Involved in Olympia

Bob Williams, Evergreen Freedom Foundation

The year 2011 will bring problems both old and new. While budget problems are old news, our state is facing one of the worst budget problems in its history. Next year our state will have the third-largest deficit as a percentage of its budget in the nation…7.1%. Only Illinois and Arizona are in worse shape.

The budget cuts and temporary patches passed by the legislature during their recent special session only delayed the inevitable. The legislature will have to make some hard decisions about what are the most important things for the state to do. We are working with legislative leaders to use this crisis to build a priority-based budget. This means fully funding the most important things first and reducing or eliminating everything else.

But legislators will not make good decisions without the backbone provided by active citizens from around the state. This is one of the reasons we began our Citizen Action Network several years ago. After so many years of working with lawmakers and holding them accountable before the public, we realized that lasting change would only come about when “we the people” became active and joined together to make a difference.

This is one of the reasons we have shifted many of our activities to educating and empowering citizens. While we still work with elected officials, we also work with large groups of freedom-loving people who are awakening to their duty to this and future generations.

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