The state's economic strength helps Gregoire
Some misery is more equal than others, as new figures show. The governor also gains a notch by being able to dole out budget savings.
All things are relative, as the economic news keeps getting more bleak, and by that scale, Washington and Oregon are looking pretty good. In turn, this helps Gov. Chris Gregoire earn points for creating past economic strength and weakens Dino Rossi's case for switching parties in the governor's mansion. Move the Guvometer one notch Gregoire-ward, making the race, in our view, now a tossup.
Confirmation comes in a report by The Financial Times, which rates states on a misery index for "which U.S. states are suffering the most in the current economic and financial crisis." Washington is the 12th-best state, and Oregon is 14th-best. Texas is the most favored state, while Michigan and Florida bring up the rear.
Northwest and Western states generally fare the best, excepting California (47th-worst), Nevada (44th), and Arizona (45th), suffering from terrible housing problems. East of the Mississippi, only North Carolina and the District of Columbia make it into the group with the best growth rates. Utah is 5th-best, Alaska (awash in oil revenues) is 7th, Colorado (natural gas) is 15th, and Idaho is 23rd.
The rating is based on several factors. In annual personal income growth, the Washington and Oregon figures are 4.6 and 4.2 percent, respectively; annual employment growth is 0.6 and 0.2; gross state product annual growth is 1.9 and 1.7.
Gregoire also helped herself this week by tightening the belt on state spending further and saying she could use the state's $442 million rainy day fund to cut the projected deficit in half. She was able to make headlines by announcing cuts of $14 million, finding another $189 million in savings, and instituting a hiring freeze to save another $90 million. She probably has some other cuts she can announce, keeping herself on front pages as a budget hawk and putting Rossi on the defensive. The advantages of incumbency!
Comments:
Posted Fri, Oct 10, 9:24 p.m. inappropriate
lucky window: This may be true for the short term, but Washington, and especially Seattle, and especially downtown Seattle, are in for very rough times over the next year or more, when the bast financial house of cards comes tumbling down.
Posted Fri, Oct 10, 10:25 p.m. inappropriate
Don't worry McDermott and Gregoire have a plan...Duwamish Casino Downtown: If they put a light rail stop at the new Duwamish Casino just think of the cars they can take off of the road!
Posted Sat, Oct 11, 7:04 a.m. inappropriate
Clear Big Contrast: Moves by Gregoire to dramatically reduce the projected shortfall are good for state government, not just her campaign. They ought to demonstrate that she is a very effective leader, in addition to helping her get re-elected.
In contrast, Rossi has no specifics for how he'd manage the storm, even though he touts his experience as a budget writer. Worse, he continues to specifically promote new programs to GROW the projected shortfall by $1 billion or so.
Gregoire clearly made the point in the Spokane debate this week. Rossi appeared speechless. He should have applauded her moves.
He didn't because Gregoire effectively debunks the credibility of a huge Rossi investment in campaign ads, rendering them mostly worthless.
How does Rossi grow the projected shortfall by over $1 billion? Two major ways: he takes hundreds of millions from sales taxes to build a few big road projects (his plan also requires tolls) AND Rossi supports Tim Eyman's deeply flawed fraud called I-985, which also shifts hundreds of millions in sales taxes to pay for roads and restricts the legislature from spending them on anything else.
Gregoire has effectively cut the projected shortfall in half. Rossi is on track to double the "deficit" AND tie his hands with new expensive road programs at the expense of other higher priorities.
Posted Sat, Oct 11, 7:54 a.m. inappropriate
Brewster can't move off the middle: to save his soul, and he hasn't for decades.
There is no "golden mean," David, none of the sacred "balance" you so fervently wish for. If you care at all about long-term planning for this state's economic and fiscal future, your meter should be firmly on Gregoire's side.
She hasn't caved to the right, like Gutless Gary Locke did before her. Her budget-cutting moves this week reflect the fiscal realities, and if/when the situation worsens, she will cut more and spend less, as the law requires her to do.
The difference between Gregoire and the execrable Dino Rossi is that Gregoire will not cut spending at the expense of working people.
The Republicans rant on and on about the teacher unions, and how Gregoire is "beholden" to them. It's pathetic that this is all they have. Gregoire is planning for this state's economic health, in ALL sectors, and is not giving people the instant gratification of tax cuts, or cutting spending for education.
She recognizes, as she said in Thursday's debate, that an educated workforce, and a business climate that values education, are among Washington's best defenses against economic boom and bust cycles.
Rossi and his right-wing orcs conveniently ignore that the taxpayers of this state voted for lower class sizes, and for a cost-of-living raise for teachers.
In Thursday's debate Gregoire laid out, in detail, what she had done to forestall the projected revenue shortfall. All Rossi could do was mumble about "changing the culture" in Olympia. She asked him direct questions and he woudn't answer them. It's because he doesn't have any answers.
Does Rossi need to spell out what he means by "changing the culture?" Hardly. For illustration, we need only examine the last eight miserable years of the Bush administration in the other Washington -- borrow and spend, crony capitalism, no-bid contracts to political contributors, partisan political hacks in policy positions enforcing their own brand of "political correctness," a know-nothing approach to education, science, and research, and profit, profit, profit uber alles -- for them first, and for you or me if there's anything left, and then only if we kiss their boots.
As the country is poised to reject, overwhelmingly, the conservative approach to politics and governance, Washington state should not be going backward. Electing Rossi would be a giant step backward. Anything positive that people think Obama would bring to Washington DC, a Rossi administration would only obstruct and undermine in this state.
I have lived in this state most of my life, since the first term of the highly overrated and inexplicably canonized Dan Evans, and in my mind there has been no better Governor than Chris Gregoire. People should run, not walk, to re-elect her.
Posted Sat, Oct 11, 9:24 a.m. inappropriate
Gregoire is toast and she did it to herself: What do people mean by changing the culture in Olympia? They mean having the opportunity to have new ideas be considered, not killed. It means a chance for new department heads to try and reform and change a governmental structure that hasn't been reviewed in a generation. It means an opportunity for POG to be applied to a budget and the veto pen used effiecently. It means a chance to talk about things other than Dogs in Bars, Pygmy Goats and Impeaching the President. It means that the Taxpayers of Washington might actually have an advocate in the Governors Mansion, not someone who denies an impending budget shortfall that has been projected for over a year and takes no meaningful actions until she is threatened in the polls.
Olympia is weak, ineffiecient and dangerously inbred.
Posted Sun, Oct 12, 7:52 a.m. inappropriate
You'd think the state's economic strength would help Gregoire. She's worked hard to benefit the state, on many levels, east and west, and I think it would be a shame to take it for granted. Maybe not a shame, but it would be bad for the people of the state to ignore it and turn her out. She's been good for all of us, even serving the building industry well, and hoteliers, and retailers, farmers and ranchers, notably in eastern Washington where they've come out against her for no practical reason, just to take sides like good partisans. Maybe that's partly her own making, or of those who surround her, I don't know. I have a sense she's governed for all Washington's people through strongly held values, good strategy, relationship-building and her lawyerly mastery of devils in details, yet her campaign has come across as caustic, disingenuous and maybe a little presumptuous in its degree of partisanship, like messages to the stupid, and that doesn't play well in an independent-minded state like Washington. Yet, the pragmatism of a good economy does. It will be interesting to see how this splits...I'll keep my fingers crossed for pragmatism.
Posted Tue, Oct 14, 11:19 a.m. inappropriate
Someone posed a theory that the economic health of a region is inversely proportional to the success of its pro-sports teams.
We must be doin' ok.