Doing Less for More: The Reality of Olympia's Budget for Working Families

The Daily Squeeze on Working Families

Think about what it costs you to fill up your gas tank right now. You cannot even do it for less than fifty dollars. Every time you stand in line at the grocery store, you feel the pinch. You work harder than ever, but your paycheck does not stretch like it used to. While you sit at your kitchen table making hard choices to balance your household budget, the state of Washington is doing the exact opposite.

A Budget That Fails Backwards

The majority party that has been in charge for the last 35 years just passed a massive new state budget. I looked closely at their spending plan. The reality should worry every person in Washington.

I stood on the House floor and told them the truth: We are not doing more for less. This budget does less for more, and that scares me.

“We are not doing more for less. This budget does less for more, and that scares me.”

Right now, we have the inability to build. We have the inability to house. We have the inability to budget. When a government cannot do these basic things, it fails to protect its people. Instead of fixing our broken foundation, the majority party throws billions of your tax dollars at new projects. They ignore the rot in our current system. We wait for things to break before we decide to act. No matter what sector you look at, we are failing backwards in Washington State.

The Real Cost in the 31st District

This failure is not just about numbers on a spreadsheet. It steals your time and your money every single day. Look at the 155,000 people I represent in the 31st District. Our families pay massive taxes to regional transit authorities, yet they sit in gridlock traffic for hours. Half of my district pays more to Sound Transit than they pay to their own local school districts. And they pay it for a train they cannot even access.

Meanwhile, our actual roads are falling apart. We have a bridge on Highway 167 that needs desperate repair. We have another bridge between South Prairie and Buckley that already fell down. Working parents lose hours of their lives stuck in cars instead of sitting down for dinner with their kids. You pay premium prices for broken infrastructure.

A Maintenance-First Solution

A good budget is a tool to fix problems, not create them. The solution is simple: we must adopt a maintenance-first approach. Before we spend another dime on a massive new program, we need to fix the roads, bridges, and systems we already have.

We need to build homes so our children can actually afford to live in the communities where they grew up. We must stop institutionalizing taxes and start demanding results. It is easy to balance a budget by raising taxes on the working class. It is much harder to create a plan that actually works.

“We must stop institutionalizing taxes and start demanding results.”

Bringing Adult Leadership Back to Olympia

We cannot keep watching Washington's potential slip away because the majority party refuses to make hard choices. People are leaving because they cannot stomach living in a place where the policy is so backwards. The soul of Washington State is at stake.

It is time to bring adult, competent leadership back to Olympia. We need leaders who look at a problem, create a solid plan, and actually build things that work. You deserve a state government that is as hardworking and responsible as you are. Let's stop accepting less for more, and start doing what is necessary to make Washington strong again.