Murray: Stimulus not quick fix, but it's an important first step

Murray said state legislative leaders are grateful for the federal aid, which comes at a time the state House budget writers are bracing for a possible $8.5 billion budget shortfall. The extent of the gap should become clearer Thursday when a preliminary state revenue forecast is issued.

Murray touched on several topics in her meeting with the editorial board:

• The stimulus adds to the nation's debt, but she said it is necessary. "The downside is — how do you pay for this in the end? Let me reverse that for you. If we don't do anything and unemployment continues to rise into double digits, and fewer people are paying into the system and we have to cut more people off, the debt from that is probably worse than what we are doing. But we all realize we will get to a point where we have to deal with the debt. ..."

She predicted that the president's budget, expected next week, would be "stark" and that it could be a couple of years before the economy is stabilized. "Remember the basic thing: If people aren't working and paying money and taxes, the debt is going to be far worse."

• Her biggest concern about the economic recovery is that the recession is global and other nations might not take adequate steps to stimulate their economies.

• The $2 billion provided to Washington as Medicaid funding cannot be used for other purposes, Murray said. Gov. Chris Gregoire had suggested that maybe some of that funding could be used for other state purposes.

• The state should try to pass a so-called cap-and-trade proposal to reduce global warming and give polluters a way to buy credits if they cannot meet limits for greenhouse gases. "That would make it easier for me at the federal level to protect what is important to Washington state," Murray said. "It's much easier for me to say, 'we can't pre-empt our state law.' "

• The drawdown of U.S. troops from Iraq will be measured, and could take time, despite Obama campaigning on moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. "I want to hear what our military advisers on the ground have to say there," she said. "I don't think we should pre-empt them on a time line now. They're given the direction to bring our troops home. I want to give them the honest capability to tell us how to do it in the safest way possible for our troops."

• On the Veterans Administration, she believes retired Gen. Eric Shinseki is a "breath of fresh air" to lead the agency, but he faces huge obstacles in reforming it. She said the stimulus package includes money to retrain veterans, but it needs to do more to help homeless veterans and get "into the 21st century" with its help for treatment of women in the military.

• Health care reform will be gradual and incremental, and she is waiting to see what Obama proposes. In the meantime, she said, Congress' passage of an expanded Children's Health Insurance Program was a first of many small steps likely to occur.

• Economic recovery could be slow, and there is well-founded unease about the economy.

"I think why we all feel unease right now is we don't really understand how it got so bad so fast," Murray said.

"I know experts who can't readily define this for us. So when you don't know how we got there, it makes you feel very uneasy about how we get out of it. But what I am confident about is the American ingenuity and American willingness to solve tough problems. I do think it is going to be hard, probably for another two years. But I do think our country has come out of worse crises and that we will make it."