WaLeg Day 95: Budget talk breakdown could lead to special session

OLYMPIA — Budget negotiations between House Democrats and Senate Republicans are currently kaput, with each side pointing the finger at the other for who is responsible.

Senate Republicans say they wanted the House to put its proposals for a new capital gains tax and some increases in the business and occupation tax to a vote, to prove they would support some $1.3 billion in extra revenue their 2015-17 operating budget would need. Without the extra money, Senate Republicans would be “negotiating against ourselves,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Andy Hill said.

House Democrats insist they have the votes for those taxes, but see no reason to pass legislation that Senate Republicans have said they won’t pass in that chamber so the two sides should just dig in to the details and see what sort of agreements they can reach. House Democratic Leader Pat Sullivan said they even proposed a schedule of topics from discussion, but Senate Republicans weren’t interested.

So negotiations ended without really getting started Wednesday, and showed no signs Thursday of resuming any time soon, with the clock ticking toward April 26, which by law is the last day of the regular session.

Republicans accused  Democrats of deliberately stalling in hopes of getting to a special session, where they would have an advantage. What advantage? Well, more Republicans live farther away from Olympia than Democrats, so calling legislators back is more of a burden on Republicans, they said. If a budget deal isn’t reached by June 30, many state agencies would have to cut back or shut down because they wouldn’t have any legal authority to spend money to do their work.

And Republicans traditionally get blamed for that, Hill said. “There is a belief that if you shut down the government, it disadvantages Republicans.