Washington State is facing another $1.7 billion shortfall, and legislators are now tackling the deficit in a special session. We’ve released a new version of our budget calculator to challenge you to make the tough decisions in order to eliminate the latest budget deficit. The services and programs you decide to cut or keep will impact the children, families and seniors of our state.
In order to balance the budget, you can choose to cut programs like full-day kindergarten, health care for low-income children, chemical dependency and domestic violence support, and criminal offender supervision. You can also choose to raise revenue by implementing an income tax, eliminating specific tax exemptions, or even taxing marijuana.
Go to our Budget Calculator, then join the conversation here. What did you cut? What did you save? Did you raise revenue? Let us know what you would do to balance Washington’s budget in the comments.
I didn’t see any way to get to revenue options.
You can get to the revenue options by scrolling all the way to the bottom of the list of choices. Good luck balancing!
I can’t find revenue section either. Only cuts to education, busing, seniors. Nothing about revenues. And I do not understand how it is only about education (in budgeting). It seems we have lots of road building going on and maybe other things too that could maybe wait a couple years for better economic times, then put that money into education? I admit I do not understand the system but when working on my budget at home that’s how I work it. The car is broken but runs good, just needs expensive repairs that do not effect it’s ability to get me to work, so that waits until after food and rent are paid. Does the state not work this way?
Hi Sherry – just scroll all the way to the bottom. They are in the last section entitled “Revenue Generating Options.”
The options include:
Capital Gains Tax
Income tax for high earners, paired with reduced property tax rates
Estate tax
Financial institution interest income tax credit
Eliminate customized computer software sales tax exemption
Eliminate trade-ins sales tax exemption
Legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana
Just click on the green “New Revenue” total and you don’t have to scroll.
Didn’t seem that hard to do. We can increase revenue in a fair way by taxing capital gains, incomes over $400,000 per couple, removing the tax benefit for banks and legalizing and taxing marijuana. Gets the revenue needed without cutting vital services.
I totally agree with your ideas! Are you going to run for office? Our children need your insight!
agree 100%. it’s absurd we don’t have a state income tax as it is. this is what makes balancing so hard. this is one lesson we can learn from our hippie friends to the south.
The govenor wants to put sales tax increase on the ballot. Let’s put Gates Sr’s income tax proposal back on the ballot. He did a good job writing it.
I agree, and he did do a good job writing it, but not all that well -marketing- it. Voters perceived it as a trick; a distrustful populace thinking the state wanted its foot in the door on income taxes so that eventually the state would eventually lower the threshhold and they’d get taxed too. The income tax proposal needs to be back on the ballot, but with more robust and well-marketed verbage that under no circumstance can the governor or legislature alter the threshhold without votor approval.
I am a 15 year old and I agree 100% except taxing on capital gains would not be good. That would not be fair for people to have tax on their equity of what they have, maybe for the rich (high earners) but not for us, the middle class and everyone else that is trying to become more finacially excelled and rich. What we should do is send a letter to the news tribune and to the legislature to explain how to balance our budget and have $382,000,000 gained every year included the first year we do this. If this does get posted and our state legislature recognizes this, then not only will our state be in better shape, but knowing that we the citizens of not only Washington state, but of the United states of America, we give power to the government, and it betters all of us as a whole.
we will get the required revenue without touching the capital gains(no tax on them )
How about returning schools to just teaching the “3-R’s?” The dollars spent on distractions, diversions and entertainment are quite significant and have little to show for it.
Gladiator Training is our most expensive course!
High achieving schools, elsewhere and to some extent in this state, are very short on expenditures for “D&D&E” and many have long lines of parents trying to get their kids into these low cost schools.
Couple this with some attempt to change the relationship that schools have with ALL parents, not just the highly involved parents, and I think we could move from 42nd in the nation in high school completion.
I don’t mean to ask a really Sophomore question, but is this really the entire budget? I think we all know that the answer to this is np. Where is transportation, import/exports, property taxes,and how about business taxes? It seems like we are being scared into a sales tax hike by being threatened with cuts to education, but I don’t believe that we are seeing the whole picture. Increasing sales taxes just gives government more money, and they can’t live by the budget that they already have! Why in the world would I want to give them more?
Hey there – As for whether this includes every program in the entire state budget, no. For the sake of brevity, we only included programs that are funded at $5 million or more. As for revenue options, we included those which have been proposed or considered by various groups or organizations. No listing is complete – we simply did our best to outline a significant representation of the choices lawmakers are facing.
Yes, but why don’t they include things like state employee salaries and benefits, including those for elected representatives? Doesn’t it seem more far to cut the budget as a percentage across ALL categories, rather than protecting some entirely and cutting others entirely?
I tried to look up the total budget information — looks like we’re talking about a $70+ billion budget, and only a $2 billion shortfall. That would be just under a 3% cut across the board to balance the budget. Is that correct?
No, of course not. Try to find the entire budget. it take some work. If you saw the whole budget you might question why the tough choices that have to be made cuts teachers but doesn’t impact the 28 state employees of the Horse Racing Commission. Of course who would vote for tax increases to support things like that?
It’s radical, I guess, but the choices I made at the budget calculator resulted in a massive surplus, by over 3 billion with no sales tax increase. Also, I did cut criminal justice quite a bit to make up for their misuse of their weapons on protestors. And I got lazy when I cut funds to localities. I think we need more arts and arts in education spending, but there was no way to include that. Encouraging imagination and developing creative skills are vital to coping with poverty and resolving social problems. Clearly the governor and the WASL need remedial help here.
Thanks for doing this. I sent it to my email list, tweeted it, posted on google+ and sent it to my progressive (Ballard, Seattle) legislators. I worked for 1098, too, BTW.
In solidarity and for the long march,
Alice Dubiel
The income tax option didn’t specify what percentage would be applied. I personally don’t know anyone who would make enough money to be taxed by it, but I am curious what was used for the calculation.
Yeah, I’m curious about this as well. Could we get specifics?
The projections are for a 5 percent tax rate on annual income over $200,000 for individuals and $400,000 for joint filers, and a 9 percent tax rate on annual income over $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for joint filers.
Instead … how about we cut government jobs so we aren’t always seeing a one person job being done by 3 people with 2 supervisors. Then, cut back salaries of the remaining government officials and of the employees as well. Not to mention freezing their pay increases, nearly everyone else in the economy is having to make sacrifices and cut backs but do we ever hear of our government taking a pay decrease … or missing a pay increase. How about a smaller government?
This is all wrong and ridiculous, these initiatives that get proposed with back end threats, it’s always the same thing and frankly it’s getting very old. It’s time to stand up and make some demands of our own, it’s time to hold some individuals accountable. It’s time to WAKE UP!
Why is it that we’re always hearing about education funding is going to be cut, the children are the future but a certain population of adults don’t want to make any cuts of their own, they want to take it away from the defenseless children who can’t fight back ….. pathetic.
Has anyone wondered why we never hear about the amount of sales tax collected when Boeing delivers an aircraft? How about the amount of revenue from the sale of aircraft parts? I don’t want to hear about how it would make Boeing uncompetitive, it’s the customer that pays the tax, not the company. The same elected officials that cry over lack of funding and devastating budget cuts due to not being able tax us until we’re crippled, fall all over themselves trying to be first to offer tax exemptions to Boeing. Another area for more tax revenue is sales tax on newspapers and periodicals. I also don’t believe newspapers pay the same B&O tax that a business such as a toy store would pay. It would appear that neither the governor nor the legislature is serious about balancing the budget until these exemptions are addressed.
I balanced the budget without having to take away programs. Adding revenue by ending tax exmptions for the banks and the high earners. Such as the capital gains tax and the Capital Gains Tax Income tax for high earners, paired with reduced property tax rates Estate tax Financial institution interest income tax credit Eliminate customized computer software sales tax exemption Eliminate trade-ins sales tax exemption. I however don’t feel adding in the corruption of our society by adding in the Legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana is a good idea at all. I for one will not vote for it. But I balanced the budget without it. I also added that we can make adjustment in the balancing of other things on the budget to help with the problem with overspending of our state.
The interactive idea is great.
Here’s my philosophy:
1. Cut back programs at most levels. Avoid eliminating whenever possible.
2. The employee cuts in wages and benefits was too weak. A minimum 5% across the board cut for all state workers – effective until the budget is balanced.
3. No tax increases. And don’t bring the marijuana issue into the mix.. The tax issue is already controversial enough.
It seems to me that the real issues aren’t being addressed. We have a welfare program that throws money at 3rd and 4th generation welfare recipients while the general public, seniors, and school aged children foot the bill.
Revamp the welfare program to eliminate Quest cards to everyone that is released from prison. They don’t deserve free money for committing crimes for a living!
Don’t cut pay for teachers. Children need education! Slash and burn unnecessary / unwanted government programs! We don’t need to spend 5.3 million dollars to find out that people are depressed when it rains!
Washington State elected officials, take a pay cut! Shazam! I just saved the taxpayers millions!
Sorry, it didn’t give me the options needed.
1. cut all state salaries by at least 5%. I work in the private sector so a cut means a real reduction in payment, not a smaller increase.
2. Stop funding ALL pension plans. Let the employees fund their own pensions the way the private sector does with 401Ks.
3. Cap all state employee income. Under no circumstances should ANY state employee ever earn more than 300k a year. There is no job done by any of them that’s worth more than that.
4. Adopt vacation/sick plans like the private sector does. Use it or lose it. Do not allow state employees to save up years worth of sick and vacation time that they then cash out when they retire.
5. Prohibit state employees from being paid for commuting. State ferry workers are paid by the hour for time spent travelling from their home to their workplace and back. That is simply not acceptable.
I was able to balance without too much effort. There was some items missing from the “calculator”. Has anyone here ever actually looked up the salaries of state employees? Just in DSHS there are 22 employees that make over $200,000 a year!! That is just 1 department out of hundreds that are funded by the state. There is a TON of fat in the state budget, just no one with the guts to do anything.
Here is a link if anyone wants to look at state salaries.
http://data.spokesman.com/salaries/state/agencies/
Around 80% of the state budget goes to state employees in form of salaries and benefits. It’s obvious that the best and most sensible way to balance the state budget is to cut the state payroll.
The state employees too many people for the tasks at hand. Typical of governments. So the first step is to fire probably one fourth of the state employees. Yes, this includes the police. I am more than willing to pay taxes to support a police force but I’m not willing to support a police state. If police officers have time to stop and detain citizens for a broken taillight just so they can run a check on them then we have too many police officers.
Of the employees left, cut their pay by five or ten percent. This has happened to me a couple of times in my life working in the private sector. When times get tough and the money isn’t coming in the management made the decision to cut the pay of the staff. The company I worked for in the early eighties cut the rank and file pay by 10% and cut the executive pay by 20%. That’s how good companies operate and it’s how government should operate.
The lawmakers are paid way too much in both salary and all the other forms of money the state provides them. It’s a part time job at best and is supposed to be a service to the people. Eliminate all forms of pension and post service benefits for lawmakers, cut their pay to some token amount, say $25k a year. No state provided car or per-diem or any crap like that. If they want to serve the people then let them serve. They’ve made us their servants, providing them with cars, food, housing and all forms of entertainment. They make no sacrifice to serve, they are elevated to royalty for “serving”. That needs to end.
UW Salaries are obscene. End tenure, pay professors (and all UW Employees) only for the work they actually do. Paying some stuffed shirt $300k a year when some grad student does all the teaching for them is fundamentally wrong.
The state ferry system is broken. Employees are paid by the hour for the time they spend commuting! Chief engineers are really gaming the system. A system that was put in place by their union working in concert with the democrats that run this state. It’s not like a managment/union negotiation, it’s more like two union bosses deciding how to best loot the taxpayer and get all that money to the union employees. The Democrats in charge of the government did not negotiate with the union with an eye to protecting taxpayer money! Same is true for the teachers union. It’s not a negotiation when the person you’re negotiating with WANTS to give you as much money as they can get a way with.
There’s really no big way to balance the budget, it’s going take tens of thousands, may hundreds of thousands, of smaller cuts all across the entire government. That’s how the budget grew and that’s how it will have to be cut.
Obviously start by taxing top income earners the same amount that the rest of us pay, this creates a surplus of $200 million! I’m not saying the rich need to shoulder the burden or are solely to blame, but as long as corruption and greed continue to go unchecked, then trickle-on-your-head economics won’t work.
As long as welfare is given to those who won’t work (I understand for one reason or another there are some people who cannot) then it’s a hand-out, not a hand-up. Reducing some public programs will help, but it needs to be done wisely. We need to find long-term sustainable solutions when providing public assistance, not just short term fixes.
The 98.6% (hard working red-blooded people) are getting tired of the other 1.4% (rich and poor) that are a growing parasite on our society. Everyone needs to work hard, work smart, and work together. Otherwise, history from roughly 200 years ago will sadly repeat itself.
I came up with a surplus of $3.1 billion.
State employees & teachers simply must accept cuts. They just aren’t needy like the developmentally disabled and others like me who are unable to even work, let alone advocate for themselves like the powerful teachers/state employee unions!
But that said: low-income parents cannot expect to get long-term assistance (5 Years!) from a TEMPORARY program (TANF), & illegals must be discouraged from coming here for their childrens’ healthcare, when we can’t even take care of our own legal citizens’ healthcare. We are PAYING people to have children they cannot afford.
And obviously, it’s past time for the rich to pitch in like everyone else for once. They aren’t creating the job numbers to justify their tax breaks. Trickle down economics doesn’t work.
Re: state sales tax: As long as your food isn’t taxed, don’t complain about a $.01 tax. People are starving in the streets. Stop claiming this will hurt the poor–we only buy food and bus tickets!
1. Increase class size by 2 children, reduce school year by one week, and cut national board bonuses. One-year, 1% salary reduction for K-12 ee’s and state ee’s. Suspend step increases. $383 Million. Before teachers bleat about their quality of life, they should consider those on the street going hungry. Teachers are FAR from being the most needy & must stop pretending to be such. Meritless, automatic step increases are one source of bureaucratic bloat & inefficiency.
That said, however:
2. A family on TANF for 5 years should not be considered temporary (the ‘T’ in TANF), so reduce the time limit to 36 months. And reduce TANF grants by 2%. $33 Million. We are PAYING people to have children they cannot afford.
3. Cut Apple Health for Kids, which entices people from other countries to come here & take our jobs & services ILLEGALLY. $34 Million.
4. Eliminate liquor profits sharing & excise tax sharing. Feb.2012. $87 Million.
5. Legalize, regulate & tax marijuana. $150 Million.
6. Repurpose Old Main Walla Walla & Reduce central services/related charges to state agencies. $32 Million.
7. 5% Capital Gains Tax. $505 Million.
8. Tax joint earners $400,000/year, single $200,000/year; Eliminate business & occupations tax for all small businesses. $1.9 Billion.
9. Increase the sales tax by $.01. $1 Billion.
10. Eliminate ‘customized software’ tax break. $131 Million.
All I did was add the high earners income tax and the budget was balanced. This shouldn’t be so difficult! Income tax on high earners does not mean income tax for everyone!