Olympia Business Watch

AWB Requests Partial Veto of Paid Family Leave Legislation

Today, Don sent Gov. Gregoire a letter a letter asking her to veto major sections of E2SSB 5659, the paid family leave legislation passed earlier this month.

It's a competitiveness issue.

Thomas L. Friedman, author of The World is Flat, commented in a 2005 New York Times essay, “A Race to the Top,” on the disparity between the countries of Europe, with stagnant economies and crumbling welfare benefit structures, and our new competitors in eastern and southern Asia –  India and China, and the dynamism of their economies. Wrote Thomas, “French voters are trying to preserve a 35-hour work week in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day. Good luck.”

Acknowledging the governor's commitment to global competitiveness, the letter continues:

As you have noted many times, our state’s businesses compete on this global scale. We must be mindful of the regulatory costs that our state imposes upon them that hamper their economic competitiveness. Paid family leave, as envisioned by the Legislature, will be one such cost.

At the same time, the business community believes strongly in family values. We encourage our members to work flexibly with their workers whenever the crisis of illness or the joy of a new baby comes to a family. We believe there ought to be a way especially for low-income women and families to have time to bond with new life.

That is why the business community requests the opportunity to come back with something better. That is why we ask you to veto all portions of E2SSB 5659 except Section 2, which establishes a joint legislative task force to “study the implementation of a paid family leave insurance program” including the financing and administration of such a program.

Concluding with this:

We in the business community believe that through the task force process we can work collaboratively with other stakeholders to develop a program that is targeted to those in society who need it the most; one that is voluntary when at all possible; one that does not impose new and unfamiliar costs and regulations on employers; and one that does not hamper our state’s economic competitiveness on a national and global scale.

It's the right thing to do.

UPDATE The Bellingham Herald makes a good case for the veto in today's editorial.

The crux:

We don’t like the idea of paying people to stay home from work just because they have children, but if the Legislature wants to do so, they need to at least have the common sense and leadership to figure out how to pay for it first. Don’t sweep the costs under a rug and hope people forget that this great new benefit you are providing is actually costing them something.

We urge Gov. Gregoire to veto the bill until she knows how it will be paid for.

Agreed.

Second Letter, Second Update Don followed up with a second letter to the governor, urging her to consider the effect of taking $18 million from the supplemental pension fund to start the program.

Also, in his Postman on Politics blog for the Seattle Times, David Postman reports the governor is likely to sign the bill.

Ho-Hum, the Public Worries About Global Warming

No disrespect intended - well, not much anyway - but this New York Times report of an emerging bipartisan consensus that the world is getting warmer and something must be done about it says nothing useful. That's not exactly right. Public opinion can and will be used to move public policy in support of a climate change agenda.  The poll is, then, a good gauge of the political climate, but not the, well, global warming climate. (On that, you've got to like the way "climate change" has replaced "global warming" - now it's no longer necessary to predict the direction of the change, just posit that it's changing. Nifty.)

Anyway, here's what the Times reports.

Ninety percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans said immediate action was required to curb the warming of the atmosphere and deal with its effects on the global climate. Nineteen percent said it was not necessary to act now, and 1 percent said no steps were needed.

Several recent international reports have concluded with near certainty that human activities are the main cause of global warming since 1950. The poll found that 84 percent of Americans see human activity as at least contributing to warming.

Not that we're inclined to do too much about it.

Respondents said they would support higher gasoline prices to reduce dependence on foreign oil but would oppose higher prices to combat global warming. By large margins, respondents opposed an increase in pump prices of $2 a gallon, or even $1, to deal with environmental and energy-supply concerns.

There's a lot more, so I'd recommend reading the story, keeping this in mind from a recent column by Johah Goldberg.

Huge numbers of Americans don’t know jack about their government or politics. According to a Pew Research Center survey released last week, 31 percent of Americans don’t know who the vice president is, fewer than half are aware that Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House, a mere 29 percent can identify “Scooter” Libby as the convicted former chief of staff of the vice president, and only 15 percent can name Harry Reid when asked who is the Senate majority leader.

Any reason to believe they know more about climate change?

First Quarter Economic Growth Just 1.3 Percent

Reports this morning that the economy underperformed forecasts in the first quarter can't be good news for lawmakers who just bet the bank that the good times would roll on forever. Here's the story from CNNMoney.com.

Economic growth sank to the slowest pace in four years in the first quarter, the government reported Friday, as the weak housing market, coupled with higher prices, took a big bite out of the world's largest economy.

While a slowdown had been expected, the reading came in far weaker than most economists' forecasts. Sluggish spending by businesses was another culprit.

While Washington has recently been stronger than the US economy, we're not immune from the effects of a national slowdown. Increasing the cost of doing business with paid family leave requirements, more health care mandates, heavier environmental regulation won't help.

Then there's this.

"Businesses are seeing that the fourth quarter might have been a last hurrah for consumer spending," said [Michael] Strauss [chief economic for Commonfund]. And he said that's a reason that business spending has been so weak. Spending on equipment and software grew at just a 1.9 percent rate in the quarter.

The report also showed growing inflation pressures in spite of slower growth, a factor that could limit the Federal Reserve's freedom to cut interest rates in an effort to stave off a slowdown or even a full-blown recession.

Here's the AP story.

Legislative Round-ups Continue

The News Tribune offers a quick wrap-up of the session.

And TNT columnist Peter Callaghan presents his personal overview.

In the Seattle Times, Joni Balter thinks the governor's on a roll.

And in the Yakima Herald-Republic reports that Republicans occasionally felt rolled.

Was There Ever Any Doubt?

The State Supreme Court today ruled for free speech. Or, as AP's Rachel La Corte reports,

A unanimous state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that two radio talk show hosts who used airtime to support a gas-tax rollback initiative they launched were not required to report their commentary as an in-kind political contribution.

She quotes Bill Maurer of the Institute of Justice.

"This is a victory for free speech and a free press in Washington state," said William Maurer, executive director of the Institute for Justice Washington chapter, who argued the case before the high court. "Washingtonians can rest assured that the news and voice and commentary they hear has not been censored or restricted by the government in any way."

David Postman's Seattle Times blog  has more, including a link to this context-setting story by Ralph Thomas and Andrew Garber.

The decision is here and the harder-hitting concurrence is here.

The court got it right.

Veto the Backslide

Today's Everett Herald carries a solid editorial calling for a veto of the nasty bits in this year's WASL legislation. After identifying provisions weakening the reading and writing sections of the WASL - an appeals process, alternative criteria, and so on - the Herald reaches the right conclusion:

The governor should veto these changes to the reading and writing requirement, sending a clear signal to students who have yet to pass and their schools that the best alternative remains the same: take advantage of the extra help that's available and work hard to get over the bar. For the sake of our students' future, it shouldn't be lowered.

It's a shame that it needs to be said. But it needed to be said.

Long Fuses

Here's my take on the legislative session.

Spokesman-Review Wants to Hear More About an Income Tax

Does today's Spokesman-Review editorial indicate a more proactive income tax stance from Gov. Chris Gregoire? It seems to suggest a change in what has so far been an "I don't want to talk about it" position.

This paragraph caught my eye.

The chief reason for the regressivity of the tax code is that Washington is one of eight states without an income tax. It's a tough sell, say leaders, including Gov. Chris Gregoire and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, who support the idea of adopting such a tax. They add that it's just not the right time to push for it, because the public hasn't sufficiently been educated on the merits.

I understand not pushing for it, but this - presumably a conversation with the editorial board - looks like a step toward that public education stage.

Although this in Jim Camden's S-R story suggests there's no hurry.

On other topics, Gregoire and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown agreed that even though a study group has recommended scrapping the state’s current tax system for an income tax, it’s not likely to happen soon.

“Now is not the time,” the governor said. “I can tell you that the electorate isn’t there.”

The editorial board would like to see a bit more conversation now.

We agree that the public needs to be better educated on this issue. And we look forward to leaders such as Gregoire and Brown leading that discussion.

Representatives Cary Condotta and Jim McIntire worked the issue throughout the session, with a series of briefings - including several for AWB - showing how an income tax might make the state more competitive and ease the burden on many taxpayers. I got the impression they had little, if any, support from legislative leadership or the governor's office.

As they say, it's a tough sell.

A Good Use of an Editorial Blog

Yesterday The News Tribune ran an editorial reviewing the legislative session, concluding that the Democrats generally had a good session, showing more restraint than expected but spending too much. In an afternoon post, also yesterday, editorial writer Kim Bradford used the paper's "inside the editorial page" blog to go into more detail, including additional  information on gainsharing provided by Senate Republicans.

It's a neat way to continue the paper's dialog with readers, provide additional insight, and update information on current events.

Private Sector Union Employment Continues to Decline

Interesting stuff on union employment in Anglo-Saxon countries from the New Economist blog.

The crux:

Rates of union membership have fallen further in 2006, as trade union recruitment efforts fails to keep pace with a growing workforce.

True in the US. Canada. The United Kingdom. And Australia.

(Thanks, Kriss.)