What did we learn?

At the same time our governor is requesting tax increases, our state legislators continue generating new ways to spend money.

• House Bill 3162 — Rep. Bob Hasegawa, D-Seattle, wants to create a state run bank.

• House Bill 2753 — Rep. Larry Springer, D-Kirkland, wants to provide affordable housing because “Too many families can only find affordable housing 30, 40, 50 miles from their jobs. The transportation costs alone eat up their savings,” he stated.

• Senate Bill 6392 — Sen. Rodney Tom, D-Bellevue, was successful in passage of a bill to move forward with the $4 billion state Route 520 bridge over Lake Washington.

• Senate Bill 6263  — Establishment of the Washington vaccine association — “The Department of Health estimates … program costs for the 2011-13 Biennium range between $93 million and $95 million.”

• Senate Bill 5912 — Public funding for supreme court campaigns is a $3 surcharge in superior and district courts, which would tax $1.9 million from the public to pay for election campaigns.

• Senate Bill 5279 — A program to dispose of unwanted drugs from homes is estimated to cost $2 million over the next 10 years.

• Senate Bill 6837 — It’s an act relating to forest fire protection and suppression. It’s $8.5 million in 2011, $17.1 million in 2010 and $145.4 million for 10 years.

• Senate Bill 6644 — An act about falconry, using birds to hunt, will costs us $121,500 for 10 years.

• House Bill 2564 — It will cost us $31,725 over the next 10 years to fingerprint escrow agents.

• House Bill 3181 — An act relating to clean water, through an increase in the tax on hazardous substances, is estimated to cost taxpayers $214 million in 2011, a mere $234 million in 2010 and a grand total of $2.08 billion over the next 10 years.

• House Bill 3040 — To license appraisal management companies is going to be an “increased cost to the taxpayers and affected fee payers” in the amount of $941,989 over the next 10 years.

These are estimates generated by the state Office of Financial Management to allow legislators to know what the bills will cost us.

Our examples are from Tuesday and Wednesday. We did not include all of the bills they reviewed. There’s more.

When we are facing a deficit, it is not time to generate more programs to spend more money. But as we are seeing, some legislators are bent on taxing us more to spend more. They are spending faster than they can take it in.

Perhaps the only moral from this mess is to remember what our elected officials did when it comes time to re-elect them. Until then, hide your wallet.

— Editorial board