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“I believe that this budget is fair only in one narrow sense of the word: that it hurts many different groups of people more or less equally.  It is not sustainable, in that it relies on almost $3 billion in federal stimulus aid, funds that we can’t expect to see again next year.  It is not adequate, particularly in the healthcare field.  In higher education, it creates a barrier to the sons and daughters of working families, whose parents hope like all parents for their children to rise higher—and thus it abdicates the role of higher education as the Great Equalizer.  Even in K-12 education, our paramount duty, it falls far short of the mark for children in Seattle’s already-underfunded schools.

“By balancing the budget with federal funds and our existing revenues only, we have failed our collective duty to our most vulnerable, our students,  our elderly, and our low-income taxpayers who bear the greater share of the tax-burden under our shredded remnant of a tax-structure.  Our greatest failure is in not having a new tax source, such as a progressive income tax.  Further, we have not adopted even the suggested temporary sales-tax increase of 3/10 of one percent, with the Working Families tax Rebate, as introduced in the House by Rep. Pettigrew.  While support for either tax—or both—is strong in our 37^th District, and throughout Seattle, it is simply not sufficient elsewhere in the state to allow my colleagues to join me in supporting a Referendum.  The conversation on this subject has been constant among Democratic Senators.  Despite the efforts of our few progressives, joined by our Senate leadership team, we can’t muster from our 31 members the 25 votes needed to place a tax-increase of any kind on the November ballot.  The situation was the same in the House, despite Rep. Pettigrew’s efforts. The result is a miserable Republican-style budget.  (The Republicans are expected to vote No, on the absurd ground that it over-spends.)

“The one bright spot in this abysmal year is the progress we have made in criminal justice and sentencing.  Arguments which I have made for several years, for greater emphasis on drug-treatment for addicts accused of crime, for modernization of our laws on property crimes, and for less severe sentencing have finally succeeded.  Arguments on the basis of social and legal policy have been joined by fiscal arguments—and the belated realization that incarceration costs money, and that too much incarceration costs too much money.  Many of these items are incorporated in the budget—as savings, not as expenditures—and for this reason alone I have decided to hold my nose and vote Yes. 

“I believe that a year’s worth of a No New Taxes budget will be sufficient to turn the tide of public opinion in favor of more adequate revenues, and that my colleagues will see their path to a comprehensive re-structuring of our taxes.  Indeed, this may prove to be the teachable moment.  I expect to lead the movement in the Senate toward a Referendum in 2010 or 2011.  I expect that we will reach this goal.

“More generally, I believe that we will survive the current economic depression—more than survive, we will return in full force and prevail in our effort to re-create a state that works for low-income people, and our most vulnerable.  We do not know how long it will last, but we will last longer. “