Tuesday, 1 April 2008
Democrats Disasterous Legislative Session
It has been an amazing legislative session and one in which I am sure the Democrats would love to forget. Fresh off their failure to pass casino legislation and raise taxes, they are looking for new ways to self destruct. It looks like the compromised bill that came out of conference meeting today might provide such an avenue.
UPDATE 4:39 p.m.: Rep. Charlie Hoffman, the House Democratic Caucus chairman told the House on the floor that the closed door meeting would be 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, much to the surprise of many members, some of whom were heard muttering aloud, "tomorrow?"
"I'm not going to say they're going to revolt, but they're not going to sign off on it," he said.
Rep. Jim Gooch, D-Providence, said he was most frustrated that lawmakers would be unable to tag coal severance tax money to go back to specific projects in their districts. Instead, counties would have to apply for the money through the Governors Office on Local Development.
"From what I've heard, I haven't seen any reason to vote for it," he said.
Rep. Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg and a former House floor leader, said this would be the first budget in 28 years in the legislature that he would vote against the budget.
"It's a bad document," he said. He said he didn't think the House would approve the compromised version.
Let me get this straight. The Democrats bicker among themselves and take much longer than normal to pass a budget. The Republican led Senate does a yeoman job of passing their own budget within the limited time remaining. They go to conference and come up with a compromise that meets somewhere in the middle. While not perfect, it does deal with the realities of a weak economy. On top of that it would avoid a special session.
And the Dems don't want to pass it. It doesn't have enough government spending they say. So much for Democrats belief in fiscal responsibility. A failure to pass a budget would highlight quite nicely their penchant for larger government.
The worse part of the Dems failure to pass the budget will be the inevitable special session. One that promises to drag on interminably as Republicans will continue resisting an increase in taxes so the Democrats can spend more money. In the mean time we will waste millions of tax payer dollars on a pointless special session. All thanks to the Democrats. A view that will undoubtedly be shared by a majority of the public. Hopefully the Republicans will be able to take advantage of it.
