Dear Neighbors,
After years of budget cuts and tough economic times, I am proud that the budget proposed by the House last Friday makes real investments in the future of our economy and well-being of our children, families and communities.
With this budget, we are supporting an economy that works for everyone, and asking everyone to pay their fair share.
Highlights included in the House Democratic Budget Proposal:
- $3.2 billion – Additional K-12 spending, a 21% increase in funding over last biennium
- $1.4 billion in K-12 policy adds that will count towards that state’s McCleary obligation including:
- K-3 class size reduction
- Full funding for all-day kindergarten for every child in the state
- Materials, supplies and operating costs
- Supports to prepare students for college and careers
- The remaining $1.8 billion investment pays for the policy decisions made towards fully funding education in the 2013-15 budget.
- $1.4 billion in K-12 policy adds that will count towards that state’s McCleary obligation including:
- $385 million – Restore cost-of-living adjustments for school employees.
- $227 million – Expansion of quality early learning and childhood education.
- $256 million – Investments in higher education including two years of tuition freezes, student financial aid, and high-demand, high-salary degrees.
- $100 million – New mental health capacity to ensure that people get the help they need in their time of crisis.
- $9.6 million – Restore previous cuts to the state’s Food Assistance program that feeds hungry children, families, and seniors in the state.
The budget proposal includes a revenue package that takes a step toward restoring fairness in the system and generates the revenue needed to pay for essential state services:
- Imposing a 5% excise tax on capital gains profits (exempts families earning less than $500,000 a year or single filers 250,000 or less).
- Revenues from the capital gains tax would go into a new “Student Investment Fund” to be used for K-12 and higher education investments.
- Reinstate the increase on the B&O service tax rate by .3%.
- A similar policy was enacted temporarily during the Great Recession.
- The proposal also increases the Small Business B&O Tax Credit for service businesses by nearly double, eliminating B&O tax for an additional 15,000 businesses each year. Services businesses making up to $100,000 in taxable income would pay no B&O taxes at all.
- Bring fairness to our home-grown online retailers by taxing transactions from out-of-state online retailers.
- Repeal and narrow seven of the 650 tax exemptions that have proven to be outdated, costly, and inefficient.
The total amount of revenue raised though this proposal is $1.5 billion. Additional details of the revenue package can be found here:
- K-12 and Teachers
- Early Learning and Higher Education
- Mental Health & Safety Net
- The Fair Share Tax
- Back to Business Plan
- Close Costly Tax Breaks
The operating budget, HB 1106, is being heard this afternoon in the Appropriations Committee.
Read more about the budget here. Budget documents can be viewed here.
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Ask Tina
In this episode of Ask Tina, I respond to constituent e-mails on crisis intervention training for police officers, and on payday loans.
Read more about what the current payday lending proposal would do in this article from the Economic Opportunity Institute.
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Mental Health
We are investing $100 million to repair our broke mental health system. Our communities are safer and stronger when we make sure that our family, friends and neighbors are able to get the services they need when in crisis.
New tools, like Joel’s Law (named for Joel Reuter) will help us help our family members who are in crisis. Funding for mental health intervention and treatment will give law enforcement, emergency responders and mental health service providers the tools needed to better address people who are experiencing a mental health crisis.
Everyone deserves dignity and respect, and unfortunately our current mental health system is leaving too many people with mental illnesses in prisons or emergency rooms because there is no room at our mental health facilities. By funding more beds in community mental health facilities and state hospitals, we can make sure that people are getting the treatment they need.
I’m pleased that my bills relating to mental health are progressing! HB 1138, which creates a task force on mental health and suicide prevention in higher education, recently passed the Senate Higher Education Committee. HB 1424, relating to suicide prevention, had a public hearing in the Senate Health Care Committee today. HB 1450, onto which the language of my bill concerning the Involuntary Treatment Act, HB 1287, was amended, is also progressing in the Senate.
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We made the news!
Seattle Times editorial related to my bill to raise the legal smoking age, SHB 1458, on Sunday, March 28th: Raise smoking age to 21 to save lives
Wall Street Journal article on March 24th on international and out of state students displacing in-state residents at public universities: International Students Stream Into U.S. Colleges
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Go Zags!
Very proud of our Zags for their amazing season and top performance at the Elite Eight!
I truly appreciate your taking the time to read my updates and want to also thank you for your e-mails, letters and phone calls.
Sincerely,
