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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spend Where Need Is Greatest

John Webster For The Editorial

Christmas comes in January next year. Thanks to a strong economy, the Washington state treasury has $860 million in unappropriated revenue. Legislators will spend the upcoming session arguing about what to do with it all.

Already, lawmakers have more bright ideas than a 6-year-old perched on Santa’s lap.

The most manipulative idea came from House Democrats who suggested writing everyone in the state a $70 check. Here’s why it’s a scam: The refunds would leave tax rates alone. And tax rates, obviously, are removing more money from our pockets than the state can spend.

More than anything else, the surplus should provoke a thoughtful look at Washington’s taxes and at the formulas that determine where the money they generate goes.

The tax system’s status quo has created a situation that is, at best, contradictory:

Gov. Gary Locke proposes to increase the gasoline tax to pay for needed maintenance and expansion of roads.

Locke and legislators most likely will divvy the $860 million windfall among tax cuts, rainy-day reserves and a laundry list of enhancements in state programs.

Meanwhile, city and county governments here and elsewhere are struggling to makes ends meet. Municipal streets are in terrible shape in many Washington communities. Nearly every time the Legislature meets, it saddles city and county governments with expensive new mandates, such as tougher crime penalties. But those mandates don’t always come with funds to implement them.

We need state policymakers, for once, to work at fitting this whole cockeyed picture together in a way that will get resources where the need is greatest. And “need” does not refer to the ability to invent attractive-sounding state program enhancements.

The public needs, first of all, a Legislature prudent enough to save some of the $860 million in reserve so that an economic downturn does not force damaging program cuts or tax increases.

Second, the public does need a Legislature with enough courage to do something about our underfunded roads.

Third, legislators should not let Olympia’s state-agency focus distract them from the fact that many essential services, back home, are delivered by financially strapped city and county governments. Streets, libraries, courts, jails, police, parks - all these - and more - are mostly the responsibility of local governments that are starving financially while the state wallows in dough.

Rarely has the case been stronger for adjusting tax formulas so that less will go to the state and more will go to the cities and counties.

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