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For disabled residents in adult family homes across Washington, weekly trips to the movies, visits to local restaurants, and community outings provide more than entertainment. These excursions give people connection to their communities and purpose to their days.
Those activities are gone now. The state's “Meaningful Day” program, which funded community activities for residents with intellectual and developmental disabilities across Washington, was eliminated in this year's budget.
The Adult Family Home Council has filed a lawsuit arguing these cuts violate their collective bargaining agreement with the state. This legal challenge offers hope for restoration, but the $85 million cut through 2027 represents one of the most painful decisions Democrats had to make while crafting a responsible budget in the face of a $16 billion deficit.
Washington's budget crisis wasn't manufactured or exaggerated. The state faced a genuine $16 billion shortfall over four years. In addition to declining tax revenues and increased demand for services, we’re losing about $160 million in public health funding as part of the Trump administration's purge of federal grants, plus another $34 million that funds local organizations combating the opioid crisis.
Democrats had to find $7 billion in cuts while raising $8.7 billion in new revenue.
The stickiest part is that 75-80 percent of state spending is protected by constitutional requirements (like basic education funding) or federal mandates. That means nearly all cuts had to come from just 20-25 percent of the budget. That’s where programs like “Meaningful Day” live.
Democratic budget writers made these cuts with full knowledge of their impact. As Senate Ways and Means Chair June Robinson acknowledged, "There are many reductions throughout the budget that are harmful, are going to be hard for people, and for agencies to implement. We're all eyes wide open about that."
Other painful cuts, like the delay of the expansion of the Fair Start for Kids Act, reductions in behavioral health programs, and cuts affecting higher education are further examples of the daunting deficit Democrats were tasked with solving.
During the final budget process, GOP legislators refused to even participate in negotiations, insisting the entire deficit could be solved through "efficiency" and spending cuts alone. Instead of attending final budget meetings, they huddled together to concoct the ‘$ave Washington’ plan, with lofty claims of solving the deficit with no new taxes and no harmful cuts. But if you actually read through their proposal, it becomes obvious that the math is literally impossible.
As proposed, it would have saved just $200 million against a $13-16 billion deficit, addressing only 1.5% of the budget shortfall. The plan includes fund raids, one-time transfers, and a vague mandate to cut management staff by 10 percent at every agency. Otherwise, they’ve released no other details that would explain the massive gap between their rhetoric and mathematical reality.
If we take them at their word that they would have somehow been able to cut $13-$16 billion dollars from the budget without any new revenue, it would have meant not just losing programs like “Meaningful Day,” but also enduring devastating cuts to schools, healthcare, and other programs. Zeroing out so many lines at the state level would kick the burden down to counties and cities, and eventually lead to higher costs for working families through service cuts, local tax increases and reduced state support.
“No new taxes” doesn’t mean anything if we’re simply pushing the responsibility to local jurisdictions who will be forced to tax us anyway.
This is exactly what happened during the Great Recession when Washington relied on cuts instead of revenue. Local school districts had to raise property taxes through emergency levies and families paid more out-of-pocket for services. The state eventually had to spend billions more to catch up later.
In the end, solving this year’s budget crisis required finding a careful balance between cuts and taxation. Once the Governor took a true wealth tax off the table, Democratic legislators faced difficult math and made the least harmful choices possible while protecting working families from bearing the burden alone.
Republicans offered little more than wishful thinking and a catchy name.
The residents who lost their community outings through “Meaningful Day,” the families facing delays in childcare assistance, and others bearing the burden of painful cuts, are paying the price for years of resistance to fair taxation and honest budgeting. Their loss should remind us that slogans about efficiency can't replace the hard work of governing responsibly in difficult times.
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Zac Eckstein is chair of the Lewis County Democratic Party. Learn more about the party at https://lewiscountydemocrats.org.
