By Manny Frishberg, JTNews Correspondent
Rep. Laura Ruderman joked about placing a “tip jar” near her desk asking for contributions to the state’s General Fund. As new legislative session in Olympia began, Ruderman (D–45th Dist.) said that social-service organizations must make cuts and not expect state assistance.
“My bet,” Ruderman told a gathering of the Coalition For A Jewish Voice, “is that most of the people in this room would be willing to pay more taxes than you do now” to help fund social programs. But, short of soliciting charitable donations, she added, “there’s no way we can raise taxes just on you guys and not raise taxes on the folks who are making so little.”
The Coalition for a Jewish Voice is an amalgamation of individuals and local organizations, including the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, local and regional chapters of B’nai B’rith, congregations Eitz Or and Tikvah Chadeshah, and temples Beth Am, Beth Or and DeHirsch Sinai, among others, who share the values of mitzvot and tikkun olam. The group employs lobbyists who work with the state legislature to bring those values to life in the course of the state’s work.
A grassroots organizer since her teens, Ruderman reminded the politically active audience that “‘For the people and by the people’ means that there’s some work involved.”
Ruderman, whose district includes parts of the Eastside near Bellevue and Redmond, joined South King County Representative Shay Schual-Berke (D-33rd Dist.) as the featured speakers at CJV’s annual Legislative Forum on Jan. 12. Both legislators are members of the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees all spending measures that go through the legislature. While they discussed a number of policy questions, from taxes to health-related concerns, their comments largely focused on the problems and prospects for the state budget over the next two years.
“Sitting on the budget committee, both Shay and I will have plenty of time with the budget this year. I think that it’s really important that we recognize a couple of things: first of all, that we have a big problem,” Ruderman said. “We have somewhere between a $2.1 and $2.6 billion problem.”
Yet Ruderman noted that 45 of the 50 states face similarly devastating shortfalls, so the excuse that, in the past, lawmakers were not sufficiently prudent “is a cop-out.”
Ruderman and Schual-Berke both praised Gov. Gary Locke’s zero-balance approach to budgeting given the current fiscal crisis, but partially disagreed on how advocates like CJV representatives should approach their legislative priorities.
Ruderman described Locke’s process this way: “Instead of saying, ‘Okay, we spent $X million last year, are we going to spend X+Y or X-Y?’ he said, ‘What is it that the state government does and what is it that we really think that the state government should be doing? What are our priorities?’”
Schual-Berke recommended advocating for budget increases in some areas to fund needed services. She said she did not believe “playing the ‘zero-sum’ budgeting game was as necessary as her colleague had suggested. She agreed with the goal of limiting the damage done to high-priority programs, and believed that the governor’s priority-setting strategy was appropriate to the circumstances.
Ruderman said activists, advocates and legislators must question the priority setting. She said approaching lawmakers saying, “How could you possibly cut these deserving people?” and, “Don’t you know how much good this program does?” will likely not be a winning strategy this time around. “You know what, with our budget, there’s almost nobody getting a service that doesn’t desperately need it,” Ruderman said. “They all do some good or we would have cut them a long time ago.”
For her part, Schual-Berke, the only licensed MD currently serving in the state House, said that while she had retired as a cardiologist 10 years ago, “each session in the legislature makes practicing medicine more and more attractive, again.”
She said she shifted her committee assignments this year to focus more on the funding side of the process.
“I thought that policy was made in the policy committees and the money was set in the money committees, but it really doesn’t work that way,” she told the audience of about 20 generally politically savvy attendees. “I’m slow, but I’m not stupid,” she joked. “I’ve realized that money is really what it’s all about.”
While she generally praised Locke’s idea of setting priorities, Schual-Berke criticized his leadership as too timid in addressing what she sees as a need for more money to fund essential programs.
“I’m very afraid that the governor started off saying we’re not going to raise taxes,” Schual-Berke said. “The governor’s budget will roll back three voter initiatives – two of them in education,” she noted, “but he did not address the initiatives that reduce taxes.”
Both legislators had harsh words for Washington’s current tax system, which Ruderman said “is so screwed up.” Schual-Berke, the prime sponsor of the bill that created the Gates Commission to look at ways to reform the state’s tax code, criticized the state Senate’s final version. She said it would not allow the commission to look at whether total collections were sufficient to meet the state’s needs or who’s not paying enough taxes. “Is the distribution appropriate?” she asked.
At the same time, both Ruderman and Schual-Berke agreed there was virtually no chance the current legislature would consider a general overhaul of Washington’s tax system.
Tax reform advocate Diane Baer of the Progressive Tax Coalition, who attended the meeting, said the bottom 20 percent of Washingtonians, who make less than $17,000 a year, spend more than 17 percent of their income on taxes, while those making between $31,000 and $75,000 pay about 10 percent, and the top one percent, with an average income of $1.65 million, pay just over three percent.