GOP offers dramatic budget for Wash. state

OLYMPIA, Wash., April 2 (UPI) -- Senate Republicans in the state of Washington went to the mat in their opposition to tax increases Wednesday with a budget proposal that relies instead on deep cuts in social spending and payroll.

The $23 billion proposal includes more than $1 billion in program cuts and cancellation of an equal amount that was supposed to have gone to teachers and state employees in the form of pay increases.

"This is still a pain-and-suffering budget," Barbara Flye, executive director of Washington Citizen Action, told the Seattle Times. "It may switch who gets the ax from what the governor's budget proposes, but it's still talking about vulnerable populations getting the ax."

The proposed budget offered by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dino Rossi comes as the House struggles with a spending plan that observers say is mired in deep disagreements over how to raise the $25 billion needed to keep state government at its current levels through the 2003-2005 budget period.

While the House debates the merits of revenue enhancements, spending cuts and more exotic issues such as casino gambling, the Senate Republicans laid their cards on the table with a straightforward proposal to make cuts that are likely to be unpopular but are seen as necessary to balance the books without hiking taxes.

"We have probably the highest unemployment rate in the country," noted Rossi. "I have a little trouble saying we're going to raise taxes on people who are unemployed to give raises to people who still have jobs."

Rossi predicted the measure would pass in the Senate as early as Friday while the House side continues to debate the issue with the clock ticking toward the April 27 adjournment date.

At the same time, Gov. Gary Locke has been pushing a "priority-driven" budget that seeks to finesse Washington out of its current budget jam through a series of surgical spending cuts and tax increases.

Locke held a special graveyard shift session of the Legislature's transportation committees that lasted until nearly dawn Wednesday in order to hammer out an agreement on a gasoline-tax increase that has been stubbornly stalled -- despite the difference of only 2 cents between the House and Senate versions.

"It was a good effort and we are closer now then we have ever been before," Locke said. "While we did not expect to finish everything in one night, we are all in agreement that we need to find a workable transportation solution, and it needs to come from Olympia."

The budget, introduced by Rossi on Wednesday, accepts many of the spending cuts proposed by the Democratic governor, however it preserves pay raises for first-year teachers and funding for class-size reductions as well as some health care programs for adults.

At the same time, it proposes eliminating Medicare coverage for an estimated 46,000 children by lowering the income eligibility as part of a major overhaul of the healthcare system.

The GOP proposal maintains that health care has become the largest single function of state government after education with spending on track to grow well beyond the $2.8 billion spent in the 2001-2003 biennium.

"If there were no changes in current service eligibility and coverage policies, the state cost of the Medical Assistance program would be at least $3.4 billion next biennium," the proposal said. "That is a state-fund increase of $615 million, or 22 percent, from the final 2001-03 spending level."

Although Rossi's plan is aimed at protecting the entire program, the prospect of poor kids losing their health care could make it difficult for lawmakers of all political stripes to swallow the budget cuts in the coming weeks.

"We don't like to see thousands of children moved off of that program," House Appropriations Chairwoman Helen Sommers, a Democrat from Seattle, told the Times. "He didn't just go part way; he went pretty far."

(Reported by Hil Anderson in Los Angeles)