Sunday Spin: Legislature in a box, over “the box”
OLYMPIA – There is much talk in the capital these days about “the box,” which may be confusing to the general public.
This is not the box of which one is often told to think outside. Nor is it the box, which, full of rocks, someone may be described as being dumber than. It cannot be described as bigger or smaller than one for bread.
Legislative budgeteers say they are trying to agree on the size of this box, even though it’s not a box at all, but a sum of money which makes up the amount the state will spend on a wide array of programs for two years starting on July 1.
We’ll leave aside for the time being the fact that this is the 21st Century and the state couldn’t keep its money in a box of whatever size, because most of it isn’t in paper currency but digitally represented by 0s and 1s in computers somewhere. It’s an outdated metaphor, but budget writers are no more likely to stop using it than Gov. Jay Inslee is to stop telling them to focus like a laser beam or Senate Majority Leader Mark Schoesler is to stop saying he’s an optimist who views the glass as half full. While we can only wonder about the strength of the laser or the contents of the glass, it may be helpful to know a bit about the box that’s not really a box.
It is, in round figures, around $38 billion of our tax money. It got a little bigger, in theory, last week by the economists who peer into their crystal balls and prognosticate how much money the state will collect over the next two years. That educated guess is based on projecting all the state’s current laws, rules and regulations on taxes and fees into the future, adding or subtracting things like housing starts and job growth, car sales and gas prices, and crossing the state’s collective fingers.
The dispute over the box involves each side of the debate tinkering with those laws, rules and regulations, and a general disagreement on how to arrive at it. House Democrats have proposed adding more taxes; Senate Republicans have proposed moving some money around from other boxes and dumping it into the big general fund box. That gives them different totals.
House Democrats want to start with the concept of determining what the state needs, then finding the money to pay for it. Senate Republicans want to start with the concept of how much does the state have, and figuring out how to divvy that up.
So if you can’t agree on some very basic things about how much you have, it’s almost impossible to reach an agreement on how to spend it. That’s why the Legislature finds itself in a box, and will need a second special session declared sometime this week.
Is an extra 30 days enough time to find their way out of the box? Check box A if you think yes, box B for no or box C for maybe.
