Washington State Lt. Gov. Brad Owen said on Thursday one possible solution for the difference of opinion over the budget that’s made necessary a 30-special session would be for Democrats to stop extending the courtesy of a proxy vote to ailing GOP Sen. Mike Carrell.

“At some point … you might have to say enough is enough,” Owen said during an interview on TVW.

Democrats currently outnumber Republicans in the Senate 26 votes to 23, but during the 2013 session a pair of fiscally conservative Democrats have joined with the GOP to form a so-called Majority Caucus, which outnumbers Democrats 25-24.

Carrell, however, has been absent for much of the session as he deals with a blood disorder this spring while waiting for a bone marrow transplant. As a courtesy to the longtime Republican lawmaker, Hoquiam Democrat Jim Hargrove has cast a proxy vote for Carrell.

As a courtesy to longtime GOP Sen. Mike Carrell, above, who is suffering from a blood disorder, his proxy vote has been cast during this session by Democrat Jim Hargrove. But Democratic Secretary of State Brad Owen believes it may be time to rescind that privilege — enabling him to beak tie votes in a Senate left with a 24-24 party split.

However, if negotiations get sticky during the 30-special session scheduled to begin on Monday, Owen — a Democrat — believes the courtesy should be dropped.

In such a case, if Carrell is too ill to travel to Olympia and vote, the Senate would be deadlocked 24-24.

And Owen, who presides over the Senate, would have the right to cast the deciding vote.

“I do believe Sen. Hargrove needs to say, ‘Look, if you folks aren’t willing to compromise, I’m not willing to do this anymore,’ ” Owen said. “That’s what I would counsel.

“Sen. Hargrove is a very honorable person,” Owen said, “and what he’s doing is commendable … but it could happen that someone crosses over and makes it 24-24. In which case I certainly would step in and vote.”

Hargrove has given no indication he would agree to make Carrell’s illness a negotiating point, and Owen made clear he was speaking only for himself. But following a Supreme Court ruling earlier this spring on Initiative 1053, the Legislature is no longer required to pass tax increases by a two-thirds majority.
And with the Democrat-dominated House of Representatives convinced the state needs new revenue while the Majority Caucus remains dead set against any tax increase, Owen argues it may take hardball politics to break the logjam.

“I think that would have happened a lot more this session if the (Majority Coalition) wasn’t holding its members so tight,” Owen said.

Port Orchard Republican Rep. Jan Angel is taking advantage of the two-week lull between the end of the regular session and the start of the special session to campaign in earnest for the 26th District’s Senate seat. With the Senate so evenly divided, what would ordinarily be an obscure, off-year special election will have huge implications for the state.

Twenty-sixth District Rep. Jan Angel wasted no time transitioning from governing to campaign mode on Monday, launching her active bid to claim the Senate seat left vacant in November when Gig Harbor Democrat Derek Kilmer was elected to Congress, succeeding longtime U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks.

Incumbent candidates are banned from raising money while the Legislature is in session, but Angel sent out an e-mail message to supporters early Monday — just hours after the regular, 105-day session adjourned and before lawmakers are scheduled to return on May 13 for a special session to hammer out a two-year operating budget.

“This week marks the official start of my campaign,” the Port Orchard Republican wrote. “Now that the regular legislative session is over I can ask you to donate to my Senate campaign.

“As a 26th District state representative,” Angel continued, “I put the constituents’ voices first in a number of key bills and resolutions. My priorities have been and continue to be creating jobs through promoting a business-friendly environment, building our future through education and keeping our district moving, healthy and safe. I believe that I can further advance these goals in the state Senate.”

Angel, midway through her third term in the Legislature after two terms as a Kitsap County commissioner, has never made any secret of her intentions to seek the Senate seat eventually and, when Kilmer announced his bid for Congress, she immediately served notice she planned to move up.

Knowing she didn’t intend to serve out her full two-year term in the House apparently didn’t phase 26th District voters, who re-elected her with more than 60 percent of the vote in November.

The district’s Democrats, meanwhile, appointed Gig Harbor emergency room physician Nathan Schlicher to serve the final year of Kilmer’s term, and he will be seeking the seat outright this fall. It isn’t clear whether any other candidates will join those two in the race.

In any case, with the Senate so evenly divided, this is more than an off-year election to fill one obscure seat. Currently, Democrats outnumber Republicans 26-23 in the Senate, but Republicans are able to wield considerable power anyway because a pair of fiscally conservative Democrats have opted to side with the GOP to form a so-called Majority Caucus.

A victory by Angel, however, would trim the Democrats’ margin to 25-24 and bring a true majority within reach in 2014.

“I’m running to help make sure our citizens have a good quality of life and can well provide for their families through good jobs and strong employment,” Angel wrote on her campaign’s website. “Good jobs and strong businesses are the foundation to economic prosperity through increased competitiveness and innovation. I want to help with good solutions for reform to limit government regulations that are continually imposed upon business. I am also running to help preserve the personal freedoms and the core values of our constitution that I believe we all hold dear.”

Unable to come up with a budget plan that would satisfy Democrats in the House as well as the Senate’s fiscally conservative Majority Coalition, Washington state lawmakers ended their regular 105-day session on Sunday and must now return for a special session slated to begin on May 13.

Gov. Jay Inslee was forced to order a special session of the Washington State Legislature when lawmakers adjourned on Sunday far short of an agreement on a two-year budget.

Republicans had urged the governor to start the extra session on Monday to underscore the urgency of completing the task as soon as possible. Democrats — most of whom believe the budget should include a revenue component — would prefer a break at home to raise money, campaign and gauge their constituents’ appetite for a tax hike.

Inslee, a Democrat, ordered the extra session to begin on May 13.

At a press conference last week, Inslee also made in clear he expected the legislators to address more than fiscal matters in the extra session. With the Senate controlled by the mostly GOP Majority Coalition, Republicans successfully thwarted action during the regular session on a number of bills important to Democrats, including:

• the so-called “Reproductive Parity Act,” which would require that any employer-provided healthcare plan offering maternity coverage also cover abortion services;
• the “DREAM Act,” which would allow illegal aliens who came to the United States as minors to qualify for needs grants and scholarships;
• a gun-control bill, presumably one including universal background checks on all gun purchases; and,
• tougher penalties for repeat drunk-driving offenders.

The Senate, the majority of whose members passed a budget that would have added $1.2 billion to education and continued funding other services at their current levels without a tax increase, announced last week its work was finished and it was just waiting for the House to send over its budget.

That action will have to wait until the middle of next month at the earliest.

Even as the Washington State Legislature races to reconcile diametrically opposing views in the House and Senate regarding education, transportation and the operating budget in time to adjourn by Sunday, Gov. Jay Inslee signaled on Wednesday he still hasn’t given up on several pieces of social legislation that had been presumed dead.

Asked if he would order a special session to address his social priorities even if a budget deal had been reached during the regular session, Inslee said anything was possible.

“I was elected governor, not dictator,” he told reporters at a press briefing in Olympia. “We’re going to try and make progress on all fronts this year, and all of these are things Washingtonians want the Legislature to act on this year.”

Specifically, Inslee said he’s hoping there’s still time to make drunk-driving penalties even more severe in addition to passing a gun-control bill in the wake of the failure of similar legislation in Congress already this year.

Even more improbably, Inslee is still pushing a measure that would require all employer-provided health insurance plans to include abortion services as well as the so-called “Dream Act,” which would allow illegal aliens who came to this country as minors to compete for needs-based college scholarships.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee wouldn’t dismiss the possibility of ordering state lawmakers back for a special session to consider his social legislation — including tougher DUI penalties — even if they do manage to agree on a budget deal by Sunday.

“I do believe strongly and emphatically that we have more responsibility to the public than simply passing budgets,” Inslee said. “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure the Legislature and the governor do their jobs.”

Senate Democrats twice last week attempted to force a floor vote on the abortion bill, believing there is enough support to pass the measure, which was tabled in the Republican-led Senate Health Care Committee.

Invoking the controversial Ninth Order — the same parliamentary tactic Republicans employed to pass a GOP budget in last year’s Senate — Democrats sought an up-or-down vote on the abortion bill. But the effort was defeated by the bipartisan Majority Coalition, whose leader, Bellevue Democrat Sen. Rodney Tom, supports the underlying bill but opposes using the Ninth Order to bring it to the floor.

When that attempt failed, Democrats tried to attach the abortion provision to an unrelated insurance bill, but that tactic, too, failed when Tom and Mercer Island Republican Sen. Steve Litzow — who also supports the measure — refused to force a vote by using backdoor tactics.

Inslee refused to speculate about the chances of the Legislature adjourning on time or the final shape of a budget deal.

“There are probably 20 or 30 moving parts in the budget process,” he said. “At this point we’re trying to figure out what everyone’s priorities are and where there is room to negotiate. Reality has begun to set in it’s time to figure out how to merge several separate plans.”

The governor said he was particularly frustrated by the state’s inability to pass what he characterized as “common-sense” gun control measures.

“We’re better than this,” Inslee said. “Just because they can’t do what’s right in the other Washington doesn’t mean we can’t here. If this session adjourns without an agreement on gun regulations, it would be a real shame.”

Inslee said he is working behind the scenes with leaders of both parties in both houses to facilitate agreements on a variety of issues, and that the social issues are part of those discussions.

“These things are certainly related,” he said. “I don’t think our legislators should walk away from their responsibilities. I know I’m not going to; I’m still optimistic about a positive outcome.”

A day after the House Transportation Committee endorsed a laundry list of tax increases to fund new road projects, the House Finance Committee on Tuesday approved an additional $900 million in tax hikes, ostensibly to fund education.

Republicans on the committee, however, refused to concede either that the increases were necessary or that they would benefit education.

“You guys can say all you want that this money is dedicated to education,” Rep. Ed Orcutt (R-Kalama). “But nothing is ever dedicated to anything around here. None of it. We know that, and the public knows it.

“I hear it from the public all the time,” he said. “‘Why are you always raising taxes and claiming it’s for education? Education is your paramount duty, why don’t you fund it first?’ And I would argue that if you have to raise taxes to fund education, it’s the absolute last thing you’re funding.”

“This is the third time you’ve made that point,” snapped Committee Chair Rep. Reuven Carlyle (D-Seattle). “And I would make the point that all of the money from this legislation is dedicated to the education legacy trust account for investment in public education.

A Democrat-backed education funding plan calling for numerous tax increases advanced out of the Budget Committee on Tuesday. The measure is likely to pass on the floor later this week before running into stiff opposition in the Senate, whose Majority Coalition is resistant to tax increases.

“I appreciate that you don’t seem to agree that’s true,” he said, “but that is the fact and the reality, and I would appreciate it if you could confine your remarks to the substance of the legislation.”

“The substance of the legislation is that this doesn’t benefit the people it’s supposed to,” Orcutt replied. “We have seen the very fund this money is supposed to be dedicated to raided before.”

House Bill 2038 passed by a vote of 8-5 vote along straight party lines — as did numerous amendments proposed by Republicans designed to either moderate the tax increases or bring more transparency to the process.

The measure would eliminated certain business tax exemptions while extending other taxes set to expire this year. Parts of the original proposal were dropped, including tax extensions on the beer industry, janitors, insurance agents and stevedores.

“Asking everyone to contribute to our quality of life, our quality of education for 1 million students in every community in our state is hard work,” Carlyle said. “It’s tough to do. Closing just a few is hard, but investing in education is essential.”

“We don’t need new taxes to balance our budget,” Orcutt responded. “We’ve got plenty of money for education. If there’s any courage needed, it’s the courage to fund education first and to say no to some other people.”

The bill now heads to the House floor, where it is expected to pass along similarly partisan lines. It’s fate in the Senate, whose Majority Coalition is dead set against imposing any taxes, is far less promising.

State lawmakers have until Sunday to reach agreement on many contentious funding bills if they expect to adjourn the current 105-day session on time.

Tim Eyman’s latest ballot measure would jump-start efforts to make the two-thirds majority standard to raise taxes permanent by requiring an annual vote on the question.

Initiative activist Tim Eyman’s newest ballot measure follows a familiar theme.

Like numerous Eyman initiatives in the past, the latest effort, announced on Monday morning, seeks to impose a two-majority requirement on the Legislature for all tax increases. The difference is, this time the standard would be included in the state constitution.

“Five times, the voters have passed initiatives that created a law requiring a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to raise taxes,” Eyman said. “But as we’ve learned over the years, a law is only good for two years. After that, the Legislature can change it. So for the last 20 years, hardworking taxpayers and Olympia politicians have had a tug-of-war over the two-thirds — we pass it, it protects us from tax increases for two years, then they suspend it and raise a ton of taxes. (Then) we pass it again, it protects us for another two years, they suspend it and raise a bunch of taxes, we pass it again, it protects us for two years, etc.

“It’s been a 20-year battle,” he said, “and voters have supported the two-thirds protection every time, passing it by wider and wider margins. It’s time to make it permanent. That means putting it in our state Constitution.”

Briefly, the new ballot measure would:

• requires yearly advisory votes each November asking voters whether they support or oppose letting the people vote on a two-thirds-for-taxes constitutional amendment;
• limits the duration of tax increases — those imposed by the Legislature after Jan. 1, 2013 — to one year; and,
• provides information in the voters’ pamphlet about the governor’s and legislators’ voting records on tax bills — increases imposed after Jan. 1, 2013.

“Our earlier initiatives already require a November advisory vote on any tax increase imposed by the Legislature,” Eyman said. “ Our new initiative simply creates a new category of advisory votes, requiring an every-November public vote on whether the voters support letting the people vote on a two-thirds-for-taxes constitutional amendment.”

A constitutional amendment is necessary because the Washington State Supreme Court earlier this year overturned a previous Eyman measure, I-1053, declaring the two-thirds majority unconstitutional. Voters had reaffirmed support for the provision as recently as November, when 64 percent of state voters backed I-1185.

State lawmakers are currently grappling with the state budget and, given the Majority Coalition’s resistance to tax increases, it remains to be seen whether a revenue package could win approval in the Legislature by even a simple majority, let alone a supermajority.

“We were angry when House Democrats, cheered by the governor, sued the voters to overturn (I-1053),” Eyman said. “ We were furious when six judges took away a protection that 1.9 million people supported.  But when you really think about it, they probably did us a favor because we were never going to get a permanent solution — a constitutional amendment — until the temporary solution — a law — was no longer an option. That’s where we’re at now.”

Eyman and his supporters will now begin circulating petitions. If enough signatures are gathered by this summer, the initiative will appear on the November general election ballot.

Democrats in the Washington State Senate will apparently be unable to pass either the Dream Act or a hotly debated abortion bill during the current session thanks to Bellevue Sen. Rodney Tom, who on Tuesday refused to go along with a parliamentary maneuver that would have brought the measures up for a vote on the floor.

Tom, himself a Democrat, actually supports both the Dream Act, which would make illegal aliens who emigrated to the United States with their parents as minors and later graduated high school eligible for need grants to attend college, and the so-called “Reproductive Parity Act,” which would require all employer-provided health insurance plans that cover maternity care to also include abortion services.

But Tom passed on the chance to vote for both bills by siding with the GOP when Democrats attempted to invoke a little-used procedural move known as the “Ninth Order,” which allows bills that didn’t make it out of committee to be voted on anyway if a simple majority of senators agree.

Republicans successfully employed the tactic last year when three moderate Democrats, including Tom, crossed the aisle the approve a Republican-backed budget. On Monday, Senate Democratic Leader Ed Murray announced he had enough votes to pass both the Dream Act and the abortion bill on the floor and would employ the same tactic to force a vote.

Much to the annoyance of Sen. Ed Murray, left, fellow Democrat Sen. Rodney Tom, right, on Tuesday blocked a procedural move known as the Ninth Order that would have allowed a floor vote on the Dream Act and a controversial abortion bill.

But the gamble failed when Tom, along with Hoquiam Democratic Sen. Jim Hargrove, voting for ailing Lakewood Republican Mike Carrell, refused to support the Ninth Order.

Mercer Island Republican Steve Litzow, who also supported at least the abortion bill and would have voted for it on the floor, joined Tom in voting to keep that from happening.

The final margin was 25-23.

“The Ninth Order is about control of the Senate,” said Tom, who argued that invoking the rule would have wasted hours of valuable time and opened the door to resurrecting numerous other bills popular with Democrats that died in Republican-led committees.

Earlier this year, Tom, along with fellow moderate Sen. Tim Sheldon (D-Potlatch), agreed to caucus with the GOP during this session, forming a so-called “Majority Coalition” that currently outnumbers Democrats 25-24. The deal called for Tom to be named Majority Leader and put conservatives Pam Roach (R-Auburn) and Randi Becker (R-Eatonville) in charge of the committees in which the Dream Act and the abortion bill were debated.

“Make no mistake, while the actions of the majority today were procedural in nature, they were aimed squarely at two popular bills with bipartisan support,” Murray fumed after Tuesday’s floor action. “Their vote is an attack on a woman’s right to choose and on a free, fair and accessible education system for all.

“When the majority caucus formed, their leaders spoke about the importance of putting policy over politics,” he concluded. “Today, we saw how hollow those words were.”

A week earlier, Democrats were repeatedly thwarted in their attempts to amend the no-new-taxes budget plan adopted by the Republican-dominated Majority Coalition in the Washington State Senate.

On Friday evening, the roles were reversed, as House Democrats brushed aside GOP efforts to tone down a $34.5 billion operating budget proposal whose centerpiece is $1.9 billion in new education spending paid for mainly with a $1.3 billion tax increase.

The vote was 54-43, with virtually all Democrats voting in support and all Republicans voting no. Democrat Rep. Monica Stonier of Vancouver was the only member of either party to break ranks.

Both houses are under orders from the State Supreme Court to make huge increases in K-12 spending. Democrats say the Senate plan relies on gimmicks and an unconstitutional transfer  from the school construction fund; Republicans counter the House plan is a naked attempt to sneak through a tax increase under the guise of “closing tax loopholes”  and simply extending existing taxes.

The two diametrically opposite budget plans will now have to be reconciled and the revised package passed by both house and signed by the governor is the Legislature is going to adjourn on time a week from next Friday.

Rep. Gary Alexander (R-Olympia) called the House proposal “extremely partisan.”

Washington State House Democrats on Friday passed Rep. Ross Hunter’s budget proposal on essentially party lines. A week earlier, the Republican-authored plan passed by the state enjoyed the support of numerous Democrats.

“We indicated early on in the budget process that we were willing to work with the majority party in the House to implement our ideas for cost savings, prioritizing services and reforming state government so that tax increases on our citizens would not be needed,” said Alexander, the budget leader for House Republicans. “Instead, the budget that passed today was crafted in the echo chamber of one-party control. It’s a budget that can’t say ‘no’ to special interests and a growing state bureaucracy, but can’t say ‘yes’ to ideas and thoughtful solutions from the other side of the aisle.

“It’s unfortunate the budget passed today by House Democrats included no Republican support,” he said. “That wasn’t necessary. We could have avoided the partisanship we saw this evening if the other side had been willing to take tax increases off the table and commit to the state living within its means.”

House Republicans offered numerous amendments on the House floor to try and emphasize fiscal restraint.

“Our focus for the last several years has been to try and implement policies that help the private sector create jobs,” Alexander said.  “Our regulatory reform amendments, including 90-day permits and rule moratoriums for state agencies, would have at least provided some certainty for employers in our state. But the majority party seems more interested in taking more money from taxpayers than giving more freedom and certainty to the job creators in Washington.”

“This is a budget proposal that really give hope to our kids for a bright future,” countered House Minority Leader Rep. Pat Sullivan (D-Covington). “And it’s a budget that gives hope to struggling families who asked us to preserve the safety net they depend upon.

“This budget,” he said, “outlines the values (and) puts together the support that any budget must have in order to be able to go home and tell our constituents we did the right thing for them.”

Republican Rep. Gary Alexander wonders why, if House Democrats are so proud of their budget, the Ways and Means Committee waited until the middle of the night, when no one was watching, to pass it.

In a late-night committee session, House Democrats on Thursday passed a budget proposal that Republican critics believe raises taxes, guts the state’s rainy day fund and sets the Legislature up for a game of “chicken” between the House and Senate.

Rep. Gary Alexander (R-Olympia), the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, said he was disappointed but not surprised the majority party schemed to have the final votes in committee taken at 10 p.m., when the public and media were more apt to be found in bed sleeping than in the committee chambers holding elected officials accountable.

“I’m always amazed that the policies and programs supported in the budget are heard in the light of day, but the faults exposed during executive session are witnessed by empty seats in the dead of night,” he said. “The minority party rarely gets to bring a counter point of view during times of public testimony. Our opportunity to present a different way or to help bring the budget closer to a compromise with the Senate comes during the amendatory process that takes place in executive session. How convenient that executive session on the budget continually happens in the dark of night, over and over again.”

Alexander and his House Republican colleagues offered the bipartisan budget that passed the Senate as an amendment during committee.

“The budget passed by the Senate was truly a bipartisan budget,” said Alexander.  “There were ‘yeas’ and ‘nays’ from both sides of the aisle.  The senators that voted for the budget represented 30 of the 49 legislative districts in the state, 38 of the 39 counties and over 4.2 million citizens.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a budget with that kind of broad, bipartisan, urban and rural support during my tenure in the Legislature.

“I believe it deserves strong consideration,” Alexander said. “We have $2 billion in more revenue coming in during the next two-year budget cycle.  We should not be placing more tax obligations on our employers and citizens; they are sending more and more of their money to Washington, D.C., they don’t have more to send to this Washington.”

Alexander sponsored a unsuccessful amendment and the House Democrats’ budget plan was passed out of the House Appropriations Committee on an 18-13, party-line vote.

Alexander said he expects the Democrat budget to be debated on the House floor Friday. He just hopes the final debate takes place before the sun sets.

“It would be nice to have this debate on spending priorities, taxes and jobs when folks are still awake,” he said.

Despite the fundamental differences between it and the budget package approved by the Senate last week, House Democrats like Rep. Ross Hunter, above, believe the proposal they unveiled on Wednesday can be reconciled in time for the Legislature to adjourn within the allotted 105 days. Photo courtesy of TVW.

House Democrats on Wednesday unveiled a budget that spends even more on K-12 education than Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposal and funds the increases by eliminating a longer list of tax cuts.

“This is an honest, straightforward budget that meets our constitutional obligation to our schools,” said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Ross Hunter (D-Medina), the budget’s principal author. “Investments in education will bring jobs and a stronger economy to Washington.”

The $34.5 billion plan earmarks $1.9 billion in increased spending to K-12 education — $800 million more than the Republican-dominated Senate proposal announced last week.

Other highlights of the House plan include:

• increased spending for public colleges and universities, targeting the science, technology, engineering and math courses;
• expansion of early learning for 3- and 4-year-olds;
• extending healthcare coverage to an additional 280,000 Washingtonians via the federally financed health mandates called for under Obamacare; and,
• maintaining long-term and mental healthcare, expanding child care and job-placement programs and keeping protections for low-income and senior residents.

The entire proposal can be viewed here.

In all, the budget proposal calls for the closure of 15 tax exemptions and the extension of some existing taxes to help fund the almost $2 billion dollars for schools, including the closure of loopholes for oil refineries and the sales-tax exemptions for non-residents and janitorial services.

“There are currently 640 tax exemptions in Washington state law,” said Sen. Reuven Carlyle (D-Seattle), “and many of them are necessary. But others can’t be justified no matter how hard you try.”

He described last year’s McCleary decision, in which the state Supreme Court demanded the Legislature devote more money to public education, as a “game-changer.”

“This proposal,” Caryle said, “represents a fundamental change in the way the state does business.”

With the Republican-dominated Majority Caucus in control of the Senate, the chances of reconciling its plan with the radically different vision embraced by the House in time for the Legislature to adjourn on time three weeks from now would appear slim. But Hunter said the differences between the two plans might not be as great as it would first appear.

“Their budget is based on a lot of fund transfers, gimmicks and assumptions about things that will never happen,” he said. “We can negotiate about real program cuts, but the specious ones are a little harder.

“The House, the Senate and the governor are all in the same revenue box,” Hunter said. “Once we strip away the rhetoric and start dealing with hard facts, I think you might find there isn’t a huge amount of difference between what we’re proposing and what they want. Sometimes the real world intrudes into what you’d like to do.”

House Republicans, meanwhile, were highly critical of the plan, insisting what Democrats characterize as simply closing tax “loopholes” in fact amounts to a tax increase.

“I’m disappointed the House Democrats’ budget plan seeks to take more money out of the pockets of families, individuals and employers around the state,” said Rep. Gary Alexander (D-Olympia), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee. “Like the governor’s budget outline, their budget tells hardworking taxpayers that the $2 billion in additional revenue the state expects to receive in the 2013-15 biennium is not enough. How can we tell our citizens, families, employers, students and individuals that a 6.6 percent increase in revenue is not enough?  I know hundreds of people in my district that would love to see a 6.6 percent increase in their household or business budgets.”

Hunter said the House Ways Ways and Means Committee would debate the bill later on Wednesday afternoon and the measure would be put to a vote on the floor by Friday or Saturday.

The Senate plan was passed last Friday.