A wise state saves money for a rainy day

State legislators, at least the majority Democrats, will no doubt put a spin of frugality on the proposed supplemental budget voted out of the House Monday, and on the version announced Tuesday in the Senate.

They will say they are watching every nickel, they are making cuts, and that the $1 billion-plus ending balance Gov. Christine Gregoire wanted is not possible. But it is possible, and they should cut spending until they have it. Since the governor wrote her budget, the revenue forecast has gone down. The economy is slowing. The House and Senate budgets, which put two-year spending at $33.7 billion with only $0.75 billion left in the state's pocket on June 30, 2009, are too risky. Facing a possible recession, the state needs more pocket change than that. And a recession is no time to raise taxes.

The biggest new piece of the House budget is $39 million for public-school and community-college employees for another 1 percent raise on top of the 3.9 percent cost-of-living raise already coming.

The 3.9 percent should be enough. If there is a recession, many taxpayers won't get any raise at all.

There are a lot of other things in these budgets, most of which sound good and some of which this page has praised, not having seen the budget as a whole. Spending is delightful, but the revenue and spending numbers have to put the state in a comfortable place.

They don't. The current forecast shows the state's pockets with a negative $2.48 billion in June 2011 and negative $5.1 billion in June 2013. These numbers are not possible, because the state is not allowed to live on credit.

When Gregoire came into office, she faced forecasts something like that, and ignored them. The economy boomed, and it saved her. The state collected more revenue than anyone had thought likely, and it all worked out. At the beginning of a boom, that can happen. It does not generally happen at the onset of a recession. Then you have to accept grim numbers, and have some rainy-day pocket change in case things get worse.

The state needs to aim for at least $1 billion in the bank.