A Sobering Look at the Budget

Like a lot of things in the government transparency hard to come by. On the topic of "reform" you would be surprised by the diversity of numbers regarding the debt in our state. So the questions beckons;  

What is out States Budget? 

What is our states actual deficit? 

According to the our governor our budget is;

"During the 2011-13 budget period, Washington state will spend about $75.5 billion to provide programs and services to citizens." (Governor Chris Gregoire) 

A sad truth,  (also a talking point for conservative legislatures) is that that number is actual a record profit for the state. So we are taking in more money then ever have before this cycle, but we don't have the funds to cover the short fall. But what is the short fall how much does out state actually owe?  

"The state was projected to have a deficit of $4.6 billion in 2011–13"(Governor Chris Gregoire) 

Overall the number doesn't seem to high but when we look at the overall cost of government its pretty bad. We could cut all the prisons (1.8 billion) all natural resource programs (1.6 billion) and half of the government employees and offices (2.15 billion) and we would just break even. (source:  Governor Chris Gregoire) 


Even tho our shortfall is only 18% of the over all income our state bring in, balancing the budget is going to be  hard thing to do. As we have seen in Wisconsin, balancing the budget can be a very unpopular thing to do.