Rob McKenna vs. Jay Inslee: Where WA governor candidates stand on the issues

Inslee: Streamline government through “lean” efficiency measures that seek to identify wasteful steps and remove them from work processes; boost employment and economic growth; slow the growth in health care costs through preventive and managed care.

McKenna: Streamline government through use of lean management and attrition to shrink the state payroll; control health-care cost growth; boost revenues by reducing regulations on business to spur economic growth.

Inslee: Close unspecified tax exemptions that are no longer delivering jobs and other public benefits.

McKenna: Close unspecified tax exemptions that are no longer delivering jobs and other public benefits.

Inslee: Give small companies a tax credit for adding employees, capping the cost of that program at $8 million. He would allow fledgling companies not yet profitable to resell research-and-development tax credits

McKenna: Exempt more than 118,000 small businesses from the state business and occupation tax. He isn’t promising to fully enact it immediately, because it could cost state coffers more than $250 million a year.

Inslee: Advocates for managed care for chronic illnesses, preventive care, and incentives for healthful life choices. He doesn’t specify what share of premiums workers should pay but says he’ll seek to lower the overall growth in costs borne by workers and taxpayers.

McKenna: Put the Legislature directly into the collective-bargaining equation with the governor. He also wants to change the seniority-based pay system to focus more on performance and merit pay. McKenna wants incentives for enrolling in health-savings accounts or consumer-driven plans that have lower premiums and higher out-of-pocket costs for those who get sick. He has supported raising the employee share of premiums for traditional plans to near 25 percent, up from 15 percent today.

Inslee: Create a new Economic Competitiveness and Development office. He says Lean management can strip out wasteful steps and delays in decision-making by agencies that add costs to businesses.

McKenna: Open the state system of workers’ compensation to competition from private insurance companies. He singles out data services, printing and facilities maintenance as services that could be opened to the private sector. McKenna says he might make the state budget director responsible for tracking revenues and spending and could dedicate a position in the governor’s office to oversee his push for “continuous quality improvements” in agencies.

Inslee: Supports sending a tax measure to the ballot to raise money for transportation. Inslee says he would target 2013 or 2014, although he has also argued public trust in government needs to be won before going to the ballot. He hasn’t committed to making tolls part of the package.

McKenna: Supports sending a tax measure to the ballot in 2013 or 2014 to raise money for transportation. He sees tolling and public-private partnerships as pieces of the package.

Inslee: Supports light rail and its use on Interstate 5 over the Columbia River.

McKenna: Opposed light rail in the past on the Interstate 90 bridge over Lake Washington, and says he’s skeptical of building it on the Columbia River Crossing.

Inslee: Supports Washington’s system for licensing drivers who are not required to prove their legal residency; says the state has properly tightened rules to prove drivers live in Washington.

McKenna: Wants to require drivers to provide Social Security numbers, but says those who don’t could get a license that can’t be used for identification purposes.

Inslee: Says no new taxes are needed but that the gap can be bridged with economic growth, efficiencies in government and ending tax breaks. Opposes a “swap” that involves replacing local levies with increased state property taxes, arguing it causes some districts to pay more in property taxes.

McKenna: Bridge the gap by devoting expected growth in state revenues to education while limiting growth in other parts of state government. He doesn’t call for new taxes, but supports the tax swap.

Inslee: Provide teachers with mentors; create a residency program to cultivate leadership qualities of new principals; ramp up the role of evaluations in layoff and school-assignment decisions by requiring them to be a significant factor in those decisions. Give principals more say in who’s being placed in their schools.

McKenna: Provide teachers with mentors; set up statewide rather than locally bargained standards for how evaluations must be used in layoff and school-assignment decisions. Give principals more say in who’s being placed in their schools. McKenna adds that evaluations should play a role in pay for teachers.

Inslee: Supports common core standards as a way to align state and federal school accountability and as a way to target lowest-performing schools for improvement.

McKenna: Supports continued adoption of the standards for Washington schools and adoption of new assessments.

Inslee: Says restored funding should be tied to production of degrees in fields that reflect demands of the economy. He wants to slow tuition increases but said he is not ready to take back tuition-setting authority from boards of regents at universities.

McKenna: Says the state should pay half the cost of a college education, with students paying the other half. (The state currently pays 30 percent.) Would allocate a share of the extra money generated by the state’s recovering economy to replenish funds cut in recent years. He said the restored funding would mean universities wouldn’t need the tuition-setting authority the Legislature recently gave them.

Inslee: Opposed to Initiative 502; cites conflicts with federal law if the measure passes.

McKenna: Opposed to Initiative 502; cites conflicts with federal law if the measure passes and risks to getting medical marijuana to patients under current law.

Inslee: Opposes Initiative 1240; says he favors giving grants for innovative school ideas instead.

McKenna: Supports I-1240 to provide an option to parents of kids in struggling schools.

Inslee: Supports Referendum 74, saying same-sex couples should have equal rights.

McKenna: Opposes R-74 on faith grounds but says he’ll implement what the public decides (McKenna says he voted for the domestic partnership measure R-71 in 2009).

Inslee: Opposes Initiative 1185 as obstruction to majority rule.

McKenna: Supports I-1185 requiring supermajorities in the Legislature for tax increases.

Inslee: Voted for the Affordable Care Act as a congressman in 2010 and says he is committed to implementing it at the state level.

McKenna: Joined other attorneys general around the U.S. in a lawsuit to overturn the federal law. He says he only sought to block the law’s mandates that individuals buy private insurance policies and that states expand Medicaid. After the Supreme Court upheld the law, McKenna said he favored keeping insurance exchanges and using them to steer people from Medicaid into the private market.

Inslee: Favors full expansion as part of the health care law, arguing state costs are minimal through 2020. He also argues that adding people to coverage rolls reduces the cost of uncompensated care at hospitals, which he said otherwise is passed on to insurers and becomes a $1,000-a-year “hidden tax” on families that do have coverage.

McKenna: Wants to wait to determine Medicaid’s costs and affordability (in light of state school-funding obligations) before committing to fully expanding it in 2014.

Inslee: Proposes encouraging managed care, preventive care and incentives for healthier patient behaviors that reduce ill health and medical costs; he cites King County, which he says saved $61 million using case management and preventive care incentives for such ailments as diabetes.

McKenna: Favors government subsidies to encourage use of private insurance and incentives such as Health Savings Accounts that give consumers a reason to use medical services prudently.

Inslee: Expresses interest in the jobs that might be created by the proposed coal-shipping facilities, but says these should receive full environmental review from the federal government.

McKenna: Also says proposed facilities near Longview and Bellingham should receive full environmental review from the federal government. McKenna says if they pass the review, Washington should take the projects and the resulting jobs.

Inslee: He largely wants to keep intact the initiative he helped promote; he does favor giving utilities more options for how to spend the money they are required to spend on renewable-energy credits.

McKenna: Wants to let utilities avoid buying power before they need it, and calls for merging the renewable standards with separate standards for energy efficiency. That would let utilities substitute efficiencies for new sources of energy.

Inslee: Calls it unfortunate that park visitors must pay a fee and says restoring free access to parks should be a long-term goal.

McKenna: Supports the Discover Pass concept of having users pay for state lands, but says general funding for parks shouldn’t be eliminated.

Inslee: Maintain the partnership as the coordinator. He said cleanup efforts can’t be postponed.

McKenna: Maintain the partnership as the coordinator. But McKenna says the pollution clean up efforts would benefit from a less centralized, top-down approach.