The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Archives => Politics => Election 2008 => Topic started by: Lauri on October 17, 2008, 10:20:01 PM
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Dino Rossi for governor
DINO Rossi should be elected governor Nov. 4 because he can best be trusted to erase the state's huge projected deficit without raising taxes.
Under Gov. Christine Gregoire, state government during the good years built up a mass of programs, promises and public spending. Now the economy is in recession, and unless taxes are to be raised on people already struggling — a bad idea — state spending will have to be cut about 10 percent. To do that, the people need a governor who has a track record of budget reduction and is politically empowered to do it. That would be Rossi.
In the last recession, in 2003, Republican state Sen. Rossi took a tough budget proposed by Democratic Gov. Gary Locke — a budget that legislators weren't sure Locke really believed in — and made it believable. The Rossi-Locke budget saved the people from increases in major taxes and helped unleash a strong economic rebound.
Now Rossi promises to do it again, and we believe he can and will.
We are not confident Gregoire will be as tough. When she talks about spending, she sounds as reasonable as Locke always did, and this page supported Locke. But Gregoire has increased spending much faster than Locke: In four years she has increased it by one-third.
We do not come to this dispute late. In the spring of 2005, we said Gregoire's first budget, plus the add-ons from Democrats in the Legislature, increased spending 12 percent on an estimated 7 percent increase in revenues. We said it wouldn't work. In the short run, we were wrong: The economy was on an up cycle, and revenues went up more than 7 percent.
She got lucky.
In December 2006, Gregoire proposed a new, two-year budget. It was a happy one, with raises for teachers, home-care workers and state employees. Her suggested increase in spending was 12 percent. The revenue forecast was 8 percent. Again, we thought spending was too big, but there were some savings from the previous year. We warned there could be trouble in 2009.
It is now almost 2009, and Gregoire's luck has run out: The downturn looks to be worse than anyone suspected. In September, the projected 2009-2011 deficit was pegged at $3.2 billion. By next spring it will likely be at least $4 billion and maybe $5 billion.
Under fire from Rossi, Gregoire has promised a budget with no new taxes. But will she offer a budget that is defensible, and really defend it? How hard will she fight against her own party, which controls the Legislature? How hard will she lean against the public-employee unions, which now support her re-election?
Rossi doesn't have those problems. When he says he'll cut spending, you can believe him, because he has done it, and because he represents a constituency who wants it done.
rest at the link..http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2008279880&zsection_id=2003912685&slug=edit19rossiendorse&date=20081017
I think hell has officially frozen over!
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It may have. The moonbats in Washington state are going to hate this for sure.
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What really shocks me here is that the paper endorsed Dino Rossi because Gregoire has proven herself to be a run-of-the-mill tax-and-spend Democrat - I thought that was a good thing to be for the MSM. And it does seem the editors there realize Rossi is a real conservative, and they're jumping aboard?
That does it, Rossi will win here, and he's going to inherit a nightmare thanks to Gregoire, who never was a legitimate governor anyways. It'd be nice if one chamber of congress here was Republican as well, that alone would prevent the disaster of 2004.
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. It'd be nice if one chamber of congress here was Republican as well, that alone would prevent the disaster of 2004.
Yeah, that worked really well for the US in the Bush years until 2006.
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It's the Seattle Times, not the Post-Intelligencer. Nothing to get too excited about. Now if the PI endorses Rossi, check your Bibles for other signs of the apocalypse.