Gregoire outlines grim choices for budget cuts
For the fourth year in a row, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Thursday outlined more than $1.5 billion in state cuts to health care, social services, prisons and education.
The latest round would increase public-school class sizes, eliminate subsidized health care for the working poor and release hundreds of inmates early.
"These are pretty much the very shocking things we've been trying to avoid for the last three years," Senate Ways and Means Chairman Ed Murray, D-Seattle, said of the governor's proposal.
"There are no choices left," he added.