Good news, Washington - there’s a budget surplus! The jockeying for how that money gets spent has already begun, and we’ve got the low down.
Here are Five Fast Facts on updates to Washington State’s budget:
- 📈 More More More - In the last session, Washington State’s lawmakers passed a two-year budget which projected about $70 billion for the state. In this session, they’re now going back to make adjustments to that budget to (surprise, surprise) spend a bit more of your tax dollars. $2 billion more, to be precise.
- 💸 Also More More More - The problem? Things are more expensive for the government, too. For example, fixing the 520 bridges around Seattle will now cost $700 million more than originally projected. Ouch!
- 🤝 Agreement…But… - Both the Senate and the House agree on most of these priorities. Or, at least they agree that they are priorities that need to be addressed. The House thinks they’ll cost about $1.1 billion, but the Senate is saying only $730 million. But good news, it’s all your money, so there’s that. 😉
- 🚧🏫 Priorities - In all seriousness, they have targeted some important things. Fixing roads and bridges, money for special education, mental health facilities, and homelessness are headline items that should get more funding to one degree or another.
- 🤔 Potential Changes - There are a number of things that can affect revenue for the state. A couple of initiatives would repeal the state’s carbon market or capital gains tax. These are huge money-makers for the state, but that’s money coming out of your pockets to fund them. Whether these repeals would actually be passed or not is an open question, and if they do the state might be underwater on its other budget allocations.
🔥Bottom line: While it’s great to have extra money coming in, we have to keep in mind that every penny of government money first comes out of the paychecks of normal folks like us. There are some things that we really need the government to do, but we also know the government has a tendency to throw huge amounts of our money at stupid or wasteful things. So, as our lawmakers talk about how to spend that surplus, we should keep an eye on them and let our opinions be made known to them.
What do you think the state should be spending our tax dollars on?
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