From the Governor's visit with the Olympian's editorial board about her 2008 priorities, Brad Shannon reports this nugget regarding the paid family leave program:
She refuses to use general-fund money to pay for benefits under a paid-family-leave law set to go into operation in Washington in 2009. A task force has recommended general-fund money for the first four years, but Gregoire has agreed only to the set-up costs, thinking lawmakers backing the program had promised a payroll tax. "They need to figure this out," she said of legislators. "I'm a believer in the program, but I'm not going to use general-fund dollars."
This position, if it holds (and there is no reason to believe it will not), will complicate the legislative discussion somewhat. The Task Force, as I mentioned yesterday, rejected the payroll tax -- especially the prospect of a new tax on virtually everyone during an election year.
And there were other more substantive policy concerns with it. Is it an unconstitutional income tax? Would lower income people pay for what is essentially a middle class benefit? Would all employees pay so that 1% of them could take this benefit? Do employees have to pay in if they already have good paid leave benefits? How much would administrative costs rise in order to collect it? And so on.
The general fund idea, while begrudging and uncelebrated, at least was easy.
