovery that will work for everyone, not just the wealthy few.
Austin Jenkins at OPB highlighted some of the most important investments in the new Senate budget, including:
$1.7 billion in federal grants to help schools reopen and address student learning loss
$1 billion in federal funds to expand access to vaccines and continue the pandemic response
$850 million in federal money for affordable housing and homelessness
$450 million in state and federal funds to fund the Fair Start for Kids Act aimed at expanding access to affordable early learning and child care
$300 million for Immigrant Relief Fund payments to individuals
$268 million to expand and fund, for the first time, the Working Families Tax Credit
$170 million to expand access to behavioral health services, including through higher Medicaid rates
$125 million to address wildfire risk
$100 million to reduce the cost of individual health insurance plans sold on the state’s Health Benefit Exchange
$26 million to fund a new Office in Internal Investigations to investigate cases of police deadly force
The impressive thing about this list is that these expenditures are targeted very specifically toward helping the economy recover faster and in a way that’s more equitable than any other economic recovery in living memory.
Consider the $450 million for the Fair Start for Kids child care program. That money will help struggling child care providers keep their small businesses afloat, and their employees on payroll until the economy gets back up and running again. It will also allow thousands of families without childcare to re-enter the workforce, further supercharging the economy with more workers and more consumer spending. Conservatives might look at this line item and see a half-billion dollars in wasteful spending, but it’s really an investment in job creation, consumer spending, and early childhood education that will pay back in billions of dollars in economic growth to Washington state over the span of years.
Likewise, the Seattle Times reports that the proposed House budget “uses $166 million to help low-income homeowners who are behind on mortgage payments,” and allots “$80 million in aid for energy costs to low-income individuals,” as well as over $26 million for the housing of “low-income residents not able to work for at least 90 days who have been incapacitated because of a physical or mental health issue.” Without these funds in the budget, tens of thousands of our neighbors would fall out of the economy, losing their homes and income. But these relatively small line items will instead allow low-income families to continue to participate in the economy, helping them to spend money in their communities and retain some sense of stability until the recovery takes hold. It’s a better use of money than simply allowing families to lose their homes and then repeatedly working to rehouse them or provide emergency services later on down the line.
The economic crisis of the past year has exacerbated the problems created by years of bad, short-sighted budgeting. Washington’s safety net had been ripped to shreds after years of austerity measures, and so when our neighbors sought unemployment benefits, food and housing assistance, and other essential services after lockdowns began, the state was overwhelmed. Without fast and ample support to get assistance to these struggling families, communities suffered, businesses closed, and a downward economic spiral began that continues to this day. At the same time, we’ve seen the richest Washingtonians — those who pay the least in their taxes — add to their fortunes while working families take the brunt of COVID’s economic impact.
These budgets would materially improve the lives of millions of Washingtonians, lifting families out of poverty, giving children access to high-quality childcare so their parents can work, and getting money into people’s pockets to spend at small businesses in their communities. Both budgets finally recognize that everyday Washingtonians — and not the super-rich — are the real job creators, and they direct recovery efforts accordingly.
Additionally, they begin to address some of the serious racist inequities built into the system through programs like the Immigrant Relief Fund. People who receive IRF checks will immediately spend those funds in their local communities, supporting neighborhood businesses and creating jobs in the same locations that have suffered a disproportionate impact from the pandemic. While many recovery plans of the past tried and failed to create a robust economic recovery by lobbing tax cuts at corporations and the wealthy in the hopes that those benefits would trickle down to everyone else, this economic recovery intentionally centers the people and institutions who need it most.
We have a long way to go before Washington state’s tax code is truly balanced, and one good round of budgeting isn’t going to undo the damage of decades of trickle-down policies that prioritized corporations and the wealthy over average Washingtonians. It’s essential that once we rebound from this pandemic, we continue to build an economy that supports and encourages small businesses to open in our neighborhoods, hiring workers and fostering communities that circulate economic activity throughout the state, not just in the wealthiest and whitest towns and cities. We can’t eliminate poverty, or create an economy that benefits everyone, with a single budget.
But these two budgets represent a strong first step toward addressing the foundational flaws in our economy that have left us so vulnerable to economic crises and growing inequality. They correctly identify where true economic prosperity is created, and they encourage us all to own a piece of Washington state’s future.
