Washington governor ignores the basics of budget logic

Our governor’s plan to raid the state contingency fund to pay for schools, then repay the fund with a new tax, violates sound financial principles.

Creating a budget is not rocket science. The basic principles are the same for every organization, be they military units, government agencies or families.

The first step is to list all the possible demands for funds that you can think of. A good budget also includes regular inputs into an emergency fund to take care of those things that you didn’t think of.

Step two is to arrange all these necessary expenditures in priority order. A normal househo...