On November 2^nd, 2010, I was elected to represent the people of the 47^th District in Olympia.  There is so much going on in the legislature that I find it would be very easy to fill every day with good work, but never get around to doing the most important things that I talked about during the campaign.  So I am making a conscious effort to make sure I focus on those issues.  Therefore, I will not have time to update this website during the legislative session.  However, I will be updating my legislative website, http://houserepublicans.wa.gov/members/mark-hargrove/.  On that website you can also watch my weekly video updates or sign up to receive regular email updates and see how to email or call me at the legislature.  Thank you for the honor of representing you.

The Problem

In 2008, long before the economic crisis hit, the state legislature had spent away the largest surplus in state history and had a projected $9 billion deficit.  They were only able to reach a constitutionally mandated balanced 2009 budget by accepting billions in stimulus money, not funding pension accounts and playing shell games with other money.  Any reasonable person can see that when 2010 came around, we could not maintain that level of spending with no more stimulus money coming, the debt we already owed to pension accounts and the $710 million that was cut from the education budget.  And yet our budget in 2010 is greater than in 2009!

The Legislature’s Solution

The legislature chose to ignore the will of the people and suspended the I-960 requirements for a 2/3 majority vote for raising taxes and transparency provisions for publishing voting records on raising taxes.  As a result we were handed a host of tax increases including bottled water, candy, beer and cigarettes.

But probably most detrimental was the impact on our small businesses who provide the significant majority of jobs in our state.  With a 20% increase in the B&O tax on service companies, the already skyrocketing L&I and unemployment insurance costs and the other taxes, small businesses are laying off employees or even closing their doors.  And of course, as layoffs occur and businesses close, state revenues drop.

The legislature’s solution is leading us down the wrong path.

The Right Solution

We can and must make three common sense steps to get us back on the right path.

First, the legislature needs to reign in out of control spending.  We should start with reviewing what we have added over the past several years and eliminate those items that aren’t absolutely essential.  We lived without them before.  Many of them we can probably do without now.  For example, is it prudent to mandate that 1% of the cost of capital building projects be spent on art?

Second, acting on performance audit recommendations by our Democrat State Auditor Brian Sonntag would save millions.  He’s already done the work to find the possible savings.  We just need to act on them!

And third, most importantly, we are killing our state’s largest source of revenue, small business.  We need to eliminate burdensome regulations that inhibit productivity.  We need to replace the B&O tax that unfairly taxes revenue even if a business actually lost money.  And we need to eliminate health insurance mandates that drive competition out of state, raising prices.  Thriving businesses mean more employment and more revenue for the state.

Despite the economic crisis we are in, there is no reason our state should be in this mess.  I am disgusted with the choices our state legislature made to get us here.  But all is not lost.  I’ve laid out straightforward, common sense solutions.  Unfortunately the current legislature would not heed these recommendations.  Therefore, the voters need to get us on the right path by voting in legislators this November who will.

We spend about $11,000 per student per year on education, about the national average.  If I gave my daughter, who teaches math at Auburn High School, all of the third of a million dollars we spent on her students, she could rent classroom space, provide top notch materials and instruction, and be thrilled with her huge paycheck.  If an individual teacher could do that, you would think that our state education system, with the buying power of a large organization, would be even more efficient.  We can obviously remove unnecessary bureaucracy and move money and decision making to the local level to improve our children’s education without raising costs.

I am encouraged to see that the Seattle teachers’ union recently agreed to the concept of “innovation” schools that have shown significant achievement results in Colorado.  With their new ability to apply for exemptions from state policies and collective bargaining agreements, their enhanced autonomy and associated accountability will likely show similar improved performance.  Additionally, these schools will be able to select the best teachers, not just the most senior, and reward them for excellence.  This is exactly what we need in Washington State to improve our schools and compete for federal Race to the Top funding.

We’re all aware of the irritation that traffic congestion causes in our lives.  And I recognize how mass transit such as buses and trains are a part of the solution.  However, as I talk with my friends and neighbors, the common sentiment is that we want mass transit so other people will use them, so our roads are less congested for us to drive our cars.  Solving our traffic congestion problem will improve our quality of life, allow more time with our families and improve the environment by reducing the amount of time cars spend on the road.

But perhaps more important to consider in today’s economy is the impact traffic congestion has on jobs.  Our ports and many other businesses count on our ability to move goods to be profitable.  Our port traffic is down significantly in part because traffic congestion impedes the movement of goods through our region.  Quite frankly, a port that can guarantee that goods will move through the area more quickly is more likely to get the business of a company moving goods from Asia to the Midwestern states.

Extending Highway 167 south all the way to I-5, improving interchanges at highway intersections, and providing more lanes along various routes must be priorities for improving traffic congestion and getting our economy “moving”.