House Passes State Budget Without New Taxes

House conservatives, vexed by the political grief they took for proposing a 4-cent-pergallon gasoline tax increase, gave up the fight at least temporarily Tuesday night.

The House passed a no-new-taxes, one-year budget of $1.67 billion that operates below current levels. The vote was a largely party-line 55-39.

The plan now goes to the Senate, where Transportation Chairman Brad Owen, D-Shelton, will offer his own version of a no-new-tax budget.

But House Transportation Chairwoman Karen Schmidt, R-Bainbridge Island, said she hasn’t given up on the idea of a revenue package this year, to be submitted to the voters in November.

“I don’t think the proposal is dead; it is wounded,” she said.

Both she and House Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-Wenatchee, said the tax plan was withdrawn because Democrats wanted to play politics. Ballard said he wanted clear assurances from Senate leaders that the House Republicans wouldn’t be “hung out to dry” with a potentially damaging tax vote if the Senate had no intention of seriously considering it, too.

But the Senate Democrats were unwilling to provide those assurances, and the House scaled back the budget and offered a one-year spending plan, rather than the usual two-year approach, so the issue could be reconsidered next year.