Bill Bryant: What we need is an entirely new budget and state government

Gov. Jay Inslee is not going to call a special legislative session to deal with the state’s revenue shortfall. That’s just as well. All we’d get is budget tinkering and more taxes; neither of those will solve our financial problem.

Despite what Inslee says, the pandemic did not create this problem. Reduced revenue because of the pandemic merely revealed how unsustainable Olympia’s spending has become. State spending has increased 70% under Inslee. And we’re borrowing close to our limit. Washington has the eighth-highest public debt per capita in the nation. What’s even worse, there are rumblings around Olympia about borrowing more money to cover the budget deficit. None of this is sustainable. That, not a COVID-related revenue shortfall, is our crisis, and the next legislative session better solve it.

As I watch this unfold, I wish I could call Inslee and offer my thoughts. But as his former opponent, he won’t take my call nor would he like my solutions. That is because we see this situation so differently. I believe we should rethink what we expect from state government, then start from zero and rebuild. Inslee wants us to think our budget problem was created by the pandemic and that more taxes are needed.

He is wrong. Even with reduced revenues, at the end of 2020 our state will still collect over 10% more than it did just four years ago. That balance does not require new taxes. It requires state government to do what the rest of us have been doing for months: Help those in need. Reprioritize. Innovate. Businesses, schools, health care providers, nonprofits across our state have been forced to set new priorities and do things differently. We should expect the same from our state government. Here’s what we should do:

First, cut taxes. Businesses and families are stressed. They can’t take more taxes on top of everything else they are struggling with this year. Now is the time to put people first, not government, and cut taxes.

Second, start doing things differently: Negotiate new public contracts; embrace new technology and new ways of delivering services. This is our moment to ask ourselves whether Washington needs 294 school districts, each with their own administrative overhead, or whether money spent on administration could be better spent directly by principals on teachers and students. This is the time to ask whether we need a Department of Ecology and a Department of Natural Resources and a Department of Fish and Wildlife. It is the time to spotlight which funds spent by the Department of Social and Health Services are helping people, and which are feeding a bureaucracy.

And let’s demand accountability. Whether mental health, education, roads, homelessness or environmental protection, we need to measure program success not by how much money we spend but by how well patients are treated, how well students learn, how much we cut commute times and repair roads, the amount of habitat we restore and whether species actually recover. Spending money that rewards political allies but doesn’t get the job done must stop.

Third, invest in things that provide jobs and strengthen our future. We should build a Columbia Science Center in the Tri-Cities that, with Battelle, U.S. Department of Energy, Delta High School, colleges and universities, will be our nation’s campus for environmental, climate and modular nuclear education and research. We should build a new State Route 18 four-lane freeway connecting Interstate 90 (North Bend) to Interstate 5 (south of Fort Lewis) with a spur to the Port of Tacoma, and a third Clark County bridge across the Columbia River. We should launch an aggressive climate-change adaptation strategy that includes building water reservoirs in the Cascades. We should provide every child with basic medical and dental care, and only fund those homelessness programs proven to lift people off our streets.

What we need is an entirely new budget and state government. We need to take Olympia down to studs and start over.

Imagine, with dynamic leadership, the next legislative session could be our launch pad. But if all we get is more taxes and bureaucracy, we’ll lunge backward. The governor won’t take my call, but his office will take yours. Let him and your legislator know a radical new approach, not more taxes, is what Washington needs.

Bill Bryant was Washington state’s Republican nominee for governor in 2016.