Washington State’s retailers are ready to help the state Legislature balance the budget and create jobs to heal some of the financial wounds of the recession. We’ve proposed an August back-to-school sales tax holiday weekend that a new study shows would boost state and local government revenues by $12.5 million and create 1,555 jobs while giving consumers a deserved financial

It’s been 107 days since the Governor called last December’s special session declaring “timely legislative action is needed to secure the State’s fiscal health and address the shortfall in the 2011-2013 operating budget.” We are now in day 33 of the 60 day 2012 REGULAR Session without a budget plan being introduced let alone debated. Defending the lack of action

In the waning hours of the “budget focused” special session Democrats in the House and Senate both attempted to cue up votes on a tax bill not assumed in the budget that no one expected to pass. The strategy was to try to gain legal standing to sue the voters to overturn the 18 year old 2/3 vote requirement for

One of the hot topics from the 2011 Legislative Session sure to resurface next year is what to do about the state’s various tax preferences. To assist the Legislature in answering this question, in 2006, lawmakers adopted HB 1069 which set up the Citizen Commission for Performance Measurement of Tax Preferences administered by the Joint Legislative Audit Review Committee (JLARC).