Harger: State Senate Budget Chair warns lawmakers that WA is broke
Nov 7, 2025, 7:26 AM | Updated: 1:37 pm
I just read something in The Washington State Standard that made me wonder if Democrats in Olympia are finally seeing what the rest of us have been seeing for years.
Senator June Robinson, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee, just sent an email to her colleagues with a simple message: Don’t even bother asking for new spending. The cupboard is bare. We’re broke.
In a note to her colleagues, she wrote, “I will not be soliciting or accepting any member requests for the operating budget.”
This is remarkable. Not because the state is out of money, but because someone in leadership is finally admitting we can’t keep spending like we have been.
The numbers tell the story. Our state budget has more than doubled in the past decade, from around $38 billion to nearly $78 billion. We didn’t double our population. We didn’t double our economy. We just doubled our spending.
And now, with the economy getting wobbly and federal uncertainty looming, Senator Robinson said we’re “billions” short. Not millions. Billions.
This crisis comes after lawmakers approved $4 billion in new and higher taxes just this year. The capital gains tax, the payroll tax, and increased business taxes. They squeezed every revenue source they could find, and it still wasn’t enough. Because the problem was never revenue, it was spending.
“We don’t have money to pay for what is needed, let alone new spending,” Robinson told The Washington State Standard.
But who decided what was “needed?” Every program, every expansion, every new initiative was sold as essential by state lawmakers. Now suddenly they’re discovering what every household already knows: everything can’t be essential.
Even Republican Senator Chris Gildon, who you’d expect to criticize, praised Robinson for setting realistic expectations. He wrote to his Senate colleagues on Wednesday that “I thought she did a good job in making clear that the budget is not in good shape. It was a wise move to set expectations.” A glimmer of bipartisan unity.
But I do worry. The solution they’re considering isn’t just cutting spending. They’re already floating the idea of more taxes. In this economy. With families already struggling with inflation and businesses already announcing layoffs, bracing for what could be a tough 2026.
This isn’t the time for new taxes. When consumer spending is weak and businesses are uncertain about next year, raising taxes only makes things worse. Families are already stretched thin. We just raised $4 billion in new taxes, and it wasn’t enough because we never addressed the real problem: spending.
The good news is that Senator Robinson seems to understand this. Her willingness to say “no” to new spending is exactly the kind of discipline we need. If lawmakers can hold that line and make the tough cuts now, we might actually emerge from this with a sustainable budget.
It won’t be easy, but at least we’re finally having an honest conversation about it.
That’s the commentary for Nov. 7. Text us at (888) 973-5476 or leave a comment at MyNorthwest.
Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here.
