Adam Smith: “I am amazed at how emotional this issue has become. I have been involved in, you might say, politics for years, and I…”

“I am amazed at how emotional this issue has become. I have been involved in, you might say, politics for years, and I thought this was a pretty generic, reasonable bill coming from a State government. The bill just says establish and consider the cost you require of local governments. That is pretty simple. Let us review in general what the bill does. It is not retroactive. You would think by the conversation on the floor today that it went back and wiped out all the protections for children, for the elderly, and for our communities. It is not retroactive. It requires cost information. I have a history of being a budget person. I also have been involved in budgets and politics. The best thing you do for the people is find out what it costs. If you ignore those costs, they are still there, and they come out somewhere else. It requires informed debate, what we have all been talking about. I am amazed at how many people stand up and say they have been gagged and then talk for 5 minutes. It just says informed debate on the question of funding, and that debate is required, so that we do not wake up 1 day and find out Washington State ends up with a multibillion-dollar cost that this Congress passed. And it requires separate votes on imposing unfunded mandates to local governments. That is not so difficult. It seems to me that that makes some sense.”