Unemployment bill sparks last-minute Senate drama

REBECCA COOK, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published Thursday, March 14, 2002

OLYMPIA -- State senators passed a bill to help laid-off Boeing workers and change the business unemployment tax system, but along the way they opened up a Pandora's box of issues.

The bill will grant $34 million for retraining laid-off aerospace workers. It also freezes weekly maximum benefits at $496 for two years, and limits the growth in benefits to 4 percent annually for six years after that. Most important from a long-range perspective, the bill aims to correct inequities in the tax system about which many Washington businesses, including Boeing, have long complained.

Retail stores and manufacturers such as Boeing pay more in taxes than their laid-off workers take out in benefits, while the construction industry pays less in taxes than its laid-off workers take out in benefits.

The bill approved by the Senate on Wednesday, House Bill 2901, will make some industries pay more and some pay less in unemployment taxes, with the goal of making the system more fair. In the long run, the bill's sponsors say manufacturing businesses such as Boeing will save millions of dollars on their unemployment taxes.

A Boeing priority

Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Alan Mulally told legislative leaders earlier this year that reforming the unemployment tax system and improving transportation were The Boeing Co.'s top two legislative priorities.

Sen. Shirley Winsley, R-Fircrest, successfully attached an amendment to the bill creating a task force to study unemployment in Washington. Many Republicans see the $34 million for aerospace worker retraining as a Boeing giveaway, and they believe the bill doesn't go far enough to change the unemployment system.

The bill will return to the House -- which already approved it once -- for agreement on the amendment.

The bill passed with a bipartisan Senate vote, 35-14, but not without some drama.

To vote on the bill, the Senate's Democratic leaders had to open up a list of bills exempt from the cutoff date. Republicans, with the help of Democrat maverick Tim Sheldon, used the opportunity to keep alive a bunch of bills they like, including one to immediately abolish the Washington estate tax and others limiting agency rule-making.

Sen. Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, the Senate's chief budget writer, said the attempt to get rid of the estate tax all at once is "premature," but she said it wouldn't hurt the emerging budget compromise unless Republicans were able to attach an amendment to the budget.

On the Web:

Bill information

On the Web:

- 2002 Supplemental Operating Budget Proposals
House Proposed (03/13/02)

- Washington State Legislature

- Washington State Treasurer

- Gov. Gary Locke

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