Fix Washington state's budget deficit by closing tax loopholes

OUR state is ailing: One in six Washingtonians is unemployed or underemployed; a million Washingtonians lack access to health care; a third of all Puget Sound mortgage-holders are underwater; and 300,000 kids are at risk of going hungry.

Our state budget is in trouble, with projected deficits of more than $5 billion. Unfortunately, many state leaders want to treat the budget problem with cuts that will only exacerbate human suffering. Instead, they should be looking at healthier options, including closing tax loopholes.

Let's say you're sick. Your doctor opens the medicine cabinet and offers you a choice: Option A will cost more, but will cure your illness. Option B costs less, and will relieve some of your symptoms. But you will get worse in the long run, requiring even more — and more expensive — care.

Of course you'd pick Option A — for your health and your wallet. Yet instead of choosing to cure what ails our state, our political leaders are reaching for Option B. Consider the choices:

Today, some 55,000 Washingtonians depend on the Basic Health Program, with another 100,000 people stuck on a waiting list. Without Basic Health, people don't get preventive health care; when they get sick, they end up in emergency rooms requiring more-expensive treatment. But rather than expand Basic Health to meet human needs and lower emergency-care costs, legislators are cutting the program. Another 15,000 people will lose coverage this month. That will wind up costing us all more in the long run.

For disabled adults, the state's Disability Lifeline program has been a lifesaver. Although the program reduces hospitalization and rates of homelessness, our Legislature just cut its funding for the second time. Disability Lifeline is not likely to survive the next state budget. We will all pay for this shortsightedness, as disabled people without services will end up in our shelters, emergency rooms and jails.

One-third of all women giving birth in Washington receive prenatal screening and coaching through Maternity Support Services. The program delivers more healthy, full-term births. The governor and Legislature just cut the program in half. The average cost to serve a woman in Maternity Support Services is $785. The average cost of a single preterm birth is $52,000. If a preterm baby needs neonatal intensive care, costs can run to $500,000 — or more.

These programs and many more save lives, and they save taxpayer money. Investing in them is the fiscally conservative approach. It is also the more humane approach.

Unfortunately, many state leaders today are reaching for the wrong medicine, thinking that the only option is to cut.

These leaders need to take a closer look into the state's fiscal medicine cabinet. If it seems a bit crowded in there, that's because it is cluttered with more than 567 tax exemptions, credits, preferential rates and other loopholes. Some of these laws benefit the population broadly, like the tax exemption on food. But other tax loopholes benefit only narrow interests — like security brokers, custom software developers, big banks, cosmetic surgeons, private jet owners, and agribusiness. All told, tax exemptions deprive the state treasury of more than $6 billion a year, more than enough to close the deficit.

It's time to use these remedies in our medicine cabinet.

Some legislators have proposed ending a modest number of tax loopholes. That's a start, but a lot more needs to be done.

Others have claimed their hands are tied by the two-thirds majority requirement to close loopholes.

Fine. Then let the voters decide, by referendum, which medicine to use: closing tax loopholes so we can fund services to meet human needs, or more devastating cuts that will harm communities and cost us more in the long run.

Diane Sosne, a nurse,is president of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, representing more than 22,000 nurses and other health-care workers in Washington state.