Editorial: There’s no sugarcoating Legislature’s budget task

Gov. Chris Gregoire’s address to the Washington Legislature was sober, serious and direct. Washington state government grew too big and took on too many responsibilities, and there is no hope of returning to the days when government revenues flowed.

The state overspent in good times and has embarked on an inexorable paring of programs that are no longer sustainable. The federal government is done back-filling state budgets. State voters have no appetite for new taxes. But cutting budgets represents more than figures on a sheet. Workers are laid off. Service recipients lose their lifelines. So lawmakers have to enact rollbacks with care and precision.

When Gregoire released her latest budget to close a $4.6 billion shortfall, even some small-government conservatives were taken aback. Some want to still find ways to protect the most vulnerable citizens. In a telling quip, state Sen. Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, said that Gregoire must’ve switched parties.

So while the governor and majority Democratic leaders took too long to accept today’s budget reality, they are facing up. Voters have hemmed them in by rejecting taxes and making tax increases more difficult. In doing so, they also made it more difficult to end tax breaks.

This will be the third consecutive legislative session featuring large budget cuts. By late last summer, lawmakers had cut more than $5 billion over two years. Now, they face a similar amount.

The easy cuts have been done, but whether the public appreciates this is another matter. A recent Elway Poll found that 71 percent of respondents think that by cutting waste and fraud, the budget for the next biennium can be balanced. While we’ve expressed our own frustrations with legislators, we don’t think they merit this level of cynicism.

Both sides of the aisle acknowledge how difficult the current session will be. They are not willfully protecting government fraud. There is always room to address waste, but no one believes there is enough of it to fill the gap.

Again, the easy cuts have been made.

By the same token, some advocates of the programs on the chopping block don’t seem to give state leaders much credit either. Lawmakers know why the programs are important. They also know the consequences of enacting the cuts. Lectures about that miss the point.

Olympia is facing a new reality. The transformation is under way. But because of a poor level of understanding about what has taken place and what is about to take place, it is the very definition of a thankless task.