The Seattle Times has this nifty little interactive feature where you can balance the state budget by selecting various revenue increases and spending cuts. It reminded me that I forgot about Medicaid expansion when I wrote about the low-hanging fruit yesterday. That's another $259 million in cost savings right there.

But you know what's missing from their list of revenue options? The $160 million that would be generated by fixing state law to reimpose the estate tax on married couples (the Supreme Court recently invalidated it on a technicality).

Oops. I'm sure that was just an innocent mistake, right? I mean, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen is one of the nation's most outspoken advocates for repealing the estate tax. No, I'm confident that didn't influence the editors at all, if only on an unconscious level.