Thomas Savidge, of the American Institute for Economic Research, in his letter in Wall Street Journal‘s Letters section, wrote about Washington State’s addiction to spending and its use of increasing taxes—even when they’re unconstitutional under the State’s own constitution—to feed the addiction. He offered a solution to the addiction from Washington’s own history:

Governor Gary Locke (D) in 2002 introduced the “Priorities of Government” strategy of ranking programs based on public value and essential government functions. This approach closed a $2.1 billion budget gap, just under $4 billion in current dollars, without raising taxes.

That, however, was an incomplete solution, for all that it “closed” that budget gap one time while pairing tax increases only with the lowest priority spending.

The complete solution, short of a State constitutional amendment to make more permanent the process, would have been to identify the revenue known to appear for the relevant fiscal year, then to run down the list of priorities, funding each one in turn until the expected revenues have been consumed, and then cut off further spending rather than raise taxes to cover the remainder.

But spending discipline is inconceivable to Progressive-Democrats, as it is today to too many Timid Republicans in DC.