Liberal Revenue Agents: 115 Groups Unite to Promote New Taxes

The quality of life for tens of thousands of Washington’s most vulnerable residents depends on a group with a clunky name that most of them have not, and will never, hear of: the Rebuilding Our Economic Future Coalition (Coalition).

Whether they are severely disabled children receiving residential care, working poor families that need subsidized health insurance, adults who are unable to work, low-income students attending community college, wildlife threatened by toxic chemical spills or regular kids in overcrowded classrooms, the Coalition represents these Washingtonians’ best hope as the state legislature grapples with a $2.6 billion budget crisis. Nearing the midway point of the legislative session, it is unclear whether the Coalition will be able to achieve its ambitious goal: finding significant new taxes to prevent the massive cuts facing the state’s human infrastructure.

The Coalition is a 115-member alliance of organizations that wants legislators to raise taxes rather than cut billions more from education, health, and environmental and human services. It’s a brand new organization that came together to oppose the December 2009 “all-cuts” state budget proposal that balanced the state’s income and expenses without raising taxes, as required by state law.

The Coalition’s spokesperson, Sandeep Kaushik, says the group has a budget of several hundred thousand dollars and is taking a multi-pronged approach to the budget crisis. The Coalition is systematically lobbying individual members of the state Legislature, organizing grassroots events and sponsoring a paid-media campaign. Its funders are the Washington State Hospital Association, the Washington Education Association, the Community Health Network of Washington, the Washington Federation of State Employees and the Service Employees International Union.

Some social-justice veterans like Tony Lee, who has lobbied the legislature since 1981, are heartened by breadth and the depth of the Coalition. “This is somewhat unprecedented,” says Lee, who works for Solid Ground, a human services agency in Seattle. Lee says it has been at least 17 years since public-interest groups that focus on health, human services, education, the environment and labor issues joined together in common cause.

Others are more cynical. “It’s everyone who is on the public tit,” says one legislator, who requested anonymity.

The Coalition wants to keep its point of view in the public eye. Coalition spokesperson Kaushik says, “We aim to have a conversation with the public.” On the first day of the legislative session, the Coalition delivered petitions with 14,000 names of Washingtonians who oppose an all-cuts budget to Governor Christine Gregoire and legislative leaders. On Feb. 15, noon, on the state Capitol steps, the Coalition is holding a “Rally to Protect Our Future.” At some time following that, the Coalition will roll out its paid advertising. While Kaushik wouldn’t release details, he did say that the Coalition did not have enough money to purchase TV advertising.

While the public actions of the Coalition will be the most visible part of its campaign, the alliance’s efforts behind the scenes may be even more important. Since the Coalition has a broad membership of labor unions, and education, environmental, health and human-services organizations, it has a large number of public-interest lobbyists who are working together. Longtime Olympia lobbyist Nick Federici, whose clients include home-health care workers’ Service Employees International Union, Local 775, is coordinating the Coalition’s advocacy effort. He has divided up all the Democratic members of the state House, and one Republican —Tom Campbell of Roy —, among the Coalition’s lobbyists (the same approach will be taken in the state Senate). In turn, each lobbyist is supposed to meet with legislators and lay out the Coalition’s list of preferred revenue options and find out which, if any, new taxes legislators will support.

The Coalition’s lobbyists are putting the following options before legislators: a general sales-tax increase with a “Working Families Tax Rebate” (the latter is modeled on the federal Earned Income Tax Credit); closing the sales-tax loopholes for financial services like stockbrokers; increasing “sin” taxes (on tobacco, candy, gum and bottled water); increasing pollution taxes including the Hazardous Substance Tax; ending the Business-and-Occupation tax exemption for select services; closing tax loopholes for out-of-state businesses; and increasing general business taxes. (The Coalition did not make the amount of revenue that each of these measures would raise available to Olympia Newswire.)

Coalition spokesperson Kaushik says these ideas have been drawn from the work of liberal economists like the Washington Budget and Policy Center’s Remy Trupin and the Economic Opportunity Institute’s Marilyn Watkins. “There are multiple pathways to get significant revenue,” says Kaushik. “Whichever one you land on, we’ll be there to support it.”

But will a majority of legislators follow? Olympia Newswire interviewed several conservative, moderate and liberal legislators who had met with Coalition lobbyists. While it’s early days yet and the number of legislators is not a representative sample, conservatives and moderates were not swayed by the Coalition’s arguments — and there was even some grumbling from the liberals.

Rep. Campbell says his conversation with the Coalition lobbyists revealed some areas of common concern and some strong philosophical disagreements. “They have been and will always be for more taxes on affluent people. It’s a wrong-headed approach,” says Campbell. While Campbell supports taking care of the most vulnerable among us, he believes that the way to do it is by cutting state spending and stimulating the private sector. For instance: he has a bill to provide low-interest loans to small businesses.

Rep. Larry Springer (D-Kirkland) is a moderate Democrat who has run his own retail wine shop for 25 years. He says of the Coalition: “They clearly have the best interests of the state in mind. They are trying to find reasonable revenue to fix our regressive tax system.” Springer, who sits on the House Finance Committee that votes on nearly all new sources of state revenue, doesn’t think that the Coalition’s tax alternatives are practical to implement this year. “They are headed in the right direction but I just don’t see it happening in the next 39 days.” (The legislative session is scheduled to end on March 11.)

Rep. Maralyn Chase (D-Shoreline) is one of the legislature’s most liberal members. She says, “We don’t have a budget crisis, we have a revenue crisis. We don’t have to make cuts.” Chase feels the Coalition has not been visible enough. “We need to hear from them in our [public] hearings. The business lobbyists are always there,” she says. Chase also wonders if the Coalition is being too timid. “They are trying not to make anybody mad,” she complains.

The Coalition’s Kaushik says the group is slowly building momentum for its ideas. “There is still a lot of discussion going on,” he says. “We’ve had very positive conversations with leaders in the House and Senate, but they haven’t coalesced around a particular pathway. ”

Members of the Coalition hope that a budget package that raises more than $780 million in new taxes will be put forward by legislative leaders sooner rather than later. “There is a lot of work to be done with the public and with the legislators,” says Kaushik.

economy[at]olympianews.org

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