BARKIS REPORTS ON SESSION SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

State Representative Andrew Barkis reports on some of the successes of the 2018 session.

This last session was a mixed bag.  With Democrats in sole control in Olympia we saw a major push to spend recklessly and tax aggressively.  Like all fiscal conservatives – and the Seattle Times – I was very concerned that the majority party decided to raid the rainy-day fund instead of using part of the $2.6 B in new revenue to save for the future.

I was happy that we undid much of the harm of the state Supreme Court’s disastrous Hirst ruling, restoring water rights to tens of thousands of people across our state.  The failure to fix Hirst in 2017 also led to the failure to adopt the Capital Budget, which we passed in 2018.  This budget helps build facilities and improvements across the state, and I worked to secure several important projects for our community.