House Majority Leader Sullivan says bad outweighs good in Senate transportation package

House Majority Leader Pat Sullivan, D-Covington, whose district includes parts of Kent, released the following statement on Monday from Olympia in response to the Senate’s passage of a $15 billion transportation package:

“Transportation funding is important, and I’m encouraged the Senate has sent the House a transportation package and revenue proposal. There are positive pieces in the package, but unfortunately, the bad greatly outweighs the good.

Had Senate Republicans agreed to a “clean” package focusing on transportation and investment in our state’s infrastructure, we would be in a much better position to come to agreement. We now have a lot of work to do make this a true transportation package, not a Senate Republican policy agenda.

One of the biggest problems is the Senate Republicans’ vote to move nearly $1 billion in transportation project sales tax dollars from the operating budget to the transportation budget. It moves us in the wrong direction and away from meeting our requirement of amply funding our schools.

Funding concrete first when the state is under a Supreme Court contempt order to properly fund our K-12 schools shows how skewed Senate Republicans’ priorities are. We have at least a $2 billion budget deficit now; taking away another billion only exacerbates the problem in the years ahead. How do Senate Republicans explain voting now for billions in taxes for projects, but not a dime for the future of our children?

We in the House will do our best to fix the transportation package sent over by Senate Republicans, but before that we will need to see substantial movement on their part to address our paramount duty of educating our children and fairly balancing our operating budget.”