Washington’s 105-day legislative session is more than half over. But the big job of negotiating a new two-year state budget has yet to begin. Senate Republicans are expected to unveil their budget proposal early this week, followed by House Democrats.
Senate Republicans say their budget will invest in public schools, protect critical state services and not raise taxes.
In December, Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee called for billions more in taxes to fully fund schools as mandated by the state Supreme Court. But Republicans point to rebounding state revenues and healthy reserves to make the argument that the budget can be balanced and schools funded within existing resources.
The battle over the state budget has already begun on social media. House Democrats tweeted, “Should we expect the [Senate Republican] budget to look like the Trump budget?” Senate Republicans, in turn, are counting down the days on Twitter until “Democrats pass a funded education plan.”
Once both the Senate and House unveil and pass their budgets, the two sides will have to negotiate a compromise.