A half dozen AIS volunteers joined me today for our annual AIS Lobby Day. Here is what happened...

We started out with a meeting with Ian Morrison and Peter Bogdonoff from Governor Gregoire's office. They talked about the deep hole the Washington State budget is in. After taking out the constitutionally required commitments like education and federally mandated programs, nearly half of the budget needs to be cut now that there is an $8 billion shortfall. We expressed our concerns that health care cuts might mean lives lost and that we would like to see as little cuts as possible in that area. It's going to be ugly.

We then met with a series of AIS pledge signers including Representatives Troy Kelley, Tami Green, Dennis Flannigan, Tom Campbell and Maralyn Chase. Without fail they all agree with our issues and share our concerns about the harsh realities this budget deficit is going to have on Washington families. The good news is we have some great champions of working families battling for us in Olympia. The bad is that most programs are going to see some serious cuts, and some needed programs may disappear entirely. I'll post our asks later and encourage you to talk to your reps as they need to hear from us.