Gregoire pushes jobs plan, calls for reform

OLYMPIA — Calling it “our time to show courage,” Gov. Chris Gregoire today urged lawmakers to back her plan to create 20,000 new jobs, boost unemployment benefits, and use the economic crisis to forge a more nimble state government. “When this recession ends, and it will end, we must be ready for a new economy,” Gregoire told cheering state legislators at the capitol. The economic crisis is hitting the state hard, she said, calling it “the most difficult and trying times maybe since the Great Depression.” Families are struggling with bills, businesses are trying to keep their doors open, and unemployment claims last month were up 75 percent over the same time last year. But the state cannot just ride out the hard times and return to business as usual, Gregoire said. By planning well and making tough decisions now, she said, state government can “lay a platform for a better tomorrow.” Her plan includes: • a roads and transportation plan that Gregoire says will create 20,000 new jobs and spawn a “green economy” for the future. The state should tap Washington’s healthy unemployment fund for better benefits. She also indicated that a tax break for business is in the works, although she didn’t provide details. • a balanced state budget that focuses on basic needs, like protecting children, schools and colleges, public safety, the environment and the economy. • reforming state government, doing away with decades of layered-on bureaucracy in favor of a more responsive system. Gregoire also called on Washingtonians to look out for each other. She praised the Spokane citizens who turned out to muck out slush-clogged drains, the folks in Orting who fought floods with sandbags recently, and a Lewis Counth hotel that cut its room rates in half to accommodate flooded-out families. She called on people to help food banks, volunteer at homeless shelters, and contribute to utility programs that help low-income people pay their power and heating bills. She invoked the memory of the last governor from Eastern Washington, a former Cheney mayor named Clarence Martin. During the Great Depression, Martin followed President Franklin Roosevelt’s efforts to put people to work, she said. Among the public works projects at the time: the Grand Coulee Dam. Gregoire, who last month proposed a no-new-taxes budget that would cut state services deeply during the next two years, said that she didn’t do it lightly. “The budget contains as much care and compassion as we could muster,” she told lawmakers. “But it still hurts real people, and with each cut I chose, I saw their faces. “Let’s face it,” she continued. “We were dealt a terrible hand by forces beyond our control. We are forced to make unprecedented and difficult choices.” The crisis, however, gives leaders a chance to revamp Washington’s government, she said. The state, for example, has some 470 boards and commissions. Nobody, she suggested, thinks the state needs even half that many advisors. “We need to reform, and we will,” Gregoire said. “We need a lean, nimble state government serving our people in the 21st century.”