Democrat's Dilemma

Our Washington State legislature is currently wrestling with balancing the state budget. Since we elected Gov. Gregoire in 2004, the Washington State budget has increased by over 30%, far over the growth allowed by the initiative on this subject that passed a number of years ago. They got around the initiative by passing a law to ignore the initiative. Candidate Rossi carefully explained this during the 2008 election and correctly predicted huge deficits if we did not elect him.

After this special session started last week, I heard that Gov. Gregoire told the legislators that if they could not get the budget balanced, she would have to order an across the board 20% spending cut.

What did they expect to happen after exploding spending by 30%? Duh!

But what is the flip side of a 20% spending cut? Why, a 25% tax increase! During a recession? That would be catastrophic for the people of this state as well. This is a tough decision for a Democrat, but the solution is obvious to a Republican. Roll back all those spending increases they made over the last 5 years until the budget balances.

It is almost as though the Democrats cannot do even the most basic arithmetic.