Washington good government

Today I am watching our Washington State politicians at Sound Politics:

Our Democrat-majority Legislature finally found a performance audit they can get whole heartedly behind.

They fought performance audits tooth and nail for year after year. Performance audits go beyond the normal accounting that money for fund A got spent on fund A things, to ask did "this program accomplish what it was supposed to do?"

When the will of the people got stronger they sought to innoculate the issue by devising "performance audits" where the elected state auditor could only do audits that were approved by an appointed panel. I don't know the exact makeup, but I recall it was dominated by Olympia.

Tim Eyman beat them cold by filing Initiative 900 that enables the auditor to do his job with performance audits and provides funding. It passed easily.

This week the state house easily passed performance audits - for tax cuts. Those tax cuts had better be effective or they will be embarrassed in the harsh spotlight. The Olympian reports:

However, the Democrats, joined by nine Republicans including Rep. Tom Campbell, did act on one bill that could make the effectiveness of tax cuts easier to gauge.

On a 61 to 34 vote, they approved House Bill 1069, which subjects tax breaks to reviews or “performance audits” to show whether they deliver the benefits promised.

Why didn't the Democrats do this years ago for spending?