Deal in facts when reacting to federal budget actions, not partisan fiction

Gov. Bob Ferguson’s first speech to the Legislature included several declarations that were encouraging to Republicans in the audience. One was that he was not here to defend government, but to reform it.

Maybe his definition of “reform” is different from mine. Perhaps he is overly focused on who’s doing the reforming. Either way, the governor went into full partisan mode over the reforms in the federal budget-reconciliation act passed by Congress earlier this month.
There’s nothing new about state legislators having to anticipate and react to actions taken by the feds. We had to do that most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m confident we will find a way through this challenge, but first, let’s get past the fearmongering.

The governor reacted by issuing not one but three statements about the budget-reconciliation act, formally known as the One Big Beautiful Bill — all in one day.

One statement condemned the phase-out of federal incentives for so-called clean energy. It cited claims from the “U.S. Climate Alliance” that over the next four to five years, this new federal law will cost our state jobs and mean higher electricity bills for Washington families.
The concern about higher energy costs is ironic since the Democrats’ cap-and-tax law, the Climate Commitment Act (CCA), has driven up home-energy bills as well as the cost of gas and diesel. The CCA has already added 46 cents to the price of gas — and that’s separate from the enormous increases coming from the so-called low-carbon fuel standard, another Democrat policy made in the name of clean energy.

Also, remembering how former Gov. Jay Inslee was deceitful when he claimed the CCA wouldn’t drive gas prices up by more than pennies, we should be skeptical of any prediction from the U.S. Climate Alliance. That’s because its members are primarily Democratic governors, and Inslee was one of the founders, along with the governors of California and New York.

Ferguson used the term “devastating impacts” again when criticizing the new federal law regarding changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Known as SNAP, it is still thought of as food stamps by many people.

The governor noted people might lose their access to SNAP benefits if they don’t meet new work-related requirements. I don’t see a problem with holding able-bodied, working-age people accountable when they’re receiving taxpayer-funded assistance. That’s why I proposed a similar approach this year in Senate Bill 5311, which our Democratic colleagues ignored. The bill didn’t even get a committee hearing that would have allowed the public to be heard.

Our state should expect to take on a larger percentage of SNAP administrative costs, and I agree with Ferguson that the added cost is likely to be around $88 million, starting in fall 2026.

But he also claims Washington will be on the hook for at least $100 million more as its share of SNAP benefits. We’ve looked at the policy and believe there will be no added cost if Washington can keep its “payment error rate” below 6%.

The national average in 2024 was a payment error rate of nearly 11%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees SNAP at the federal level. Our state has been in the 6% bracket in three of the past five years; now the state Department of Social and Health Services, which manages SNAP in Washington, has incentive to do better.

Ferguson saved his harshest criticism for the new law’s eventual changes in Medicaid support, calling them cruel and unprecedented. I say eventual because nothing changes until the end of 2026, and much of it happens later.

I’ll agree with unprecedented, because his fellow Democrats have shown no real interest in controlling the growth and cost of Medicaid. In fact, it was the federal Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, that opened Medicaid up beyond the traditional enrollees — children, pregnant women, seniors and people with disabilities — to include able-bodied, working-age adult enrollees.

But ask yourself whether “cruel” is really the word to describe how the new law requires a working-age person who isn’t disabled and receives Medicaid to spend 20 hours a week working, going to school or volunteering. If that education or work experience leads to a job with medical benefits, I’d call it a win all around.

There’s also nothing unfair or unkind about verifying someone’s Medicaid eligibility every six months, doing quarterly checks to make sure payments aren’t made on behalf of people who are deceased, or taking action to stop paying Medicaid premiums for people who live in a different state. Those are all very easy ways to prevent waste, fraud and abuse of tax dollars.

In fact, an audit in our state found nearly $135 million was lost in one year alone to double payments for people who were enrolled in Medicaid here and another state at the same time. The majority Democrats could have done something about that by passing Senate Bill 5258 this year. That bill had bipartisan support coming out of the Health and Long-Term Care Committee, but the Democrat majority killed it in the budget committee, of all places.  Also, the new budget-reconciliation act tries to get at the high cost of “provider tax” payments. Without going into detail, these payments have helped the states to inflate the amount of federal matching funds they receive through Medicaid. That loophole has allowed Washington to expand its Medicaid program far beyond the original purpose.

The new federal law is aimed at gradually lowering the provider tax rate to 3.5% by 2031, from the current 6%. The 3.5% tax rate is significant because that’s the target former President Obama tried but failed to hit when he was in office.

Ferguson’s denouncement of the upcoming Medicaid changes also predicted dire consequences for hospitals in our state. However, he didn’t mention the $50 billion appropriated with the budget-reconciliation law for “rural health transformation.” It’s not unreasonable to think Washington, as one of 50 states, will end up with at least $1 billion of that over the next five years.

Also, we didn’t see the governor show concern for hospitals in May when he signed the new operating budget, which will reduce payments going to hospitals, and the new taxes that will increase hospital operating costs.

Speaking of the new budget: if Ferguson wants to debate what’s truly cruel, let’s talk about the veto of the $200,000 appropriated for a pediatric interim care center in King County, which would have supported residential care for drug-exposed newborns.

Another example is something that has flown under the radar: his support for the steep hike in license fees for nursing homes and long-term care facilities, which amounts to a $126 million tax burden on Washington’s care-center sector over the next four years. Those costs will be forced onto the aging, sick, and dying Washingtonians receiving care, and the families who support them.

After he signed the new budget in May, Ferguson was asked by a reporter about the cuts it made to services, and the record $9.3 billion in new state-level taxes Democrats passed to support it, along with $2.9 billion in new local taxes — none of which were found in the Senate Republican “$ave Washington” budget.

“I understand this will be a challenging budget for Washingtonians,” the governor replied.
I understand the budget-reconciliation act may be challenging for state leaders, but to say it again, anticipating and responding to federal actions is part of our job.

Ferguson and his fellow Democrats knew the new leadership in Washington, D.C., being conservative, would probably make some conservative changes to federal spending. It’s on them if our state isn’t prepared.

Republicans did all we could to give our state a balanced, no-new-taxes, no-cuts-to-services budget — one that wouldn’t paint the Legislature into a corner if there were federal funding changes, as the Democrats’ budget has done. We are ready to help going forward, but let’s deal in facts, not fiction. That’s how our state does better.

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Sen. John Braun of Centralia serves the 20th Legislative District, which spans parts of four counties from Yelm to Vancouver. He became Senate Republican leader in 2020.