Wednesday, April 4th, 2007...7:23 am
Waiting for Yarbrough
The House has passed SB1157, which sets the state tax deadline to correspond to the federal tax deadline. The bill passed with an “emergency clause” that allows it to become law immediately when the governor signs the bill, which she is expected to do.
The bill was demanded by the accounting industry as well as other segments of the business community. Also, it has the advantage of just making sense.
So, the question is, what took so long?
Well, there was also a House version of the bill that got stuck in a committee because of Steve Yarbrough. Yarbrough is still pushing his tuition tax credit bill, and was willing to hold this necessary bill hostage to do it. I suppose we would admire his stick-to-it-ivness, but this monomania is getting rather old. The fact that Yarbrough himself stands to make some serious cash if the credit bill passes probably adds to his enthusiasm.
Obviously, his fellow Republicans weren’t even that taken with Yarbrough’s tactics, since they went completely around him and used a Senate bill to pass this. Kudos to our own Steve Farley, who did work on both the original House version and the sucessful Senate version.
4 Comments
April 4th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Farley is doing a great job. Those that haven’t signed up for his regular updates need to do so. I wish ALL of our legislators would take a few minutes each week to update us on what is going on and what they are doing….. (I’ve already hinted as much to David Bradley)
April 5th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Kudos to Steve Farley? This was a simple piece of legislation, that required little effort on anyone’s part. I guess, however, when you are habitually in the minority you have to look for the anything positive to cling to.
April 5th, 2007 at 11:55 am
If it was so darned easy, why did it take the legislature until this deep into the session to pass it? I guess this sort of inertia is what happens when you are prepetually in the majority.
June 1st, 2007 at 6:44 pm
[...] I think Patterson’s argument comparing the Yarbrough situation with those Democratic members who make their living in the social service field falls apart because this field is rather broad, and each member is only involved in a small part of it. A change in statute may or may not effect their income since there are so many other actors involved (especially since these groups now seem to have an one-for-all strategy when they lobby). In Yarbrough’s case, he runs a non-profit in a very narrow industry, and his business represents a large chunk of that sector. It is harder for him to plausibly argue that his work is about a broader public interest, especially with the monomania he has displayed in pushing this issue. [...]