In Our View: Renewed State of Well-Being

For all of the talk about education funding and transportation projects and carbon emissions, there is some good news — the state of the state in Washington is rather healthy.

Sure, battles are looming in the Legislature, battles that will help define the state for coming generations, but overall our little corner of the United States is on solid footing. That was the message that came through Tuesday in Gov. Jay Inslee’s annual State of the State address to lawmakers. As Sen. Ann Rivers, R-La Center, said, “I love the governor’s optimism. I think it’s wonderful, and I hope to capture some of that optimism and energy to come up with something that really works and that will not damage the working families of this state.”

OK, so Rivers found some policy reasons to take issue with the Democratic governor’s address. We wouldn’t expect a relatively rosy outlook (compared with the Great Recession of recent years, trust us, it’s rosy) to erase the differences between Ds and Rs in Olympia. But optimism is a good place to start as the Legislature digs into a 105-day session that will include writing a two-year budget for the state.

At the forefront will be an estimated $3 billion increase in revenue, which is a result of an improving economy that is expected to generate increased tax revenue. With the state facing mandates of increased funding for K-12 education because of the state Supreme Court’s ruling in McCleary v. Washington and because of voter-approved Initiative 1351, in addition to court-ordered expenses relating to mental-health care, much of that money already has been spoken for.

Because of that, Inslee has proposed a new carbon tax on polluting industries and a new capital gains tax, which he says will impact 1 percent of Washington taxpayers. While Inslee can make a strong and eloquent case for the new taxes, the Washington Policy Center presents an effective rebuttal. According to Jason Mercier, director of the Center for Government Reform, per-capita expenditures by state government have increased 24 percent since 1995 when adjusted for inflation (although they remain lower than in 2009 and 2010).

That turns the issue to these questions: When is enough is enough? And how deep can taxpayers dig into their pockets before those pockets are emptied? Framed in that context, Inslee’s quest for new taxes — a tactic that already has met with resistance from Republicans in the Senate — promises to be a difficult sell. “If we look at cap-and-trade,” Rivers said of the proposed carbon tax, “is it a carrot or is it a stick, and does it send the right message to folks who might like to relocate their business to Washington and provide great family-wage jobs?” Inslee’s counterpoint: “For all we do here together in the next few months, for all our fiscal woes, for all our short-term demands, we know that the most enduring legacy we can leave is a healthy, clean, beautiful Evergreen State.”

Nearly all Washingtonians, we’re guessing, would agree with that. The differences come in how we go about achieving the goal, which led Inslee to tell The Columbian during a December interview, “I’m a person who believes sometimes new ideas are good ones.” On Tuesday, he spoke of a “slow erosion of our shared prosperity, a widening gap of inequality, and a deterioration of our clean air and water.”

That undoubtedly denotes an air of pessimism, but it fortunately could not obfuscate the overriding message from the governor: The state of the state is good. We can make it better.