Gov. Chris Gregoire dropped by the seattlepi.com newsroom this morning with fire in her eyes.
For most of her political career, she has been known for her cool demeanor, not her emotion. She has won respect for her intelligence but has not garnered a high level of devotion from voters. The state's current fiscal disaster, though, has put her in crisis mode and with it she appears to be finding a tough, passionate, angry side.
Gregoire has said she "hates" the budget she has had to propose to deal with the state government's $4.6 billion funding gap. It is nothing but cuts and more cuts. Talking with my colleagues Joel Connelly, Chris Grygiel and me today, she said, "I don't like the cuts to early childhood education. I don't like the cuts to K-12. I don't like the cuts on the backs of the poor."
She seemed pretty disgusted with voters who apparently prefer making nasty reductions in services to the poor rather than pay an extra two cents on a can of Coca Cola. The repeal of the tax on beverages and candy in the November election dug the budget hole significantly deeper. The simultaneous rejection of an income tax on the very wealthy among us closed off access to a new revenue source. And the reinstitution of a two-thirds vote requirement for raising any taxes in the legislature nailed another door shut.
Those who cast anti-tax votes think they saved money, but Gregoire hopes everyone will finally recognize how much those votes really cost.
For years now, Washingtonians have indulged in what I call "Eymanism." This is a belief unattached to reality that we can have a vibrant economy, good roads, good schools, great universities, effective programs for the poor and elderly and run the nation's biggest ferry system while giving ourselves new tax cuts every year or two through one of Tim Eyman's simplistic-but-alluring initiatives.
Up to this point, the reaction in Olympia has been to cower before each Eyman-inspired tantrum and find gimmicky ways to patch up the damage. That's what happened after Initiative 695 poked a gaping hole in funding of ferries. Gregoire is refusing to try any more gimmicks. The ferry system, for instance, will see fares rise by 10 percent while more than two dozen sailings are discontinued.
Eighty different programs will be eliminated, including subsidized health insurance for 66,000 low-income individuals, disability grants and medical help for tens of thousands of folks with temporary disabilities, general fund money for state parks and money for K-4 class size reduction.
Tuition at the state universities and community colleges will shoot up and higher education funding will be cut. Here, though, Gregoire is drawing a line in the sand. Legislators may want to take a bigger whack at higher ed' when they return to Olympia in January. If they succeed, Gregoire will tell college and university administrators to begin limiting enrollment. The governor insists quality education at our excellent institutions of higher learning must be preserved for better days ahead. In effect, she would prefer putting limits on who can get access to that education rather than let community colleges and universities slide into mediocrity.
Majority Democrats in the legislature seem stunned and paralyzed by the decimation of social services they spent years building up. They will resist Greoire's budget cuts and she will resist the gimmicks they may want to employ to avoid them.
On the Republican side, legislators may finally have to face up to the harsh world they have created through years of anti-tax, anti-government rhetoric. In the non-urban areas of the state where Republicans rule, things will be disappearing -- things like levy equalization money for schools, jobs at state prisons, access to higher education and all those ferry runs. When furious constituents begin complaining, Republicans may wonder if lean, miserly government is really what they wanted after all.
Certainly, Tim the Initiative King up in Mukilteo will not let reality get in the way of his lucrative ballot business. And I'm skeptical that even these terrible times will bring many more people to the realization that there is no free lunch. Still, just enough perceptions may be altered by Gregoire's tough measures to make it a little harder for the destructive anarchy of Eymanism to prevail the next time around.
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