Growing Pains: Washington State Budgeting Since the Great Recession

Washington State budgeting is an exercise in contradictions. Washington is a politically progressive state with a growing high-tech economy but with a nineteenth century tax structure and a proclivity for small government. It responded to the Great Recession as most states did, with severe cuts to higher education, public health, transportation, and other basic services. In many ways, however, the recovery from the recession has been more politically and financially perilous than the recession itself. Rapid population growth, a legal imperative to fund public education, and an intense demand for new services and infrastructure have reconfigured the state’s budget priorities and have brought its fiscal structure to the breaking point. Absent major fiscal and budget policy changes, the state faces protracted budget conflict going forward.