When Gov. Gregoire released her $30 billion 2007-2009 budget late last year, a liberal group called the Washington Tax Fairness Coalition provided a serious footnote that didn’t get the attention it deserved.

WTFC commissioned a study to find out how much money the budget wasn’t accounting for in tax breaks. In other words, while Gregoire’s budget lays out revenues and expenditures, it actually doesn’t include one massive batch of expenditures: How much money the state is giving away to private interests in the form of tax breaks.

Says WTFC Executive Director Barb Flye: “The cost of these tax breaks is not being evaluated side-by-side against other high-priority public needs like affordable health care, quality education and transportation in the budget process, and that’s just plain wrong.”

WTFC got Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos (D-37, South Seattle) to sponsor a bill last year that would have required the budget proposal to reveal the dollars that are lost due to tax breaks, so that legislators have the full picture of state finances and make decisions about extending these breaks in context.

Drum roll please: There are over 500 tax breaks on the books right now. The study simply looked at the most recent ones (61 of them that were passed or extended in the last three years). Those 61 totaled half a billion dollars.

Santos’s bill passed the House last year. WTFC couldn’t get any senators to push the bill in the Senate last session, but WTFC spokesperson Christy Margelli told me this morning “a couple of people are interested.”

Obviously, now that the Democrats have an even bigger majority in the House, the bill should pass there this session again. The Senate Democrats also enjoy a newfound, whopping majority (32-17). Given the rhetoric we hear year after year from the Democrats about saving money by scaling back corporate tax breaks, I hope a D senator will step up and carry WTFC’s bill.