Clearly somebody was asleep at the wheel. There is a position of State Economist, presumably at the Dep't. of Revenue. I don't know much about it, but one of my daughters dated the son of the State Economist back during, maybe it was Gary Locke's governorship or maybe the governor before. Doesn't matter, but what I recall is that he could forecast state revenue to within a cat's whisker, year after year. It looks like it's unfortunate that he retired if the replacement came in so far off during this biennium.

I saw on the news day before yesterday that the Legislative leaders believe, they know, they said, that the election results show that WA votes want them to solve this budget problem in the upcoming session with more taxes to cover the gap. Funny thing is, I don't recall voting for that.