Representing Cold Reality

Donning a Washington School for the Deaf sweatshirt and black baseball cap, Jim Moeller made a casual entrance into the newsroom of The Independent Halloween morning. The fifth-term House Democrat representing Washington State's 49th legislative district walked into a room heavy with anticipation ten minutes prior to his scheduled noon press conference.

The anticlimactic entrance catered to the somber message Moeller delivered throughout his appearance: that the state is facing an era of cuts, cuts and more cuts.

"Personally, my rubric is ‘Is somebody going to die?'," Moeller said of evaluating programs for reductions. "If somebody doesn't die, then it's probably going to be cut or limited."

With the state Legislature slated to meet later this month in a governor-requested special session, a $2 billion revenue shortfall must materialize out of cuts, taxes, or a combination of the two.

Moeller said that one area set to take a hit is education.

"The whole idea is to go to a high-tuition, high-student aid program, rather than the low-tuition, high-state support program that we've had so far," he said. "I don't understand that, but apparently that's the wave of the future across the nation."

He added that the Legislature has already empowered universities and state colleges to set their own tuition rates for three years, beginning this academic year. The Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges approved an average tuition hike of 12 percent for 2011-2012. Larger increases of 17 percent per year could be on the table for the next two academic years.

The possibility also exists for a bill increasing Running State tuition charges, he said. Clark Running Start students currently pay for credits in excess of 1.2 full-time equivalents (FTEs).

Moeller added that programs providing subsidized basic health care or in-home care to the elderly could be scrapped altogether.

"We're going to have to take a look at doing less with less," he said. "I'm not one of those people who says we have to do more with less, because I think that's what we've been trying to do all these years. And we've ended up stretching and bubble-gumming and baling-wire programs together."

"We're going to have to consolidate, and we're going to have to end some programs."

The discussion with Independent staff members was not all doom and gloom, however. The chemical dependency counselor addressed the potential for marijuana legalization in Washington State's future.

"As far as legalization, I think we need to do the medical marijuana issue first," he said. "Legislatures are conservative bodies. Regardless of whether you think marijuana is or isn't a drug, it is what it is. We have a culture that's much more comfortable with alcohol than it is with marijuana."

He stated that he believes marijuana will eventually be legalized for recreational use, and that the current state liquor control board system could serve as a useful apparatus in selling and taxing it.

Moeller, a former Vancouver City Council member, also discussed the Columbia River Crossing project and the impact of extending light rail into Vancouver.

"It doesn't make any sense to me why we would not connect ourselves to the major economic driver in this region," he said. "Like it or not, 60,000 people cross that bridge every day, going south to jobs in Portland. Those jobs only exist because Portland is there.

The legislator gladly shared his thoughts on the occupy movement.

"One of the very first amendments to our constitution was the right to peaceably assemble for a redress of grievances," he said. "It is as American as apple pie to demonstrate, to congregate - to even be arrested for trespass if you need to be arrested to bring attention to an issue."

Moeller added that our priorities on incarceration in this time of economic uncertainty seem to be misguided.

"There are people right now who should be in jail, and they're not. You can steal a loaf of bread in this country and go to jail, but you can steal a billion dollars and not. There's something wrong with that."

The theme of the day was state budget woes and the upcoming special legislative session aimed at addressing these woes.

"The process is this: we're going to pass an all-cuts budget, and then we'll go to the people with a (tax) package saying ‘Do you want to do this? If you don't, here is the way that we can buy back these services.'"

He said there's little chance that the House will pass a budget that does not include a tax package to be put to public vote. However, Republican support on taxes could be iffy.

"We have to go to the voters with it, because the Republicans will not give us the votes to override Initiative 1053, which is the supermajority (legislative requirement for raising taxes)."

After a sobering 45-minute interchange of student curiosity concerning Washington State politics and unapologetic responses, Moeller took his leave to attend to pressing matters of state.