Governor Bob Ferguson issues statement indicating he wants more cuts and less revenue in the 2025-2027 operating budget

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Yesterday afternoon, Governor Bob Ferguson issued a statement reacting to the revenue proposal jointly unveiled on Tuesday by House and Senate Democratic legislative leadership, which, before paring, proposes raising $12 billion in new revenue. Ferguson explicitly objected to raising $12 billion to make the next budget balance and indicated he would prefer a budget with more cuts and less revenue, though he did not use the word “cuts” in his statement, instead employing the euphemism “adopting solutions to reduce our spending.” Here’s his statement in its entirety:

Governor Bob Ferguson offered the following statement on the Legislature’s proposal for $12 billion in taxes:

“I thank legislators for their hard work as we balance a budget with a $16 billion shortfall. While our budget situation is currently challenging, it may soon become dire with additional cuts and chaos from the Trump Administration. We must defend Washington in the face of that.

“Federal funds make up 28 percent of our state budget. That includes billions of dollars for Medicaid, K‑12 education, child welfare and early learning, disaster recovery and response, unemployment insurance and more. Every day, funding is canceled, frozen or denied by the Trump Administration and Elon Musk. Last week, FEMA denied our request for emergency relief funds for November’s bomb cyclone. We don’t know exactly why — they did not offer a reason — but we know we met the criteria set out for this funding. The administration is attempting to cut $160 million in public health funding.

https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2025/04/governor-bob-ferguson-issues-statement-indicating-he-wants-more-cuts-and-less-revenue-in-the-2025-2027-operating-budget.html