One Blockbuster Of A Sin Of Omission

The only reason Washington’s Legislature adjourned on time Sunday is that it fumbled away the most important issue of the year. No, that is not a reference to the scheme to subsidize another stadium for Seattle. It is a reference to transportation.

The state’s roads are in poor condition - congested, potholed, unsafe.

This will get worse. The transportation budget for the next two years is smaller than the current budget.

It didn’t have to turn out that way. At first there was money on the table that could have strengthened the transportation system: Legislators could have allocated more of the motor vehicle excise tax to roads. But instead, the Legislature dished out tax cuts like candy. Sixty percent of the cuts will go to business, particularly the largest corporations. The rest will benefit homeowners, although the dollar amount per home will be so small that few will notice.

The tax cuts left an increase in gas taxes as the only way to raise the sums needed to improve and maintain roads. Cowed by a talk-radio call-in campaign, legislators chose to slink home without even voting on the gas tax.

On their way out the door, the politicians patted each others’ backs for their bipartisan cooperation.

Indeed, in several other respects the Legislature did do a good job - which only makes more glaring their failure to do their duty where roads are concerned.

Education fared well. Often, colleges and universities have had to take the brunt of the budget cuts needed to make the state budget balance. Not this year. Gov. Gary Locke had promised to make education his top priority - a priority that was shared by Spokane Republican Jim West, chairman of the budget-writing Senate Ways and Means Committee. The two cooperated in spite of their different party labels, producing a spending plan that greatly increases higher education enrollment capacity.

This comes at an important time, with baby boomers’ kids graduating from high school and with welfare recipients needing to prepare themselves for jobs.

Welfare reform had to be the most important policy change of the year. Expect a need for more fine tuning, however, in legislative sessions to come.

Legislators also earned applause with a long-overdue toughening of juvenile crime laws.

Gov. Locke gets good marks for vetoing unseemly giveaways to the health insurance industry and for keeping his promise to be a friend of education. But as a leader, Locke should cultivate his sense of proportion: Roads are a higher priority than a football stadium.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board