Michael Baumgartner

I would like to thank Michael Baumgartner for meeting with me and and answering our questions.  Baumgartner is a young, charismatic, good looking (that's my opinion) candidate running for State Senate.  He willingly answered each question without dodging any answer.  I recorded the session.


Gary asked:  Would you buck your party to support or oppose an issue if you believed it was in the best interest of your constituents?
Baumgartner:  Yes, absolutely.  Constituents certainly come before party.

 Rob asked:  List the two most important issues that you think you can make a difference on if elected and how would you do that.
 Baumgartner:  The 2 key issues are: the need to fix our state budget process so it’s sustainable.  Right now we have an unsustainable state budget that’s misaligned.  We have increased total state spending $17 billion in the last 4 years since Senator Marr has been in office.  Now we are faced with record tax increases, record spending increases and now we have record cuts so the whole system is out of alignment.  We do need to restructure and slim down government. That’s issue number one.  The way we need to do that is we need to take state employees and move from having them pay 12% of their benefits up to 20% of their benefits.  That would save over a billion dollars, that’s a big deal.  I think we should freeze state salaries right now while we are in this recession.  In general slim down the government in sectors where it doesn’t need to be in or we can’t afford it to be in.  The priorities of government should be funding education, funding road transport, and public safety.  That’s what I would do in those areas and I would help facilitate that process.

The other big issue of why I’m running is we have to get state economy going and to do that we need to make the state more friendly for small business.  I have been endorsed by the leading small business organization, the National Federation of Independent Business.  This is the big difference between me and Chris Marr.  He has F ratings from our state’s business associations.  Kevin Parker has about a 90%from the state business association, John Driscoll has about a 75% rating, Chris Marr has a 43% rating, an F.  What we do to make the state more business friendly is, first, worker’s compensation reform.  Washington State is one of only 4 states that doesn’t have choice in worker’s compensation.  If we allow choice it will bring down cost and give better products.  Right now Labor and Industry has increased costs dramatically even though the total number of claims has gone down.  They are now playing games with the system, they are not going to release how much people’s L&I costs are going to increase until after the election because I know they are going to go up.   It’s a poor system and mismanaged.   We need to modernize it.  So that would be a big issue to move as well. 

I also think we need fundamental reform of our Business and Occupation Tax.   Right now the B&O tax is on a gross basis so it’s very difficult for small businesses and low margin businesses where you can lose money and still have to pay a tax.  B&O Tax can be very low as a percentage on a gross basis but I have one of my supporters who estimates that he pays a 9% corporate income tax right now because he pays 1.7%, or whatever percentage it is, of his gross tax.  I think on a revenue neutral basis we should transform that to a net tax.  Those are 2 things I would do for business.

A third thing would be we should try is to bring down health care costs.  They are very high for small businesses in Washington State because we have one of the highest number of mandates of any state.  If we could allow portability and assurance that insurance could be sold across state lines, that would reduce the cost for small business.

Marci asked:  Who is your biggest campaign contributor?
Baumgartner:  On an individual basis, individuals can do up to $1600 for legislative races.  I have a number of folks who have done $1600.  The biggest overall would be the Republican Party, $50,000, maybe a little more.  KXLY just did a story on campaign contributions, talking about how much more of my money is from Spokane and from individuals.  Twenty-five percent of Chris Marr’s money is from out of state.  Twelve percent of my money is from out of state.  Chris Marr has something like 190 donors from Seattle and 110 roughly from Olympia.  I have 7 donors from Seattle, one is my brother, one is his fiancé, the other his roommate.  I have 3 donors from Olympia.  So the vast majority of my money has come from Spokane.  That’s one of the reasons I beat Marr by 6.6% in the primaries because I have more local support.  This is the most expensive race in the State and I have done it all with local contributions.  I have more sub $500 to $250 contributions.  Marr has raised more money from special interest groups than anybody in State history.  

As a first time candidate, one of the most unusual things about politics is all this money you have to raise and what a challenge it is but what I find, is that it’s not about raising money for me, it’s about raising money for our ideas that I share with the donors, which is the strong desire to make Washington State more fiscally responsible and a more friendly place to do business.

Come back for more Q & A...