Gregoire offers way to spur economy

Washington needs to get rid of some business tax exemptions that no longer make sense and set up “one-stop shopping” for companies that need permits to open or expand, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire said Thursday.

The three-term attorney general “kicked off” her campaign at a rally with about 200 people outside her alma mater, Gonzaga University Law School. Although she announced her candidacy more than a year ago, Gregoire is driving a sign-bedecked motor home around the state over the next two weeks as the Sept. 14 primary approaches.

She told a crowd of about 200 at the outdoor rally that the state needs to “turn the economy around” and create 250,000 jobs.

Asked about how to do that in a later interview, she talked about establishing partnerships between government, education and business. “We put the welcome mat out to good family-wage jobs,” she said.

One way to do that would be to shorten the time a company spends getting permits from local and state government, she said. As governor, she said, she’d push to set up a way for a business to apply in one place for all the permits it needs from all levels of government, and guarantee the permits would be granted or rejected within a year.

“I don’t know why we can’t have one-stop shopping,” she said.

She’d also push for a review of the state’s Department of Labor and Industries, the target of some businesses that have faced rising rates for unemployment compensation. Business and labor groups seem to agree that L&I is not effectively handling some parts of its mission, such as training injured workers for new jobs.

“When you make the government perform its job efficiently and timely, that’s what reduces the rates,” Gregoire said.

On Wednesday, Gregoire’s main primary opponent, King County Executive Ron Sims, called for a major overhaul of the state’s tax system that would cancel the state’s business and occupation tax and its portion of the sales tax and reduce property taxes in exchange for a graduated income tax. Sims said the change would stimulate the economy and help the state’s projected shortfalls.

Gregoire, who criticized Sims’ plan Wednesday as being politically unrealistic, said Thursday she’d work instead to eliminate exemptions to the B&O tax that have outlived their usefulness. She estimated that various industries have been granted some $45 billion in exemptions over the years; once granted, the exemptions remain in effect, even if circumstances change.

Some exemptions were enacted to help create jobs, but no one can say if they did, she said in an interview.

Gregoire would call for an independent commission, similar to the one set up by Congress to decide which military bases should be closed, to review all exemptions.

“We need to take the politics out of tax exemptions,” she said.