challenges the local McClatchy papers, which have been devoting large amounts of ink and bytes to legislators who have - and haven't - voluntarily reduced their salary by 3 percent, to perhaps focus on real budget solutions, and possibly ask more of themselves in return.
Here's an excerpt:
A salary cut is symbolically important to be sure, but not a viable answer to our budget woes. The state tax exemption your corporation and other newspapers in Washington enjoy is worth $32 million biennially. That is 170 times more than the money saved by a 3 percent cut in all legislators’ salaries (estimated at $190,000 or 0.00122 percent of the Near General Fund budget).Read the full column here
Taken a step further, if we could recoup just 3 percent of all the tax preferences under the direct control of the Legislature (not those subject to federal commerce restrictions and other constitutional limitations), we would add $360 million biennially to the State budget. Our kids, our college students, our elderly, our most vulnerable, our environment, and most of our small businesses would all be a little better off with that sacrifice.
To read this blog post in Spanish, please go here.
