Washington state's debt limit should be lowered

THE state debt limit needs to be lowered. Borrowing in the past few years has risen, as has the share of budget needed to service it. Without thinking, Washington has become a high-debt state.

The state's capital budgets have been passed by near-unanimous majorities, a sign that almost every legislator has been given a project in his district. This practice needs to give way to more careful management, even if some politicians are left empty-handed. A lower debt limit is one way to do this.

State Treasurer James McIntire, a Democrat, supports this effort. With the backing of leading Democrats and Republicans in the upper house, Sen. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, sponsored Senate Joint Resolution 8215 to lower the limit from 9 percent of revenues to 7 percent by 2022. This would reduce the amount of general-obligation bonding during the next 20 years by about one-quarter.

The construction industry does not like that, because it wants to build things. That is understandable. But there is always a limit, and McIntire makes a convincing case that the current limit is too loose.

SJR 8215 is a constitutional amendment that will need a two-thirds vote of each house to be put on the November ballot. Kilmer's version passed the Senate 49-0, and again 39-3, in the ongoing special session.

In the House it is stuck in the Capital Budget Committee, chaired by Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish.

Dunshee is a proponent of debt; he was the author of the ballot measure last year to float state bonds in excess of the limit and to finance the improvements to school buildings. Voters rejected the measure but re-elected him.

His committee has substituted a bill that lowers the debt limit to 8.5 percent. It is less of a change, and almost none in the short run.

Kilmer's is the better version. But at this point, both are negotiating positions. The people deserve a settlement that can reverse this state's drift toward high debt.