Lawmakers Fight Over Best Tax Cut But Gov. Lowry Calls All Tax-Cut Proposals Irresponsible

With election-year tax cuts all but assured, legislative debate is turning into a scrap over whose proposed cuts are the best and biggest.

The Republican-led House delivered a new kick at Gov. Mike Lowry and the Senate leadership Thursday, proposing a $326 million tax reduction package that would exceed the Democratic Senate’s proposal by about $102 million and Lowry’s by $247 million in the two-year budget cycle which ends June 30, 1997.

The House proposal was announced by House Finance Chairman Brian Thomas, R-Renton, in one of many news conferences during the week before the 60-day session that begins Monday.

“There is a lot more we would like to do to bring relief to Washington taxpayers,” Thomas added.

On Wednesday, Lowry called both legislative chambers’ tax-cutting plans irresponsible and calculated to garner votes in November rather than to prepare for cuts in federal outlays that could have a harsh impact on Washington’s budget, $17.6 billion in the current biennium.

The Senate’s budget chief, Nita Rinehart, D-Seattle, and House Majority Leader Dale Foreman, R-Wenatchee, both are running for governor.

Lowry said his own $79 million proposal to reduce business and property taxes, following $230 million in business tax cuts last year, is more prudent.

Rinehart said the state can afford the Senate’s proposed $224 million business and property tax cut, even with likely federal spending reductions, but maintained that the House’s $326 million proposal is excessive.

House leaders dismissed Lowry as fainthearted and stingy and asserted that the Senate is showing signs of treachery and lack of desire to cut taxes.

After the session opens Monday, the House will try to realize about $218 million of its tax cut plan by overriding Lowry’s vetoes of two sets of business and property tax cuts.

Senate leaders say they will block an override and instead push their own $224 million package.

“If the Senate was serious about giving tax cuts to the people, they would override the governor,” said House Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee.

“Instead, it looks like they will count on the governor to veto their new cuts so they can look like they gave a tax cut in an election year.”

Senate Majority Leader Sid Snyder, D-Long Beach, said the measures vetoed by Lowry were no longer viable because they would obligate the state to refund millions of dollars in revenue that was collected after Lowry vetoed the two bills last year.