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Home / Washington Business - July/August 2005 / Points of View: Republicans |
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Points of View: Republicans |
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Written On: July/August 2005 |
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Written By: by Rep. Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis - House Republican Leader |
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A Setback for the Economy
The 2005 legislative session was a setback for Washington’s fragile economy. The Legislature lost its focus on making our state’s economic climate more competitive.
We lost ground in our efforts to create a more affordable, consumer-driven health care system and moved closer to government-run health care. Budget writers abandoned fiscal responsibility and went back to double-digit spending growth with a budget that calls for a half billion dollars in new taxes.
But the issue that most clearly demonstrated Washington’s about-face on economic issues was the repeal of the state’s historic unemployment insurance reforms. In 2005, lawmakers unraveled a decade of work on a negotiated agreement adopted in 2003 to improve Washington's UI system.
The UI agreement was a major piece of the package to convince Boeing to build its 7E7—now the 787—in Washington. It also helped thousands of smaller businesses that pay unemployment insurance premiums.
Creating a system that provides equitable, fair and sustainable benefits for workers was a monumental challenge. Before the agreement, Washington’s UI costs were more than triple the national average with the country’s longest duration of benefits. The 2003 reforms solved inequities in the UI system and brought costs under control. Unfortunately, we are now back to square one.
House Bill 2255 eliminated four-quarter averaging and goes back to calculating benefits based on the employee’s earnings in the two highest quarters. It also restores the “liberal construction” requirement for interpreting unemployment insurance eligibility. The bill threatens to dramatically increase costs, creating the likelihood of higher tax rates in the future.
Our goal for Washington should not be more unemployment checks. Our goal should be more good paying jobs. By backing off on our commitment to UI improvements, we tell prospective employers that Washington is not good on its word, and we are less than committed to maintaining a healthy business climate. That damages our efforts to improve the state’s economy and bring jobs to Washington.
Bitter Partisanship in 2005
by Sen. Bill Finkbeiner, R-Kirkland
Senate Republican Leader
The close governor’s race last November made it clear to Senate Republicans that our state holds fairly evenly divided viewpoints. While this presented an opportunity to work together this past session, things didn’t come out that way.
We had some success. Expansion of education funding became possible partly through the good fortune of an increased revenue forecast. We also passed a transportation package that I believe our state needs if we’re going to continue progressing toward economic recovery.
Yet this was one of the most disappointing sessions I’ve been a part of since becoming a legislator 10 years ago. 2005 was marked by consistently bitter partisanship, and I fear our chance to strike a balance was lost.
Vote tallies demonstrate how partisan this session was. During the two previous years under a Senate Republican majority, there were few final bill passage votes taken without votes from the other side of the aisle. Usually, we found a balance including multiple Democratic votes, even for difficult issues like the 2003 budget and unemployment reforms passed to entice Boeing and other businesses to continue operating in Washington.
In 2005, many bills passed with only Democratic votes, including the budget—something that hasn’t happened in more than a decade. This was bad not only because people are clamoring for less partisanship in office, but because our goal of creating opportunity and jobs in Washington took a backseat to paying back supporters of the party in power.
It led to gutting the 2003 UI reforms. It led to increasing teacher pay without increasing accountability. And it led to growing the state government workforce by a few thousand at a time when private businesses are unable to hire enough people.
When one party tries to run Olympia as a tyranny, the people of the state lose in the long run. Republicans don’t have all the answers and neither do Democrats. By working together we can come up with better solutions. Not doing so in 2005 made the session a disappointing one.
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