It is hard to imagine how the legislature manages to write a budget without some sort of revenue increase. So the question is not if senate Republicans will ultimately cave on their Norquist-like no-new-tax pledge, but rather by how much, and what will they demand in return? And whatever they demand, it will no doubt involve fucking workers—for example the workers compensation "reform" bill that thankfully died in the state house during the regular session.

Republicans and their corporate patrons have been pushing to reduce workers compensation benefits in order to stave off massive rate hikes they warned might be necessary under post-Great Recession worst case scenarios. But those worst case scenarios haven't been playing out. In fact, Washington's workers compensation system turned a $250 million surplus in 2012 while bumping its Contingency Reserve funds from $580 million in June 2012 to $953 million by the end of the year. The improvements largely come from higher investment returns.

In other words, Republicans are attempting to impose hardship on workers in order to fix a problem that doesn't exist. Kinda like Rodney Tom's campaign to eliminate the GET program, or the Republicans' broader efforts to end state pension programs that are among the best funded in the nation.

It will be tempting for Democrats to give in to the Republicans' anti-worker demands in order to craft a compromise budget, but one hopes they have the smarts and the courage to call bullshit on this bullshit when bullshit it is.