Three or four tax referendum ideas floating in Legislature
Count ‘em.
The 0.3-cent sales tax increase to pay for health-care programs cut in the House-Senate budget agreed to Wednesday evening. Voters could weigh in Nov. 3. The still-to-be-identified tax increase to pay for a $1 billion to $3 billion public works program that modernizes public schools, universities and state buildings and gives them energy upgrades. Voters could weigh in Nov. 3. n A 25-cent tax for enhanced 9-1-1 emergency services. Voters could weigh in Aug. 18 in an all-mail primary ballot.
Still one other major tax proposal also is getting talked up by House Democrats. House Bill 1614 is a $1.50 per barrel fee on petroleum products that contribute to storm water pollution. It could raise $100 million for storm water projects, creating jobs, according to Rep. Tami Green, D-Lakewood.
Green says it is one of several bills that could become a bargaining chip for some House lawmakers reluctant to support the operating budget. But HB 1614 hasn’t gotten far in the process yet, and the Senate companion measure didn’t even get heard in the budget committee. It’s not a candidate for the ballot, however.
Of the top ballot nominees, the sales-tax proposal appears stalled in the House, and the Senate appears reluctant to move it. The Senate’s rival approach, an income tax on high earners, also appears stalled, and its sponsoring Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles said Wednesday she doesn’t know if it will even get a hearing this late in session.
That’s a long-around way of saying it’s dead. Except that the last 72 to 96 hours of the legislative session can be like a night of the living dead.
Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, is backer of the $3 billion public-works bond proposal that might spring to life if the sales-tax plan dies. Or not. He says it could create 90,000 jobs in 2010-11.
“I don’t know,” Dunshee said when I asked Wednesday night if it a scaled-back version of his proposal could go on the Nov. 3 ballot with the sales tax for health care, or if this is an either-or proposition for the two measures.
But he confirmed the three ballot measures are indeed real and on the agenda for discussion in the House.
There you have it. This information should hold true until morning or even noon.
