February 22, 2006

In Olympia: A State Budget for Justice

Issue: The Washington State Legislature convenes Jan. 9. During the short, 60-day session, they’ll consider well over 1,000 bills and pass a supplemental budget that makes revisions to the two-year, $27-billion dollar budget they passed last year.

Background: In Washington state, more than half a million people don’t have access to health coverage. It takes an hourly wage of $14.55 to afford the average two-bedroom apartment. In King County, you need to make more than $13 an hour just to afford the average one-bedroom. Minimum wage is $7.35 an hour. If you earn that — in fact if you earn less than $20,000 a year — you pay about 17 percent of your income in taxes. (If you’re part of the middle class, you pay about 11 percent, and if you’re one of the wealthiest 1 percent, you pay 3 percent of your income in taxes.)

Like every year, starting next week, the Legislature will make choices about how to spend our tax dollars, including the $1.4 billion extra generated by a growing economy. They’ll decide things like whether to use limited resources to provide tax breaks for businesses or expand health insurance coverage for poor children. They’ll have the choice to use our resources to help end poverty, or to maintain the status quo. Just some of the specific items they’ll consider this year include:

• A $100 million one-time expansion of the Housing Trust Fund to reduce the backlog of low-income housing projects waiting to be built in Washington state.

• A $13 million increase to the Washington Families Fund that pays for supportive housing and services to families leaving homelessness.

• $21 million for Medicaid to provide mental health care for low-income people across the state.

• Extending foster care for young adults enrolled in college or vocational-technical schools, so they remain supported as they prepare for the future.

We need legislators to be accountable to all of us, not just those with the most resources. They can decide to make ending poverty a priority. And you can help them make the right choice.

Action: Contact your legislators and the Governor and let them know that you want them to use the next 60 days to take steps to end poverty, and that you want them to use our tax dollars to do that, before they consider any more tax breaks for people and businesses that are doing just fine already. Call the legislative hotline at 1-800-562-6000 to leave a message for all of your legislators and the Governor, or visit www.leg.wa.gov to find out who represents you and find their email addresses.

On Mon., Jan. 16 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day,) join Real Change, the Statewide Poverty Action Network, and other groups from across the state for a march and rally in Olympia to call on the legislature to end poverty now. Details and registration available at www.povertyaction.org.

“ The existence of poverty in the U.S. should not be accepted as a necessary evil or an insoluble problem, but should be considered a crisis requiring emergency measures. It is a matter of will and priorities, not a matter of resources.” -MLK Jr.