Locke, Gregoire and Business Leaders Agree: Olympia Has Lost Control

Former Washington Governor Gary Locke is no longer offering just a passing criticism of Olympia’s spending habits. As Governor Ferguson is warning of more budget shortfalls, Locke is making a sustained case that state government has lost the discipline necessary to manage taxpayers’ money responsibly.

In recent interviews with The Center Square and KOMO News, Locke said state lawmakers have repeatedly created permanent programs with temporary federal funding, without a credible plan for covering the costs once that money disappears.

“You cannot take one-time money, whether it’s COVID money or any federal funding, if it’s one-time, and use it to pay for permanent, ongoing programs,” Locke said. “Because if the money is only for one year, how are you going to pay for the program the next year, the second year, the third year, the fourth year?”

Locke acknowledged that many of the programs may sound worthwhile. But good intentions do not make the math work.

When lawmakers promise new services without a sustainable funding source, the eventual choices are predictable: raise taxes, cut other priorities or break the promises made when the programs were created.

“If you don’t have the money to pay for it, you’re creating a lot of distrust and disappointment with the voters,” Locke warned.

Locke’s criticism is increasingly part of a much broader and prominent coalition.

Former Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire recently reached nearly the same conclusion, saying Washington has “a spending problem, not a revenue problem.” She noted that the state operating budget has grown from roughly $32 billion when she left office to approximately $82 billion today.

Starbucks founder and longtime Democratic supporter Howard Schultz has warned in The Wall Street Journal that rising taxes, runaway spending and increasingly hostile policies are threatening the economic foundation that helped make Washington prosperous

Now Tod Leiweke, CEO of the Seattle Kraken and One Roof Sports and Entertainment, is delivering an equally direct warning.

“I’ve been a lifelong Democrat,” Leiweke said. “I’m telling the Democratic Party it is time to wake up. We can be a blue state that has a fiscal plan. Today, we’re a blue state without a fiscal plan.”

Leaders of the Washington Roundtable, the Association of Washington Business, and the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce have offered very similar sentiments.

Olympia keeps adding programs without establishing priorities. Spending continues to rise. Taxes continue to rise. Yet lawmakers remain trapped in a cycle of recurring shortfalls, emergency fixes and demands for still more revenue.

In 2025, lawmakers approved approximately $12.5 billion in new taxes, the largest tax-hike package in state history. Less than a year later, the state was already confronting another multibillion-dollar budget gap.

At the same time, Washington has one of the weakest rainy day funds in the country. Pew identified the state as having the nation’s second-worst reserve level, enough to fund less than 13 days of operations.

State government is spending more than ever. It imposed record tax increases. It has inadequate emergency reserves. And it still cannot balance its long-term commitments with the revenue it expects to collect.

Olympia is acting as though every idea can become a permanent obligation and every shortfall can be solved by asking taxpayers for more. Complex issues like homelessness and K-12 education outcomes cannot be solved by simply spending more money.

Locke has instead called for a return to the “Priorities of Government” approach used during his administration: determine how much revenue is realistically available, rank programs against one another and fund the most important responsibilities first.

The growing chorus from Locke, Gregoire, Schultz, Leiweke and other civic and business leaders shows that concern over Olympia’s direction is no longer confined to Republicans or traditional fiscal conservatives.

These are prominent Democrats and longtime Democratic supporters warning their own party that Washington cannot continue on its current path.

Washington needs a fiscal plan. And increasingly, some of our most respected leaders are willing to say so by issuing warnings that current spending trends should not continue.