Scare Tactics

          Last year, right after Washington voters rejected an income tax, Governor Gregoire said, “I don't have a path forward to be honest with you. I am just heart wrenched over the fact that we’re cutting hospice care and adult podiatry care, children's health care and education….”  However, earlier this year Gregoire found a path forward and called for state agencies and departments to submit plans for a 10-percent across the-board cut.  Across the board cuts are not leadership, they are grandstanding.  Ten percent cuts to law enforcement, prisons and courts, have much more significant consequences than similar cuts to the art commission.  Fortunately, such meat clever cuts never happened. 

          The governor first tried to raise taxes and only when voters rejected the income tax, the candy and soda tax and related measures did she consider cutting the budget.  After a year of budget gimmicks and trimming fat, she must cut nearly $2 billion or find a way to get citizens to increase taxes. 

          Personnel with the Department of Corrections have been talking with the media about what they would have to do if their budget were cut.  Secretary Bernie Warner, in charge of Corrections, stated that the cuts have “the potential to be pretty devastating to public safety.”  Another article, titled Offenders Won’t Be Supervised If DOC Is Hit With Cuts, stated that high-risk offenders, including sex offenders, would not be supervised if the proposed budget cuts occur. 

          Taxpayers would be justified in thinking that before the state allowed high-risk offenders out on the street without any form of supervision all discretionary spending would be eliminated. I guess that would depend on what you call discretionary.

          The state is prepared to release prisoners without supervision, but they continue to fund the following agencies and programs.

Washington State Art Commission, $1.1 million
Washington State Historical Society, $2.1 million
Eastern Washington State Historical Society, $1.4 million
Dept. of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, $1.2 million

          In addition to the nearly $6 million dollars spent on the above programs, Washington State maintains ten YouTube channels where you can watch exciting videos like the one embedded here or learn about apples and children’s health, in Spanish. 

          The state Department of Public Health provides taxpayer dollars to needle exchange programs in Clark, King and 18 other counties.  I may not know how much money the state spends creating those helpful videos or enabling drug addicts but, in this time of crisis, any tax dollars must be put to better use. 

          Most of the programs listed above have some merit, but this is a time for leadership, tough choices and budget priorities.  Eliminating programs like those above will not solve a $2 billion budget shortfall, but we will never find solutions as long as our leaders spend millions on programs we cannot afford.  We elect people to make the kind of tough decisions that are now required.  We need to eliminate waste and fund what is important and cut the rest.  However, instead of statesmanship, our leaders are trying to scare us with draconian cuts to essential service and the threat of setting criminals loose on the streets.  They should be ashamed.

Update on Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 10:01AM by Kyle Pratt

The Washyourhandsington video has been removed from the state YouTube channel (perhaps because so many people were making fun of it), but I found a copy that had been uploaded by an individual and updated the embed code.