The real costs of a no-new-revenue state budget
Enter a magical world where big problems simply disappear because there’s no money to fix them.
A glimpse of that make-believe world can be found in the budget proposals released Thursday by Gov. Chris Gregoire. Gregoire doesn’t believe in magic herself, but enough Washingtonians do that her budget had to play along.
Falling revenue forecasts have blown a $2 billion crater into the skeletal, hard-times budget the Legislature approved in May. On Thursday, Gregoire announced a special late-November legislative session to fill the crater and offered her scenario – as legally required – for doing it without any additional tax money.